|
"Highland Steele" sword
purchased roughly around 2001
Highland Steele used to sell their swords at the NCRF (North Carolina
Renaissance Faire), which is a very small renfaire that runs for
only a few weekends each year in the spring. At the time, it only ran
for one weekend per year.
At the booth, they would demonstrate the strength and flexibility
of the blades by hacking up cinderblocks and bending the blade
over nearly 90 degrees.
The swords were all made with a dull grey finish, not polished. Most
looked like edged bar-stock, without a distal or cross-sectional
taper on the blade at
all (technically you could call this a hexagonal cross-section, but
it looks like the blades start out as bar-stock that is then
ground, tempered, and sharpened).
A few were ground out into more of a diamond cross-section, slightly
hollow-ground in fact, and this
one caught my eye. It's reasonably light and balanced for a single-hand
sword, and should be able to withstand a beating if I ever need to
fight off an attacking cinderblock wall.
I had noticed some time later that Highland Steele was no longer attending
NCRF. I heard on an unrelated message board some years later that the
swordsmith had died.
| Overall Length |
35 ½ inches (90.17 cm) |
| Blade Length |
28 inches (71.12 cm) |
| Hilt Length |
7 ½ inches (19.05 cm) |
| Blade Width at base |
1 ½ inches (3.81 cm) |
| Guard Width |
5 ½ inches (13.97 cm) |
| Center of Gravity |
4 inches from guard (10.16 cm) |
| Center of Percussion |
18 ½ inches from guard (46.99 cm) |
| 
