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How sharp should a sword be?
Sir Nate:
How well should a sword cut? How sharp should it be?
I am wondering because I own an albion, and while it cuts fruit very well, I desired to try it on my old Gambeson. Well I have found, a thrust has a lot of struggle to penetrate it, and a cut does absolutely nothing. I can't cut through any cloth material with it, even when I draw my cuts.
Also on a note, albion tells me they charge 50 for a re sharpening. IF anyone on here has sword sharpening experience PM me.
Sir Douglas:
Then that means the gambeson’s working. ;) Remember that it’s armor, and the whole point to armor is to not let stuff get through it. As I understand it, a lot of the damage you would be inflicting on an armored opponent is going to be blunt trauma. You're not going to slice a fully-armored man from stem to stern like in the movies.
I don't really know how much you use your sword or in what manner, but if it's a relatively new sword and still cuts fruit fine, I'm going to guess it probably doesn't need sharpened. Just don't be disappointed if it doesn't cut like a lightsaber (or katana...lulz ::) ). If you absolutely think it does need sharpened, I would definitely recommend making sure you know what you're doing before taking a stone to an $800 Albion. I know just from sharpening my carving tools that it's easy to screw up an edge if you don't know what you're doing.
Sir James A:
Fruits are a relatively easy cut. Albion doesn't automatically mean sharp. My Albion came as sharp as a butter knife. :)
If you can't cut fabric even with a draw cut, it's too dull for modern practical cutting purposes. My Albion Talhoffer was sharpened to 1,000 grit; my HEMA instructors is all the way down to 1,500 grit and it's quite a difference (higher number grit = finer edge). His is the proverbial "3 foot razor blade".
There are alllll sorts of things like secondary bevels, edge type, grit level, passes/courses, and more, for sharpening swords. Like Sir Douglas said, it's easy to screw up an edge if you don't know what you're doing with it. As for pricing, $50 isn't a bad price to get it professionally sharpened.
Ian:
What Albion do you have? Not all swords are intended to be thrusters either. For thrusting blade shape matters a lot more than sharpness. A lenticular tip of a viking sword is not intended for thrusting as an example, while the awl shaped diamond cross-section reinforced tip of my Albion Poitiers type XV is almost a dedicated thrusting sword.
And yes, Sir Douglas is right, if a sword cut right through a gambeson like a T-Shirt, than that gambeson is completely useless. Swords are not lightsabers. As for the type of edge you should put on your sword, historically that varied greatly so there's no right way to do it. Secondary bevels exist historically as do 'appleseed' edges.
Will your sword cut the fabric of your gambeson when you draw it across the outer layer, or are you just whacking at it like you would a watermelon?
Sir Nate:
--- Quote from: Ian on 2015-02-21, 00:44:50 ---What Albion do you have? Not all swords are intended to be thrusters either. For thrusting blade shape matters a lot more than sharpness. A lenticular tip of a viking sword is not intended for thrusting as an example, while the awl shaped diamond cross-section reinforced tip of my Albion Poitiers type XV is almost a dedicated thrusting sword.
And yes, Sir Douglas is right, if a sword cut right through a gambeson like a T-Shirt, than that gambeson is completely useless. Swords are not lightsabers. As for the type of edge you should put on your sword, historically that varied greatly so there's no right way to do it. Secondary bevels exist historically as do 'appleseed' edges.
Will your sword cut the fabric of your gambeson when you draw it across the outer layer, or are you just whacking at it like you would a watermelon?
--- End quote ---
Outer layer. It can't even cut a T shirt.
It's the Albion hospitaller, and while it can stab through really thin cloth pretty easily, a shirt gives it a lot of trouble.
Maybe I'll just get professionally sharpened. I had asked the FB page Dimicator and he said he has many Albions that came with, unsatisfactory edges that he had to sharpen himself.
--- Quote from: Sir Douglas on 2015-02-20, 23:24:39 ---Then that means the gambeson’s working. ;) Remember that it’s armor, and the whole point to armor is to not let stuff get through it. As I understand it, a lot of the damage you would be inflicting on an armored opponent is going to be blunt trauma. You're not going to slice a fully-armored man from stem to stern like in the movies.
I don't really know how much you use your sword or in what manner, but if it's a relatively new sword and still cuts fruit fine, I'm going to guess it probably doesn't need sharpened. Just don't be disappointed if it doesn't cut like a lightsaber (or katana...lulz ::) ). If you absolutely think it does need sharpened, I would definitely recommend making sure you know what you're doing before taking a stone to an $800 Albion. I know just from sharpening my carving tools that it's easy to screw up an edge if you don't know what you're doing.
--- End quote ---
Good
Point.
I wasn't planning on sharpening it myself, I only did that with my war spike crap sword. And while it was sharp, the edge looked awful. Especially in comparison to my
Albion.
Another bonus I think to getting
It sharpened is that there are some scratches I can't get out of the blade that have been there since I opened it up.
$50 is sounding better and better already. :)
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