Sword Use & Care Tips
Usage
Do not bang your sword against another sword in a theatrical-style duel.
Do not bang your sword against any hard object to test its strength or the "sound" of the steel as it hits a hard object.
No matter how tough or strong the steel is in any sword, it will nick when struck against something equally hard. In stage plays or in movies, theatrical swords with wide, thick edges are used. The edges are flat and often as much as 1 1/6" wide. Such theatrical swords are designed to take the flashy looking punishment of banging edges together. Most of our swords are not theatrical swords. If you are looking for theatrical swords look for ones maked as "Stage Steel" Our swords display items or real weapons, designed so that they could fight in the manner that originals were actually used. Parries were made with a the flat of the blade (not the edges) or were simply avoided altogether. Real swords were never used for the theatrical style of sword banging that the movies or stage plays rely on to liven up the action sequences.
Do not attempt to chop down a tree with your sword.
Such an activity is guaranteed to damage your sword. Axes and machetes are well designed for this with the weight of the steel concentrated over the point of percussion. When you strike a firmly fixed object like a tree or a thick branch with a sword, a great deal of the blade projects past the object being cut, causing the blade to bend or torque. It should be pointed out that the Japanese, who believe in a great deal of practise with the sword, used thick bamboo. The bamboo was resistant to a cut, but didn't have the rigidity of a tree, and so it would not have damaged a valuable blade. For a Japanese warrior to cut into a tree would have been unthinkable.
Care
Many swords are made the same way they were hundreds of years ago, and as such they are vulnerable to the same problems, mainly rust. Here are some tips to help you keep your sword collection looking new for many years to come.
Sword blades usually come in 2 types of steel, stainless, or high carbon. Stainless steel blades as you would expect don't rust but carbon steel will.
1 - Do Not store your swords in the scabbards for long periods of time, the moisture in the leather will cause them to oxidize rapidly.
2 - One way to avoid rust is to keep a light coating of oil on the blade, WD40 works very well for this purpose. You will find some of our items come shipped in an oil coating, this is the reason.
3 - Avoid excessive handling of the blade, the oils in skin are very bad for the metal. At the very least wipe off any finger prints.
4 - If you don't want a bunch of oily swords hanging around, another thing you can do is coat it with a carnuba type of car wax. This will give the blade a nice wax "shell" to protect it.
5 - If you should come across a rusty blade, clean it with WD40 this can clear up a lot of it. For stubborn rust, try a synthetic sanding pad such as the ones available from 3M. Use the finest grade, as to not scratch up the blade.
With a little preventative maintenance your sword collection will stay looking new for a long long time.
