Custom Sword

[KSN GT]

yo!

i'm planning to get a sword made, rather than buy one from the usual Kuk Sool sellers. i really want something a little special and personal.

i have found a company based in the US that makes custon swords:

http://www.martialartswords.com/shop/

the quality of them looks very good, and from reading 3rd party reviews, they seems to be very good. the majority of thier custom swords are live blades, but they have told me they have no problem making me one for practice and to my specification.

so why am i bothering to tell u this?!?!

has anyone or anyone u know had a sword made?

i'm finding it a little difficult to specify what i want. i know i want a straight blade. i see the new sword on the Kuk Sool online shop have a veriety of curverd and straight blades. also interesting is the shape of the handle, in the past i had only seen straight handles, some of these have hour glass shaped handles and look to be wrapped, similar to a katana, is this normal for korean swords? this maybe a question for someone who has been around korean MA for a bit longer (KJN Rich, any info you could share would be greatly appreciated!!!) or anyone else who's in the know about swords!

any other places u have had swords made from?

thanks in advance!!!

cheers

JKN GT

[KSW_123]

You've got one of the specs, blade shape. I'd say the next most important thing is to specify the weight. The cutting swords from Kuk Sool are bit heavier than the ones I saw on this website. My cutting sword weighs 1276 grams. Their Sam Gak Do is about 800 grams. To my taste that is a bit lite. Although if your primary goal is to practice forms, it might be ok. I'd go with 1000 grams in that case, but that is just my preference. By comparison, my wooden swords weigh 600 and 670 grams. I personally wouldn't mess with the length too much, 72cm/28in is about right for what we do. The wooden swords tend to be a slight bit longer. Even if it isn't sharp, make sure that it is full tang, i.e. metal all the way down the handle. Don't want the blade to fly off do we? I doubt this would be a problem with these guys, but I bought a cheap metal sword one time, and it fell apart. Definitely get the handle wrapped, you need the grip to safely hold the sword. I don't know the technical names for the different wraps they use, but I hate the one that has little knots running up both sides of the handle. I got huge blisters with a sword that had that wrap.