Basket Hilt Claymore

[Woodsheal]

Steven, who has registered here as Tam Piperson, Jock Tamson, The Scotsman, Twa Corbies, and about 12 other pseudonyms has had his membership here repeatedly revoked.

STEVENNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!

[TheOfficialBren]

Lmao!

[TheOfficialBren]

I purchased a Cold Steel hand and a half waaster. I likemit a lot. Not perfect but still pretty decent to start learning forms and basics.

[rmccool]

Windlass Steelcrafts (sold in the US by Atlanta Cutlery / Museum Replicas) makes some very nice swords. I don't own one of their basket hilted swords, but I do own some of their other blades, and they're very good for their relatively modest price. The blades are strong and light, with the controlled flexibility and strength required for actual use, and the finish is generally pretty good (though not excellent).

I don't know if they still make them, but at one point they had basket hilt broadswords - which they advertised as Basket-Hilt Claymores - available at reasonable prices.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Hmm...very interesting. I have always been interested in the hand-and-a-half sword but that broadsword has been appealing lately.

Well, the hand and a half, dating from the latter fourteenth century onwards, is a cavalryman's weapon and an armor-cracker, secondarily. A bit more weight to it and some more reach -- if not as efficient an armor buster as later developments like the bec-de-corbin and other warhammers.

Now getting into what for convenience is sometimes called the claidheamh dà làimh, the big long one the gallowglasses made a specialty of for fighting with Irishmen particularly, that beast reaches to sixty inches, another foot over the typical 48-inch length of the hand and a half... all the more ethnic. Not really intended for use against armored opponents, however the Irish hardly armored at all.

Either one, claymore or twahander, makes a fine display in a ceremonial color-guard.