My First Sword
I started fighting in 1988 or 1989, There are records that go that far back, but many have been lost to the ravages of time. You'll have to take my word for it, "no spit, there I was..."
Way back in 1988, our lonely little shire of Wolfscairn was much more populaced, but also much more remote and distant from the rest of the known world. At least, it seemed that way, as every event I went to seemed so far away, and nobody had the fortitude to visit so far north of the Bay Area. Back then, Petaluma, and Santa Rosa were considered "Far North" of the northern bay area.
As we were so isolated from the rest of the Principality of the Mists due to this great distance and fear of bridges on the part of our southern cousins, we were far behind the times in (amongst other things) fighting technology.
Oh, sure, we knew about how everybody else used 1 and 1/4 inch thick rattan for swords, but we considered those to be "fairy wands" or "whippy sticks" or some other appropriately diminuative descripter of a lack of manliness. Fighters in Wolfscairn considered that you needed at least 1 and 1/2 inch thick rattan to make a sword. Even then, you had to bulk it up some, or nobody would take your shots.
This was the world in which I began my life in the SCA. We were a lone outpost on the edge of the world, and we just knew that we had to make our gear real tough for when the Ruskies dropped the bomb on us. After all, we would be what stood between well armed soviet soldiers and the huddled masses of simpering tree huggers we lived amongst. It was the '80's after all.
But I digress, I was talking about my first sword ...
I started with a 1 and 3/4 inch thick piece of rattan. It had a nice thick husk, and plenty of overlap on each of the joints. I made sure to NOT trim those back, since that would make the sword lighter, and weaker. I taped the sword from the tip to the handle of my bar hilt with strapping tape. I wrapped it in a spiral with 50% overlap. At the base, I continued the spiral back up with another 50% overlap. This would ensure plenty of crossed fibers for strength.
Next, I took an old bike tire and taped it to the rattan in three spots to hold it. I looked at it, and realized that I would have to trim the sidewalls down, since they overlapped, and made the sword have a wide flat profile. Once that was done, I added more strapping tape in yet another spiral with 50% overlap up and down the blade.
Then I added more tape at the "sweet spot" three quarters of the way up the sword. This would properly weight the sword for swinging. After all, I wanted a well balanced club.
Finally, it was time for the final layers of tape. It was duct tape, the good thick stuff. Some people might have added an edging strip to the sword, but the tire made the sword have a definite shape, so I did like the rest of the fighters in Wolfscairn, and passed on the edging. Again, I put down a 50% overlap in both up and down diretions for a total of 4 layers of tape. Yes, some non-Wolfscairn fighters would use thinner tape here, but would have just shredded, especially on top of the knobby tire edging. I DID mention it was a bmx bike tire, didn't I?
Apropriately, I named the sword "Shield Breaker." Some lesser fighters called it "Arm Breaker", but they were definitely NOT Wolfscairn fighters.
