Hej, and a question for Pentti

[Oliver Barker]

Greetings all - now Ican spew inane drivel on your forum as well as Matt's!


Anyway, Iam on a quest to find a decent method to modifiy a shinai so that it can be used for Bolognese sword styles - the key point being that you can't put your finger around the quillon on your average single-handed wieghted shinai. I have a couple of possible designs which, following some discussion with Paul Bennett, don't appear to be practical in wood. I'm trying to avoid using metal, for the sake of both shinai life and ease of transportation via plane /Eurostar, so Paul suggested nylon and pointed me in Pentti's direction.


So Pentti, if you currently have the time and the inclination to work on this, could you drop me a PMso that Ican give you more details and so you can tell me if my ideas are practical or not?


Thanks,


Oli

[Andreas Engström]

Hi Oli, and welcome to the forum.


Pentti may very well be able to help you, though he's constantly busy with projects so it may take a while :-)


In the meantime, have you considered "Polymorph"?


http://www.tomps.com/shop/polymorph-thermoplastic-1kg-p-207.html


It's great stuff. A (relatively) cheap thermoplastic that comes in the form of granules that soften and become malleable in hot water. As long as it's warm you can then easily shape it like modelling clay with your fingers. When it cools it hardens and cures into something that's very nearly as hard as nylon and can be further worked with woodcarving tools and sand paper.


Seems like a good choice for small production runs and prototyping, at least. Obviously not for full weapons, but Ithink it may work very well for hand guards, pommels etc. I saw someone on a forum (Iforget who and where) who had used it to make shinai crossguards and was very happy with the result.


Edit: Found it, it was Nick Thomas on Schola Forum: http://www.fioredeiliberi.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php\?p=208105&highlight=&sid=376b5ce146ea043301c210a3f1205288


-Andreas

[Andreas Engström]

Congratulations, by the way:You became our forum member #200. :-)


-Andreas

[Oliver Barker]

Thanks Andreas, that may be worth a look - one of the potential designs is too complex a shape for the tools Ihave available, so Iwill still need some assistance with that, but the other might be workable with Polymorph. I can at least get started quickly andmaybehavesomething usable for Fightcamp.

Andreas Engström wrote
Congratulations, by the way:You became our forum member #200. :-)

Cool - not quite as good as being member 007 on our school insurance, but still good. :-)

[Axel Pettersson]

welcome to the forum Oli!





I think Penttis wasters would work very well for sidesword use, I have one that I use for my Meyer Rappier practice. I bought one off Pentti with a simple cruciform hilt, but I have been thinking about using polymorph myself. We'll probably bring Pentti single handers to FightCamp for you to test.

[Oliver Barker]

Axel Pettersson wrote



I think Penttis wasters would work very well for sidesword use, I have one that I use for my Meyer Rappier practice. I bought one off Pentti with a simple cruciform hilt, but I have been thinking about using polymorph myself. We'll probably bring Pentti single handers to FightCamp for you to test.

That would be great. They seemed pretty impressive from what Isaw at Dijon, and it would be good to find a decent substitute for steel that is safer in the thrust than shinai. I've beenfocussing on shinai mods due to cost and tournament requirements, but Isuspectthewasters will turn out to be the better optionlong-term.

[Magnus Hagelberg]

did you try the one handers I had with me?


well, they will be coming to fightcamp, so you may have a looksie there.