Hey guys, lately i have always seen people posting, including myself, questions, asking for good sites to buy functional weapons. They have asked for a personal reason, and yet, people always reply with "get a proper instructor, go to a proper school", but instead of regarding that i want to ask you guys a question........What material would be most appropriate to get, when buying a weapon??????by this i mean stuff like steel, copper, aluminum(im just showing an example) forged,cast...basic stuff like that.But not only for metal weapons, lets include wooden, and cloth weapons. Just post an answer or question, and hopefully someone will give an ANSWER, not a SUGGESTION to getting to a proper school, we've all heard that before.
fist off. Get a proper instructor OK Now that out of the way. I dont usualy say that becasue I have never had any formal training. when looking for weapons hmm when looking for a functional sword or other bladed weapon you want a carbon steel a proper heat treatment proper blade geomtry and goo fittings. stay away from stainles steel unless it is a small blade like aknife. Stainles steels are more brittel than a plain carbon steel so they are not suitable for larger blades. I would stay away from all non ferous metals, not iron based. You can get good iaito and blunt sparring swords made of metal like Aluminum or othe alooys but I know of very few places tha tmake good aluminum blunts for sparring. You can get away with more when you are jsut doing sword drawing and air cutting/kata. You dont want anythign that has been jsut cast into shape as it is weaker than being forged or extruded and machined. For woden weapons you want some sort of hard wood such as hickory ash or japanese white oak. red oak is ok but its somewhat weaker than the others. and Ash is ualy used in the hafts of pole weapons. Hope that answers you questions, and youmight wnat to check the weapon links thread stickied at the top of the forum for more info.
