Middle Earth Ranger Forum

I bought a crappy Celtic short-sword at the swap meet only because I liked the Celtic Handle.
My plan is to toss the blade and mount the handle onto a decent blade.

Kult of Athena had a couple nice Long-Sword blades by hanwei but as i was typing in my plastic info, i realized that I wanted a shorter blade, around 30" or so.

I recall that Museum Replicas and Hanwei used to sell bare blades but neither website listes these at this time.
So does anyone have a link for a decent bare-blade, preferably with an extra-long tang?

http://www.albion-swords.com/bareblades.htm

They have a "Celtic Longsword" blade.



They're much rougher than they appear in the website photos, but Odigan finished my gladius blade from them beautifully!
(With those beautiful curves, I've been tempted to give it a Celtic mounting - but I think it will stay Roman so it fits in the Classical library.)

That smaller blade looks very much like the archers sword I got from Pete, Can you tell us more about that one? It is quite lovely!

Sure!

It's a Windlass "Coustille" -

http://www.museumreplicas.com/p-260-new-coustille.aspx
http://kultofathena.com/product.asp?item=501014

It's gone in and out of production at least once, so just b/c it's showing unavailable now doesn't mean they won't be around again.

From the factory, it wasn't so hot- butterknife edge, screw on pommel, and standard black Windlass wrapping. Odigan did a masterful job making it look like a real sword though -
http://ranger.budgetauthenticity.org/fo ... 687#p28687

After his work, it's perfect for what it is. (And it's been compared to the Numenorian eket on here - and seems to fit the bill! )

Now after carrying through the woods a bit (and hacking through some knotweed for giggles) - I'm a little less than impressed with the concept. It's long enough to feel a little ungainly as a knife/dagger, and yet too light / short in the blade to handle like a sword. I suspect some more tinkering with the grip (maybe reduce the weight of the pommel, slim down the crossguard a bit - push it into more "dirk" territory basically) would help, but since I don't actually need it for fighting orcs, and I think it's too pretty to mess with - I'm leaving it as is.