I have finally achieved my lifelong dream. No, not my dream to own a Tried & True Atrim xIIa.4, though that is probably my second to top lifelong dream.  No, I speak of finally getting around to redesigning this site using WordPress, along with the awesome new features it includes, such as allowing comments on my articles and posts and quickly building a new sleek look.  I’ve spent a couple days tweaking the CSS, and I hope I have still provided a clean, easy to navigate website that also includes a few improvements.

I decided, for better or worse, to write another article about Windlass swords and why they are considered to be so Whippy by many people in the sword community. It also inevitably led to a lengthy discussion about distal taper and harmonic balance. If you want to read something that is likely to piss off Windlass Steelcrafts, you can read it here.

If you haven’t already heard of Tom Kinder, he is well known on the SBG forums as both a prominentreviewer and vendor of Angus Trim Atrim swords. He is also respected for his ability to put an absolutely wicked edge on any sword. So when Tom contacted me about attending an open-invite cutting party at his house along with Gus himself and other SBG and HEMA Alliance members, I jumped at the chance. I would like to give special props to Gus on this one because if he had not gone a good deal out of his way to give me a ride there, I would not have been able to attend. So Gus, you have my greatest thanks.

At the party, I got to handle and cut with a vast array of sharp pointy steel objects as you can see from the above picture, but best of all, I got to hang out and talk with some absolutely wonderful people and share some valuable insights into cutting. Speaking of cutting, I got to cut real tatami mats for the first time, which was awesome. I also managed to get a bit of video footage from my camera. Enjoy!

Since I am now in the process of writing an article about sharpening swords, I couldn’t help but take a few minutes to film a short video addressing a pet peeve of mine, which is the common notion that only Japanese swords are wickedly sharp “elegant weapons,” and European swords are, by comparison, crude, blunt iron bars that are hastily hammered out by the village smithy into swords that rely on brute strength to deal crushing impact trauma. So I decided to take my longsword and test its edge and see if that myth is true.

I’ve put together an article explaining the method I used to re-wrap the handle of my katana. In the article, I will be using a lot of Japanese terms because I am working with a Japanese-style sword. Rest assured, I will not ever start using the “^_^” emote, you have my word.