[Risto Rautiainen]

I finally got enough money to buy me a sword of my own. I needed a budget blade for training Fiore and was thinking of buying a Lutel or a Pavel Moc, but someone recommended Radek as an alternative and I happened to like the appearance of Richard III very much. Radeks site is www.swordcutler.com. After a brief e-mail discussion with Radek, I ordered the sword, which was ready in two weeks. The problem was that I ordered it in the summer and Radek seems to be a very busy man during the "sword happening" season, so it took a month for the sword to get here =( Otherwise the communication was pleasant and informative. The sword had some rust at the tip of the blade and some on the pommel when it arrived, which were easy to remove though. The grip is a bit too thick for my relatively small hands, but otherwise I'm very pleased with the way it handles. Me like. It cost 280 € plus 25 € for the shipment, so I think the sword has an excellent price-to-quality ratio. Here's the stats and some pics:

These stats were provided by Radek:
Grade 14260 steel (alloy-low chromium steel) with the following content:
C 0.50-0.60
Mn 0.50-0.80
Si 1.30-1.60
Cr 0.50-0.70.
Hardness is 50 - 52 HRC.

These are my own measurements:
Overall length: 115,5 cm
Blade length: 90 cm
Blade thickness: ~4,5 mm
Leather part of grip: 18 cm
Pommel: 7 cm
Crossguard length: 21 cm
Blade width at the base: 4 cm
Point of balance: 11 cm from the crossguard
Point of percussion: ~56 cm from the crossguard
Weight is approximately just under 1,6 kg

[Nathan Robinson]

That's really quite nice. I'd like to know more about the maker. The photos of scabbards and suspension systems on his site are interesting too.

[Patrick Kelly]

Thanks for posting this. It really looks like a nice sword for that price point.

[Joe Fults]

Amazing how solid smiths seem to keep showing up in CZK.

Mini hotbed from the looks of things.

[Joel Whitmore]

[Risto Rautiainen]

About the scabbards on the site. I think there is one manufacturer in Czech which seems to make all of the sheaths that the swordmakers sell. I have seen sheaths that came with swords from three different swordmakers(Pavel, Grex and perhaps Lutel), and they were all very much alike. The sheaths are quite pricy, (you know for just being tubes of leather), about 90 €, but I guess that's because they are made specifically for each blade.

The price range of Radeks swords is from 170 to 470 euros. Oh, and he seems to mix octagonal and hexagonal, because my pommel is hexagonal, not octagonal as the website claims. I heard somewhere too that he worked (or studied) with Pavel. That was actually the reason I dared to try out his sword without seeing and handling one.

[Blaz Berlec]

[Blaz Berlec]

One more picture of his work, some items here are custom work, but the longsword is "Vladislas II. King of Bohemia and Hungary" (186 Euro pricetag here), very nice sword (my friend has one):

[Risto Rautiainen]

Actually now that you mention it, this blade has no distal taper at all. I didn't measure it with a calliper, but even with a ruler you can tell that it doesn't taper for even a half millimeters. Is this a characteristic in XVIIIa -blades?

[Blaz Berlec]

Perhaps. It tapers very strongly in the width, and with the reduced thickness the blade would become too weak at the tip for successful thrusts. I would imagine that original medieval sword like that would have a thick reinforced ridge at the tip, which would not be very flat. But I don't know, really.