That was extremely interesting! I didn't think I was getting a specialized rope and stick cutting implement when I bought this one, but I'm very happy and frankly astounded that the flamberge blade is apparently not only for looking good but offers tangible and applicable benefits. If you want to keep it a while longer to explore this further, please be my guest!
@@sinisterswordsman25 Andy is very kind in providing a sword daycare for my US acquisitions and then sending me a big box o' swords over to Germany once a year or so., saving me a ton of shipping cost in the process. Of course he gets to cut with them and do tests if he wants to, I use all my swords for cutting from time to time so they will get a few scuffs anyway. And I really don't care whether I put the first scuff on a new Albion or he did...🙂
@@dlatrexswords You should get a hunk of meat and some plasticine clay. The meat would give you an approximate idea of how it would work on flesh and the clay would act sort of ballistic gel for bullets and might allow you to better be able to analyze would the cut is doing. You might even consider testing on a block or two of ballistic gel, it might preserve and show if the wavy blade does anything different compared to the straight blade.
Nice tests! The wavy blade definitely binds and controls the pole as well as I expected, if not better. And that chop did surprisingly well. Aside from the binding, the effectiveness against clothing and fabric armor is probably the biggest factor. At some point I'll need to get two identical swords made, one with straight and the other with wavy edge. That would rule out any differences in mass distribution, blade profile, and sharpness.
exactly what I was going to say - needs a pair of identically hilted, matching blade length, with as close-as-possible matching weight, distal taper, and similar sharpness, to really get a metric of the differences.
You could also use a single sword with one wavy edge and one straight. Not sure how goofy that would look or expensive it would be, but it _would_ be more scientific, as it would eliminate a whole lot of variables entirely. That would also be a good approach if you ever decide to compare forward and backward curvature. Edit: And if you're wondering how to actually make a half-wavy blade, start with a wide hexagonal cross sectioned blade and just grind the wave into one side of it. The resulting cross section would smoothly vary between the original wide hexagon at the most convex part of the wave and a narrower hexagon or even a diamond at the most concave.
@@irrelevantfish1978 That blade would look goofy indeed but if it had a simple symmetrical hilt (left to right symmetry) it would have the advantage of giving you the option of using the easy to resharpen straight edge for general use and the wavy edge only when necessary. The flip-it-around advantage of simply hilted swords is often overlooked
That rope cutting is incredible! It makes sense now, but I never would've considered it before seeing your video... ...and now I need to find a good quality flamberge style Jian!
Nice video and well compared I think. You definitely raised a few questions about maybe it is more functional that had been expected. Thanks for the tests.
@Danny-pk6lk You'll have to wait for a long time though xD It's currently rainy season and my new workshop will only be done by maybe June next year haha, but yeah! I am going to make it, pretty excited thinking about it.
ha! Very interesting in the cutting of the pike! It does make perfect sense that we start seeing these swords mostly around the time of pike warfare. awesome to see many theory's put to the test!
Thanks for this episode, a very interesting test, I have always been curious about the real value of this type of blade. By the way, a common target for practice cutting tests for the Polish cavalry were hanging branches of a weeping willow. This tree is almost everywhere in Poland and there is no need to attach a rope to the branch ;)
@@dlatrexswords You need to reach an agreement with the landowner who intends to make them shorter ;) When I was a child, I would grab a dozen or so of these twigs in my hand and swing on them like Tarzan XD
I think it just looks cool and The Artisans of the time thought it was cool and it demonstrated how good they can work the metal, the only other thing that it could possibly give an advantage is when parrying or blocking their blade wouldn't be able to slide down yours
You definitely get more edge surface area in a shorter package. Btw you should check out the difference in tip cutting one gets with an angular style tip with pronounced shoulders like the Venetian Pirates sword by Arms & Armour or the Kindjal short swords I make. I'd argue that it straddles the line between a more rounded spatulated tip that cuts really well as the tip & a needle point that doesn't cut at all at that far out.
I remember reading somewhere that flamberge blades were thought to be a bit of a gamble because if you hit with the convex curves it may cut easier, but the concave curves may be more likely to bounce. The bamboo test may have been showing that. Its a hard, light, and thin target, so if it hit inside a concave curve so a lot of surface area was presented to the edge at once it may have bounced away from the edge. I think that effect would be reduced or entirely removed when contacting larger and softer targets because there is less chance of something contacting the trough of a wave before it touches the tips of the waves.
@@9ZweihandeR9 this phenomena is possible, but if so, it would depend both of the diameter of the target, the purchase of its surface and the direction the cut is coming in at. A lot of variables to address there. In most cases this specific sword is going to hit with a combination of both the peaks and the troughs.
@dlatrexswords I was doubtful of the idea when I first read it. I think it was in one of those Eyewitness History books. I remember it being paired with a picture of a flamberge greatsword and it seemed even at that size that a human target would get hit with multiple waves at once. I think only the snake shaped fantasy style blades with just a few waves across the whole length would have that issue.
the performance of a flamberge is much like any other sword. Its all about the grind and the blade geometry. The one you tested was not ground for cutting at all. It is a club with a hex grind. The straight sword you were using a comparison is a diamond ground blade that is very much a slicer. A flamberge can be as well.
At the risk of sounding like a smug prick, (i will take the chance lol) i am not at all suprised that a wavy blade cuts well. For one thing Guilotines have that angle for a reason. i have seen other videos talking about the maths/physic behind why, but in a nutshel the blade hitting at an angle cuts better. These blades are essentialy a sword made of loads of mini-guillotines.
You are probably correct about it having a guillotine-like effect on the rope in particular; the round fibers likely slide between the scallopes and get sliced along the edge similar to the drawing cut of an angled mandolin slicer. But it didn't seem to have the same effect on the bamboo stalk, so the material being cut through makes a difference to some degree, which has always been true when it comes to doing cutting tests with different types of swords. Also for things like the clothing, and cardboard, rather than a guillotine effect, the flamberge seems to act like a series of small daggers: concentrating the force of the blow around the closest peak making it very similar to the thrust of a spatulated tipped sword. It really is a very complex edge design!
Those types of swords look very similar to macuahuitl and shark-tooth swords. Also, reminds me of serrated-bladed katana used in Japan (historically used, not just in Demon Slayer!)
I know that the macuahuitl could cut very nicely because obsidian is deviously sharp, but seeing this good performance makes me very curious to see such a test with shark tooth clubs and swords.
Awesome! Just awesome 🤘💀 it does make me wonder why more swords aren't like it? Just a pain in the butt to make and maintain? There must be some other major drawback we aren't thinking of? Maybe the blade gets stuck more easily? Maybe the "Teeth" chip off? I don't know know, but it seems like all pros and very few cons so why not make more swords like this one? Hmm...
That's really cool. I actually have an interesting idea for a katzbalgar in my head well two ideas actually the one of them isn't technically the exact same type of sword..
Really nice video. I am very interested in acquiring a German longsword with flamberge blade made by Fabrice Cognot. I wonder how difficult it is to sharpen a wavy blade.
Nice. I wonder if there ever were swords with straight edge on one side & wavy edge on the other side. Maybe a slight single-arc curve that continues through the grip with straight edge on the convex side & wavy edge on the concave side would optimize the performance of both edge types.
My moro kris #4 by TFW has a very wavy blade. I can make whatever cuts i can with any other one handed sword i own. Great video. Ooh. That LK Chen is nice. Been considering a 1796 LCS or a shamshir from them.
Very interesting tests i suspected as much but didnt expect wavy blades to perform that well on rope and wood. Regarding flesh, historical sources do mention that they were uncessarily cruel and they were viewed in the same light as snipers and soldiers using square bullets etc. So wounds probably more difficult to treat and more painful. Regarding lupton im kind of sceptical of him since another contemporary author wo served in the swedish army during the thirty years war strongly criticized him for having no idea since he didnt serve(iirc). He states that luptons description of soldiers easily hacking off pike heads is an legend that is not possible in real life and that he had never herad of such case. Luptons Treatise was also in favour of abolishing the pike. And personally i dont think that the wavy blade form was for pikes although maybe it was a nice side effect. No source i know of mentions wavy blades in the context of defeating or chopping off pike heads. Rather its sabers and other single egde swords or riding swords. At least as far as i know. Then again who knows. Anyways great tests ! there is still so much that needs to be tested and tried out.
Agreed that Lupton is a bit problematic; we do also have Orrey, and Swetnam that discuss cutting the ends off of pikes as well, so it likely happened although who knows exactly under what circumstances. I haven't seem almost any period sources discussing Espee Flamboyant/Falmberge etc or how they were considered cruel weapons etc. Have any you could share?
@@dlatrexswords oh yeah forgot to specifiy, lupton mentions a story where people easily cut off pike heads and came back without any damage and which the other author disagreed on. cutting pikeheads def happened agree, its described in sources by landsknechte but almost never in the context of great swords which is a bit funny. I know of Hans Konrad Lavater who mentions them in his military law section around 1644. Its about cruel weapons like square bullets, sniper muskets, glass bullets etc and there he mentions wavy blades (geflammte degen) and that you should execute those people on the spot. theres a book with preachings from germany, where the preacher complains soldiers and wavy blades and implies them to be extra cruel. Have so many sources lying around so dont remember the title. Wavy greatsword are often in inventory lists. Interestingly enough they often just wrote Schlachtschwerter and then specifiy how many were normal and how many were wavy. Iirc Graz for example. i apologize for messy grammar/spelling.
@@dlatrexswords I think cutting could be interpreted as breaking as well, there are sources where they say that they "cut through the other's sword" but probably meant that the other sword snapped when they met imo. It doesn't need to mean that they cleanly cut through the pike in one stroke, but maybe struck them several times so they snapped.
@@dlatrexswords and just to add that Marozzo also shows a bunch of chopped up hafted weapons in his two-handed sword images. I think what some modern people and reenactors overlook is how tapered and thin some period pikes were. Modern replicas tend to use a parallel mass produced dowel, but period shafts were usually tapered and thinner at the tip (also therefore more nimble and less floppy).
26:5 Force concentration is a thing. The waves act like spikes on a hammer, while tha straight blade is like the flat of a hammer. Even if the wves are duller, there is more force concentrated there. Though a lot of how the straight sword does depends on how it was sharpened. If you leave it at low grit finish it will do bettter at draw cutting, like when you drag the Town Guard over the rope, if it had a 400 grit finished edge, it would slice trough very fast. But that's not that good of an edge for a sword, a polished edge is better since there is very little sawing action in a sword strike (even when you very much concentrate on a draw cut). Those don't do well at sawing biut will cut more easily when striking straight on. There might be a benefit to polishing the edge and then put in a few teeth afterwards fr a mor easilly induced cut. (BTW if the Town Guard still has the original LK Chen edge, it can do a lot better after a little sharpening, LK Chen leaves a weird combination of low grit and pollished that doesn't work that well IMHO since the teeth of the edge are rounded over)
