Blue Sword Weights

[Dan of Nightfort]

Hey everyone. I have been making new weapons and have highly benefited from your help. At this point, I finished my first sword that will be a personal weapon and not for someone else. It's 36" long, my preferred length, and I have used 12" round fiberglass, routed 4# foam for the first layer, and 2 layers of blue foam for the rest of the blade. I then added two layers of yoga mat for a stabbing tip based on recommendations.

I went through some tutorials for balancing a sword and counterweighting and went with a pommel penny style counterweight. I am not interested in weighting the handle with weighted bars and I would prefer to stick with pennies and steel wire mainly for money reasons. Right now, my first sword, counterweighted based on tutorials recommended to me on the D-game site, weights 19oz. Is this too much? Have I counterweighted it too much? Any advice on pommel counterweighting?

[Mint]

There really aren't any hard n' fast rules regarding counterweighting (provided it can still pass for hit with that weight). However, 19 oz. sounds a little hefty in my opinion. I guess it really comes down to what you like best, although you may want to try building a lighter sword and see which benefits your fighting more (plus, an extra sword is seldom a bad thing!).

[varadin]

if it feels right, then its right. Doesn't really matter how you got there counter weight wise.. just matters that the sword handles how you want

[Dan of Nightfort]

Does 19oz seem in then extreme the extreme range? Also, are there any recommended ways to know how much to counterweight swords?

[varadin]

19 ounces doesn't seem heavy to me, most of my swords end up around 18 ounces when i have them balancing where I want them. But I also have a few that are 24 ounces... and one thats 28(its a bit mean)

I like to use magnet strips to weigh with, if gives things a nice weight and generally a good thick handle when im done. Tiny handles cause you to support your grip with your thumb.. and then you get your thumb broken cause its in a bad position.

Ive also used lead fishing weights, they are good and heavy and put the weight exactly where you need them, pretty cheep too if you go to the right fishing/boat store. Going to * sporting goods and they will be pricer but the same thing.

[Dan of Nightfort]

Awesome. Thanks for the advice! I think I will try this 19oz one for a while and see how it works.

[Derian]

I will second that. For a sword as long as you mentioned, 19 ounces is maybe just a tad on the heavier side of the spectrum. It's certainly not 'heavy' by any means.

[Remdawg Killionaire]

I do everything at 16 oz as a min, then build have matching blades at 18 oz and 20 oz. I made me some min weight bats and it's like swattings flies now. My body mechanics are better now too, but yeah.

[Celtic Christ]

Other than a personal preference counter-weighting is more about balance and the pivot point. The best way to learn it is simply to keep building and try a few different things. I prefer my weapons to be handle heavy and to pivot closer to the tip. A lot of fighters like to go for the untra-light and min weight weapons though. To actually add the weight on mine I use solder wrapped around the handle. It adds a nice amount of weight and gives a neat texture.