Nahuarra
"It's cold blade, collecting on its surface,
the moment it is drawn, the vapours of the atmosphere;
It's immaculate texture, flashing light of bluish hue;
Its matchless edge, upon which histories and possibilities hang."
Inazo Niyobe.
Testing two swords from www.nahuarraswords.com
One day out of the blue Miguel who handles the internet side of Nahuarra suggested that he send us one of his Japanese style swords for evaluation. Having warned him that we might be strict he never the less persisted which indicated that he had full confidence in the product. This encouraged us to believe that here we might be able to find a sword with similar attributes to the knife he made for us. Not an easy thing to do within the price range that Nahuarra are aiming for. In fact if they could do this then it would prove to be one of the few swords in this price range that was not a wall hanger but a real working sword. In the face of his insistance, and anxious not to look a gift horse in the mouth we accepted his suggestion. Three weeks went by and the matter was quietly forgotten when our friendly local UPS guy showed up at the door with a package.
The handcarving in the handle was well laid out though a little too bumpy for sustained use. The guard of 3/16 inch brass was well up to its task.
Byron, who fences both traditional Western and Japanese, was invited to offer his opinion in the hope that he might be able to provide another perspective. He has not had much opportunity to cut with live blades so he was glad to avail of the invite. His immediate reaction on bending the blade was to remark that if the people at Nahuarra could thin it out a bit and lengthen it they would have an exceptional rapier and that a blade with similar characteristics might aquit itself well both in competition and combat. He also remarked something to the effect that a rapier with these qualities could not be had for love or money in modern times. His opinion is supported by a gentleman on the forum some time ago who was heard to mutter that the modern fencing equipment "blows chunks".
The grip was permanently and very firmly attached. It had no buzzes or rattles. The overall impression was of a sturdy piece of construction. We both felt that the grip would benefit from a cord wrap and in subsequent emails to Nahuarra relayed this and other concerns such as the slightly heavy point.
Of course nothing would do us but to try it out but we had some delays in organising this. It had an edge but was not fully sharp so I proceeded to sharpen it. I did so by rubbing a small handstone across its length. Since the blade was somewhat hollow ground the sharpening was not difficult but a bit time consuming. I'd take to rubbing the stone across it at idle moments then leave it for a while.
You can tell a lot from a blade by sharpening it, especially if you have sharpened other blades with the same stone. A blade with a good degree of hardness will have a slight tendancy to whistle on some stones. If the whistle is too pronounced on a hard stone the blade is probably too hard also. I took care to give it an apple seed edge progressing through the grits up to 1000.
Another few weeks went by while other things took priority. I would take time out and sharpen the sword until it became almost like a meditation. So things progress slowly but eventually the blade began to show promise.
The more I handled it the more I got to like the weight distribution and the harmonics of the sword. The bumps on the handle became smoother and more polished where my hand gripped the handle. The shiny newness wore off it and it started to get real easy on the eye. The sword began to feel comfortable in my hand despite the bumpiness of the carved handle.
One day enough was enough, sharp or not curiosity got the better of me and I made a beeline for the outdoors wheeling into the cordaline tree cutting the outermost fronds with the sword tip. The fronds cut clean though the cut was not as effective as I had imagined so I repeated the cut with an old Japanese sword and discovered to my surprise that it fared no better. Turns out that the leaves are tougher than "old rope" and very fiberous and do not cut easily even when green, but once dried out they got like boiled leather.
It was just a little heavier than a similar straight saber made in Japan that I used to have years ago and subsequently lost. I felt like I was meeting an old girlfriend. There was that instant sense of familiarity and recognition.
The angle and the distance were good. The sword behaved as it should and was predictable. The grip was secure. I resumed sharpening with renewed vigor, eager to be finished so I could really give it a proper workout.
The next thing we had to figure out was what we intended to cut with it and how to anchor the target to the ground or whatever. Unfortunately a wren decided to nest in the cordaline tree by then and as that was where we planned to hang the target from, alternative arrangements had to be made.
Choice of target was another consideration. Wet cardboard wrapped around a core, a side of beef, or an old telephone book perhaps?.
Mindfull of the experience with cordaline leaves earlier, we settled for bundled cordaline leaves over a core of bamboo. We did not make the target as thick as the martial art pros do cause neither of us had had much experience in cutting with long swords and we wanted to give ourselves a half way decent chance of achieving success. We used them dry and the bamboo core was also dry so they were plenty tough. The core was inserted into an iron pipe which was buried upright in the ground to a depth of about two feet. The target was a bit more flexible than I would have liked and were I to try this again a redesigned core would be in order. Its all a learning process.
Then out of the blue Miguel contacted me again. He explained that Nahuarra had taken our comments to heart and had designed another sword for us to test along with the first, so we waited for them to ship the second sword to us. Three or four days only. When it arrived it turned out to be a marvelous thing. The curvature and blade grind were just right for cutting. The cordwrapped handle was just the right shape and properly sized to fit well in the hand. The weight and balance of this new sword were better than many traditional Japanese swords, which was quite surprising.
I decided to not mention the second sword to Byron, prefering to keep it as a surprise on the day.
Monday/23/July/2001
Our chosen venue was a small, secluded, suburban back garden.
The day dawned sunny but turned overcast just as Byron arrived. We took down the clothesline and washing which stretched all the way across the garden. The target was placed and we stopped for a cup of tea and a chat about what we were about to do. Neither of us had done this before in any formal sense, so we were a bit apprehensive, or at least I was, knowing how tough the cordaline was, knowing I hadn't a hope in hell of getting the camera shutter to release at the approriate moment. And of course knowing that in this climate the heavens might open at anytime and the afternoon would have to be called off.
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 | The target was cut, though not cleanly. As luck would have it the edge had actually cut through the knuckle of the bamboo about half way at which point the bamboo broke. That really constitutes abuse when the bamboo is dry like that. |
Examination of the blade at the point of impact revealed no visible change or damage to the edge though the surface was streaked a little with resin. The streaks polished out with a clean cloth.
Wednesday/25/July/2001
Two days later we were at it again. The weather was sunny so we moved the location of the cutting test a few feet into the shade of a tree where the light was less contrasty. I took care to try getting as little sky in the pictures as possible.
Byron showed up with two doormats in hand made of coir. We rolled each into a cylinder and tied with string. The straight saber from Nahuarra was the object of our interest this time. The sword had been used for sometime as a hack about in the garden so it was well up to the task of cutting green targets and had a thin aggressive edge with just a little roll.
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 | The target cut cleanly enough. On impact the raise threads of the weave flew in all directions while the mat base cut clean. The mat tends to be a very bouncy target and so tends to resist a cut from a dull blade. In my opinion it is not as tough a test as the cordaline with bamboo core. Byron and I plan to continue cutting with this sword with the aim in future of helping us design better targets. |
| Swords | Blade length | Handle length | Blade width | Blade thickness | Weight |
| Straight | 25.8 | 10.0 | 1.25 | 0.24 | 2.1 lbs |
| Curved | 28.8 | 10.9 | 1.3 | 0.23 | 2.3 lbs |
You can buy these swords here
They also sent us a knife.
