What Can/Should You Expect from a Longsword? (Sword Talk with Kane Shen)

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]Oh, [snorts] hi. You know what time it is?

[00:00:03]No, not pizza time. Although, I guess anytime can be pizza time, especially if you're a chonker. But, no, it's collab time. I went to Vancouver to meet a few people, and one of them being Kainguin Shen, a fellow sword enthusiast on YouTube, link down below, of course.

[00:00:18]I've recorded several videos with him, of which this is the first, obviously.

[00:00:23]And then, there will also be quite a few videos with Academy Duello. You can look forward to that. So, let's get started.

[00:00:30]Thanks for having me. It's always a pleasure. Yeah. And I have uh joy for you to handle. Yes, we can nerd out about sharp things. That's always fun.

[00:00:40]Albion [snorts] Viceroy. Mhm.

[00:00:42]>> Which we're going to cut with Yeah.

[00:00:44]tomorrow at Academy Duello. It's definitely hand-and-a-half sword in the sense, when you hold it in one hand, is it still is it still quite maneuverable. So, I could definitely imagine Mhm. you know, like sure, with one hand on Normally, you would prefer an arming sword that's meant for it, but Mhm.

[00:01:04]handle this quite easily with one hand, in fact. So, let alone with two, you have plenty of control. Right. Some people came over here, they're like casual sword enthusiasts. Mhm. They handled Filthy Casuals. Yeah. Filthy Casual, that handled this one. [snorts] They were the first impression was, "It's so light. Wow, it's so light."

[00:01:23]>> Mhm. Actually, it's one of the heavier long swords, cuz this is not very long, 35 in blade. And then, it weighs closer 1,700 g.

[00:01:34]But, if you have impression >> I would not have guessed that.

[00:01:37]>> You wouldn't have guessed You know, you would think I'd be fairly decent at judging weights at this point, but no, I would have guessed like 1.5 kilos at most.

[00:01:46]Yeah. I think that's the thing that most people ignore when you talk about a broad category of swords, and often you're generalizing, like katana versus long swords. But you are not looking at all the varieties. Yeah. Especially European long swords, European long swords.

[00:02:05]There's such vast Yeah, yeah. That's a great example, like these two. They're very different.

[00:02:12]Yeah. [snorts] Like quite a different profile. Yeah. Now it can be, of course, more extreme than that. Right. You can have something that's based like borderline estoc. Yeah.

[00:02:22]Now you're talking light. This is not really light weight, but the tip has so much less weight >> Yeah. than Yeah, you you can very easily Mhm.

[00:02:33]control the tip and disengage and Right.

[00:02:35]all of that.

[00:02:36]So that is really quite light. So that's So of course a better thruster than it is cutter. Right. But um if you cut low enough, it should still be decent. Mhm.

[00:02:48]So I've seen people discussing, like they're going to extreme from cutting oriented to sourcing oriented. Using this is pretty pretty much sourcing oriented. And then some of the more extreme ones, they remain thick. There's one type 17 in Oakshott's book, and that got a measurement. It actually has a reverse distal taper. Normally Reverse >> they will they will become a [snorts] lot thinner at least half a cent near the tip than the base, right?

[00:03:19]>> Mhm. There's one that actually becomes thicker as it approaches the tip. And the point of balance is like in the middle of the blade. Mhm. So you will think, well, that's that that's got to be used in a way that point of balance doesn't really matter. So for the most part, you're supposed to just half swording and gauntlet against heavily armored opponents. The shortening of where the the tip is as opposed to your hand, the pivot point, the shorter it is, the more accurate it is. And then, the more the more rigid it is. You imagine a sword that's plenty flexible.

[00:03:59]Well, this is not really that flexible because they're going to always going to have some spring, right? But you are doing this, you jab into something, suddenly, the force doesn't just just dissipate. Yeah.

[00:04:09]>> You know, along the entire blade. And you're forcing this to be just, you know, essentially a pry bar, like a spike to go into. So, this one definitely is not dedicated for armor fighting, harness fighting.

[00:04:25]>> Mhm. You're You're talking more about cutting still.

[00:04:28]>> That's all right.

[00:04:28]>> So, this is This is by the end of medieval times, Renaissance early Renaissance. You can see the ricasso.

[00:04:35]This is a very good sign for develop a long sword. They just start to have ricasso. So, at the base, you don't need blade that broad like this one over here. The Principe.

[00:04:48]Is that what I'm talking about? You got to have a very large amount of profile taper Mhm. and still have it broad enough. Pretty much broader than this one near the cutting portion. Mhm.

[00:05:00]>> So, the base is so broad and it gets so the edge angle gets so small, right?

[00:05:06]Because you the wider you have, the thinner you have, it gets very fragile near the edge, which is why it cuts so much better.

[00:05:14]But then, if you cut into some hard material or any resistance, it gets stuck into it and then the force just keep traveling. It's going to give. So, that one took a pretty pretty sizable chunk out of this steel, right? Is it Is it your old? The first bad hit that I got with it bent the edge a little and kind of rolled it. And then, the second like straight up took a gouge out. You You think that Yeah, something performs well, basically it trades durability for it. Mhm.

[00:05:43]>> Right. Was the first hit on a branch?

[00:05:45]Like a thick branch?

[00:05:46]>> Yeah, it was the There was one hit that was a really bad angle, so it just it just kind of glanced off. And in the process, the the wood kind of bent the edge. Right. And then the second one was on the zombie head, and that Maybe there were a couple more cuts in between that weakened it further, I don't know, but that's what what did it. The first time Yeah. Totally understandable. Like some people were reacting negatively to that and were like, "Oh, this shouldn't happen with the Albion." Like, "Hang on, you can It doesn't matter how good the blade is. If you screw it up enough, you will absolutely damage it." So and and this is one of those cases. And also, that's just a downside of having such a crazy cutter. Like it it is It tapers so much. It There's just not that much material. If it's that thin, of course it's going to bend and break and who knows what on hard quite a bit of a backlash for Albion. I think that that one did. And people are thinking, "Oh, so it's not really that great. It's only for cutting grass."

[00:06:43]Cutting that.

[00:06:44]It's I think we have to look at it analytically. First of all, the first cut was fair. Yeah. Yeah, like a on a pole arm shaft. It It's going to happen.

[00:06:54]If you do like a like a kung pao to battle side a a spear, right? Like it's always going to happen. Yeah. And it could, you know, >> [snorts] >> diminish the edge somewhat. Mhm. But the second one, I think there's a lot of nuance in that because the GB head is it the anatomically is not exactly accurate. Mhm.

[00:07:16]Because the cheek bone you cut in like a a zwerchau, cut into the cheek bone, that's completely solid. So Well, I asked Nikki, she has uh anatomy, you know, knowledge in med school. And she said that's supposed [clears throat] to be a face Face bone supposed to be a plate. So behind that, that's the hollow of the skull or the inside of your, you know, mouth cavity. Mhm. But the bone itself is still hollow. Again, inside is marrow, right? So, it's not really like a solid I don't know whether you use a resin or cement.

[00:07:52]Like it's just a block of wood.

[00:07:53]>> Yeah, I I don't know exactly what it is.

[00:07:55]Right. But yeah, it's definitely more solid than Yeah. So, if you get stuck in that and then at tricky angle, which happens a lot during fighting cuz you you can name for it. If you're you're lucky to land a hit, let alone like oh, I'm going to do perfect edge angle like at a cutting competition.

[00:08:13]Yeah.

[00:08:14]This is already like the ideal case scenario because you're taking your time. And I mean in this case I was I was trying to make it more combat oriented by, you know, this Right. doing two movements instead of one instead of just statically performing it. But yeah, there's there's a lot of that can go wrong and particularly, you know, in a fight, you know, adrenaline, this and that. So, yeah, you you cannot expect to baby the edge. That's just not happening. Yeah.

[00:08:39]There's going to be hard impact. And also like when it comes to I've said this before but when it when it comes to this this whole don't parry with the edge debate and everything, it's understandable but the thing that that's so easy to forget apparently for people is that you can't do anything about it when you defend. Or no, no, when you attack rather. Because when you cut and the other guy Yeah. blocks with the edge, what are you going to do? What do you And if they block low, they take their damage on the strong where it doesn't matter as much. I mean it can because it it'll weaken the blade so it's more likely to break Mhm. at that point but generally it doesn't affect your offensive options with the blade. Right.

[00:09:23]So, when when you attack but you're going >> even if they block with the the flat, your edge is diminished. Yeah, it's it's still >> got always going to because if it gets blocked, which is hopefully is 90% or 99% of the time modern people are treating this as a property, like a car. But, think about it. Like, do you Chances are, you go before your sword goes. Like, how many people outlast their sword? It's possible if you're wearing armor all the time.

[00:09:54]But, if you're doing something like a fair round, symmetrical warfare, like dueling someone same uh armor in the same way. It's is you can't really think too much about your sword. Sword can be fixed. It can be commissioned again. You You can't really like if you're gone, what good is a perfect sword? Particularly with medieval and Renaissance medicine and and treatment >> Even a laceration, like you can it can end you. Maybe not immediately.

[00:10:26]Yeah. Like, your blacksmith will be more able to repair the blade than the barber will fix you.

[00:10:34]Um so, yeah. I should It is a tool and it is supposed to take the damage so you don't. So, yeah. I I don't really understand how hung up some people get on the idea that a sword needs to be like indestructible or whatever.

[00:10:46]Particularly when you do hard things like that, you know, like chopping into wood. And how abusive that is is is another discussion because that's also where other people have have issues.

[00:10:57]But, of course, like is it is it really more abusive to to chop into a tree limb than Right. you know, into a a shield?

[00:11:05]Right.

[00:11:05]>> Or even bone, depending like Living >> Imagine like your your the blade chops into someone's hip bone. That's a quite a massive hard material. It's a whole chunk of bone. Whereas, ribs is more is easier.

[00:11:18]Yeah. Chops. And again, with bad edge alignment, yeah. Guess what? It'll It'll be damaged. Yeah, I think it's great that Arms and Armor published a video a few days ago.

[00:11:28]It said whether swords are dispensable.

[00:11:31]And the conclusion is rather than dispensable is more consumable. You dimension sword over time like you dimension car. You require maintenance.

[00:11:42]And less a passing point is just is totaled.

[00:11:45]It's not It's not even worth it to I'm going to re-heat treat it. I'm going to shorten it. I'm going to fix the edge, you know, and then re-hilt it. But, you know, the cost of commissioning making a new sword is less than fixing it. Right. Unless it's some, you know, value a sentimental value ancestral swords or, you know, so you have to preserve it somehow. Yeah.

[00:12:10]And it's the same with modern weapons.

[00:12:12]You know, like on on a firearm the guide rod can break for example or the recoil spring can wear out or Right. so many things [snorts] can happen, right? Or or the magazine gets damaged or Exactly. You You're not just going to be like, "Oh, this is trash."

[00:12:26]>> [laughter] >> No, you're just going to repair it.

[00:12:27]Right.