Question on striking surface

[Tren]

I'm making my first new weapon in a while and there's been some changes to the BoW since I've last looked at it. I seem to recall there being a rule about minimum striking surface lengths, but after a quick look through Appendix A the only rules regarding length I see are overall weapon length and handle length. So what I wat to make sure is if my new club, which is slightly over 36'' with a roughly 9-10in head is kosher for striking surface.

[Sir_Mel]

I think there's a rule somewhere that says minimum striking surface has to be at lease 12" in length...


Yup, here it is

1.4.1.5. The minimum overall length of a Class 1 is 12 inches plus the length of the handle and pommel.

12 in blade minimum, sorry, if I read it right, I don't think your weapon would be 'legal'.

Later

[Big King Jimmy]

You read it wrong. It doesn't take into acount haft padding. Your weapon needs to be at least 12 inches haft padding and striking surface.

[Kenneth]

Its hard to say the answer. From what I understand, the original rule was something like swords had to have a minimum blade length of 12 inches. Other blue weapons did not have this particular restriction, but a 12 inch from grip to tip minimum.

When swords and clubs were amalgamated in the BoW, it looks like we took the second rule. Jimmy's reading of the rule seems to be correct in a very narrow way, although it may not be the traditional interpretation of the rule.

On a more practical matter, I would look very critically at a club that was 36+ inches long, but only had a 9 inch cylindrical striking surface. At that point, I would probably require the "incidental" padding to equal the minimum striking surface padding for a good distance further down the weapon. If that is the case, you may as well just make more of the weapon striking, if not all of it.


With a cylindrical weapon, you can overpad the striking surface. If you overpad the striking surface, and then have incidental padding that is at least equivalent to striking surface padding down most of the weapon, it should be fine. I have not seen the weapon, but I don't think that is what is going on here. It seems more like the weapon is trying to shed weight and jump through a loop hole.

I don't really see the logic in allowing a 36 inch club to not have striking sufficient padding at 27 inches, but requiring a 27 inch club to have it. You're going to hit with that area, and that's still a lot of distance between your hand and the non striking tip of the weapon. It stops looking like "incidental" contact and more like, "Hey. You just hafted me."

I strongly suspect I wouldn't let that long of a club through weapons check if it attempts to exploit the non-striking surface/incidental padding rule. If the incidental padding is pretty darn hefty...fine. 40 inch club with 4 inches of striking surface and 30 inches of incidental? Not so fine.

P.S. I would like to point out that in chess, knights also go first. You should suggest to V'hil and Angmarth that they lead the charge. Weaklings. I even saw Angmarth get bashed down by Kegg. KEGG of all people. ^_~.

[Magpie Saegar]

What about... my new sword. I don't think it's quite 12 inches at the tip.... not sure. It might barely be.

http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i293/ ... /00089.jpg
http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i293/ ... /00092.jpg

I wasn't trying to build around a loophole while making it, I just thought... hey, why not just pad the part that I use? It'll look strange (to fit my stuff), and it'll be fun. I didn't save weight... I mean, the crossguard effectively destroys any "uber-weighted" factor.

What do you say to this?

[Kenneth]

How long is it? 12 inches on a 30?(With the angle, its very hard for me to tell) inch weapon is a bit different from 9 inches on a 36 inch weapon. The question I have is the distance from the bottom of the handle to the bottom of the striking surface. I think you start treading a thin line if the distance between bottom of handle to bottom of striking surface is long, and the incidental padding in that area is not so much.

I also can't judge the thickness of the incidental padding, but unless the light is playing tricks on me, and judging by the bulk of the weapon, it looks like there is a thicker layer of padding up there slightly below your striking surface.

I'd have to see it. I'm not saying I'd fail a 36/9 weapon right away. I'd just look harder at it.

Edit: Ah, ok better angle. The length from handle to tip of striking surface doesn't look too long. That doesn't look too bad. Does it also have a slightly bigger lump of padding underneath your striking surface?

There's something weird about the weapon. From what I can tell, you may have a slightly larger striking surface than is indicated by the cloth. Then again, depending on what kind of foam you use, maybe you don't. Either way, from what I can tell by a picture, it doesn't look too bad.

I just don't want somebody to show up with the next logical step in too long incidental padding clubs and say there's no rule against it.