that scene in pirates of the caribean where barbosa gets stabbed by jack, pulls the sword out, stabs jack with it, jack pulls the sword out... THEN they fight for real
@@matlonr6473 maybe take the swept hilt and effectively put a Tsuba of sorts in it? You still get the benefit from the outer ring, but they can’t thread the needle because your hand is protected (about enough for the entire top of your hand to be protected {the part facing the enemy})
"I admit it you are better than I am." "Then why are you smiling?" "Because I know something that you don't know." "And what is that?" "I am not left-handed." (Switches hands.) Pro tip: Just begin every duel with a swept hilt using your off hand.
But the problem is, of course, that while you lost your right hand, they no longer can wield their blade when it’s stuck. It’s hard to do a witty comeback when you no longer have a sword
I had an incident as a kid where I was knocked into a pile of glass and I brought my arm up to shield my face and neck. My left arm don't have the best grip as a result, but it's still good for blocking, trapping, and punching.
What this tells me is that the Pappenheimer hilt is the superior defensive option, granting plated fingers with the blade catching potential of the swept hilt.
Wait, couldn't you combine the 2? A cup hilt with a ring around it. The main reason the ring is there is to do what a swept hilt can do while protecting your hand fully.
The rapier I had for more than 20 years has swetpt hilt with nice two petals on top that resemble very tiny cup hilt. I found out that my hand is perfectly safe and during training I do indeed trap opponents blade in my hilt. To top this design both ends of the cross guard are twisted in opposite direction to form sort of hooks that can again be used to trap opponent blade when it slides over after parry and that is very effective in disarming or at least completely offsetting the opponents blade. Recently I found out that such design is even prohibited in most HEMA tournaments as everything needs to bounce off during parry and no hooking of enemy blade is permited.
Best of both worlds, have a hilt that has a rim, about an inch gap and then the cup starts as a solid piece, will protect the hand and guide all thrusts to the hand into the gap trapping swords
Hear me out : how about a smaller cup guard in the midle for protection and swept on the outer parts of the gaurd to allow capturing the aponents blade
i gotta say, having a true bell guard on even an olympic foil does a lot more than one might expect. i love the look of an old wire style guard but god the practicality of a cup is too good for me to pass up. plus i like the weight at the hand
@@ayviondenar3461 I mean there's already the cup version. Just cut some metal out of it just slightly before the cup's lip (is that what it's called? Iunno) and then you'd have the ring.
As someone who practices with melee weapons for fun, the hardest thing to watch out for is how you use and place your hands since most people go for them to disarm or wound them.
Just make a hybrid of the 2 type that protect your hand from it but have way that the sword can get stuck on the side at an angle that wouldn’t be a problem
I have sniped my opponent through the guard before. First time I tried, actually. I haven't been able to do it since, but I know it's possible and a danger.
I hate fighting with a swept hilt. I can't think of anything other than "I'm about to get stabbed in the hand". Weirdly not something I worry about with a longsword but then if I could wear my longsword gloves with a rapier then I wouldn't worry about it.
Closed-Port swept hilt rapiers have a mesh or grill covering the front most hole (that would be the square hole on the example in this video). which reduces the chance of a hand hit but might still allow a blade to get trapped "safely" in the hilt.
Half related point from a few rapier tournaments I've seen and organized is that we actually call a safety hold when a blade slips into a hilt, due to the heightened risk of blade snapping when in that position
It seems like swept hilts should have a small cup within the center ring to deflect incoming thrusts outside the area of the hand, wouldn't even have to be the size of the hand if you kept the top ring, buckler style. I've seen a few swept hilts with additional guards that seem to serve a similar purpose
I recall someone showing the differences in the stances used with a cup hilt rapier vs a swept hilt type. The cup hilt allows you to hold the blade out straight in line with the arm, while the swept hilt is held at an angle to help close those small gaps. Since the blade is held straight, the cup hilt allowed slightly more reach while not risking your hand.
It's probably worth mentioning that you don't want to lunge to stab someone's hand very often, because if they move their hand (which is a lot faster than your entire body), then you just lunged outside of measure into a void - and that's a good way to get stabbed in the face. You can do it as a sometimes surprise thing, but it's risky. Overwhelming majority of hand hits happen if 1) someone screws up their guard in a bind and gets stabbed there (usually in the arm, though) or 2) a retreat is attempted after a few actions and the hand snipe is thrown in there on the way out. What hilt you have doesn't matter much in either of these.
In tournaments this wouldn’t be a concern as there are plenty of safety precautions, but in actual duels this was absolutely a danger. Good things those kind of duels aren’t a thing anymore 👍
So it’s basically high risk high reward, huh? Your rapier gets style points and a chance to tangle your opponent’s blade while also exposing your hand as a potential target. I guess if you’re designing a fictional rapier user choosing between the two hilts speaks differently about their confidence on their skill.
There are weight and visibility concerns in the swept hilt's favor. With the rapier extended in front of you, a cup hilt occupies a not-irrelevant amount of your vision. A full cup will usually be heavier than a skeletal swept hilt.
I mean, I guess you could argue that "both designs combined" is exactly what a basket hilt is. I think I've also seen a few swept hilt designs where the topmost ring is a solid disk, but I could be misremembering.
I seem to remember a lot of the basket hilts having a leather guard in them. For looks, a lot of people prefer to leave them out now. Every little bit helps……
When I was teaching Rapier Dueling, I covered 7 different techniques for trapping your opponent blade with Quillions & baskets. They are very advanced techiniques.
god damn it RU-vid. How has "Who is sword Clark Kent that keeps coming up in my algorithm?" become "oh look robins about to drop sword Clark Kent knowledge on me again, must watch"
This happened at my SCA fencing practice. One person wedged their blade in the guard of a swept hilt and the guy with the swept hilt yanked it out of his hand. We all stood there confused as hell.
idea: have a sword with a mechanism that, if your opponent's sword gets entangled in the swept hilt, the intricate design of said hilt will start moving and rotating, making it even harder to untangle the blade idk what im talking about im not into swordsplay, engineering, or metalworking
I was at a junior fencing tournament and a guy had a foil go through his old glove and then through his knuckles. That was the most pain I’d seen a fencer in.
I've sometimes wondered, couldn't you complement a swept hilt with a partial cup? For instance, suppose you had a flat or lightly curved disc inside middle of the swept hilt. This would not noticeably change the total weight or weight distribution of the sword, would not make the sword any harder to carry, would help protect your lead hand from thrusts, and thrusts that angle off of the disc would be quite likely to get tangled in the rest of the hilt. And if you're already paying for a fancy sword, then I very much doubt that little bit of extra metal is gonna be what breaks the bank for you.
So, what I’ve gathered is, you want a combo. Have a cup to cover most of your hand, while keeping the biggest gap of the swept hilt. You show just enough skin to get your opponent hot and heavy to stab your hand, but not enough that you’re in any real danger.
Man, I would love to see a real fight between someone with a cupped hilt and swept hilt, then all of a sudden when the person with the swept hilt locks their opponent’s blade in the person with the cupped hilt just starts throwing hands 😂
Also you can just rotate your guard on the open one and the opponents sword will likely get bound between the layers, even if just for a moment, but allowing for a great parry.
Is there a theoretical "best" handle that is like a cup hilt with some extra wires with gaps around the edge? So your hand is fully protected but it's also still possible for your opponent's blade to slide along your blade and guard and into one of the holes, giving you control? I'm very wary of the word "best" when it comes to these things but I do think it's an interesting idea!
