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Erin Phalen
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Victor K.
Location: ON, Canada Joined: 27 Jan 2007
Posts: 5
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 Posted: Sat 27 Jan, 2007 10:40 pm Post subject: |
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| Geoff Wood wrote: | | George Hill wrote: | | Would lead be a particularly effective tipping material? It's heavy, but soft. Wouldn't iron be a better choice well... for just about anything? |
... except maybe hard water plumbing, musket balls, church roofing, etc ... |
Often with bludgeoning weapons I've heard that untempered iron was used, as it was less likely to shatter against a harder surface that tempered. A logical next step to this would be to use a softer metal, like lead. Only on cutting or stabbing surfaces would the iron be tempered, to be more resilient. This is similar to why lead was used for musket balls.
--The word sounded strange and exotic in my ears and the small hairs on my arms stirred. "Qalibr," I said. "The hilt came out of a mould. Ex-Qalibr. That's where you got the name!"
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Dan Howard
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| Posted: Sun 28 Jan, 2007 12:49 am Post subject: |
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I thought that lead was used for musket balls because it was heavy and easy to cast.
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Victor K.
Location: ON, Canada Joined: 27 Jan 2007
Posts: 5
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| Posted: Sun 28 Jan, 2007 8:14 am Post subject: |
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yes, but it's also soft, as you can tell when you see pictures of mushroomed balls. As a hammer wouldn't be going anywhere near the speed of sound, the head wouldn't be deformed when it hits, but a tempered end could be damaged when it struck metal to metal. I'm not saying this is why lead was used, but it is possible, as lead is much less expensive than iron.
--The word sounded strange and exotic in my ears and the small hairs on my arms stirred. "Qalibr," I said. "The hilt came out of a mould. Ex-Qalibr. That's where you got the name!"
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William Carew
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| Posted: Fri 13 Nov, 2009 6:40 pm Post subject: Resurrection |
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First, apologies for the thread necromancy. But I found this old thread in the course of trawling for sources on the goedendag and thought it was worth revisiting.
| Jean Henri Chandler wrote: | | Benjamin H. Abbott wrote: |
Well, the custom goedendag A&A made is about four and half feet long and weighs around four and a half pounds. That gives it a bit of reach over most longswords, and it certainly isn't heavy enough to be considered clumsy. |
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Thats precicely what I mean. A four and a half, or even five foot polearm does not have the same effective reach as a four foot longsword does.
You don't grip a polearm, especially a heavy one, by the first ten inches like you do with a longsword. In most guards you are probably going to have one hand at least a third to half of the way down the haft. That means yor 56" staff is projecting about 36" of 'business end', roughly equal to the blade on the 48" longsword. And from my experience with fencing, that lead hand makes a pretty good target.
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There are other ways to manipulate a long stick without locking the hands into set apart positions on the stick. If a 'light' A&A style goedendag is used with Jogo do Pau like rotational strikes, it has a much longer reach (almost the full length of the stick). In the JdP moulinet, the lead hand slips back toward the rear hand so that both hands are close to the butt of the staff at the apex of the strike: of course, the lead hand can then be slipped back up the shaft to provide leverage for parrying or beginning another blow. Incidentally, this is possibly similar to the slinging or 'schlaudern' techniques Meyer uses with his longsword: rotational strikes thrown as if 'from a sling' that maximise reach and power.
Even more interesting is that according to M. Preto's JdP book, traditional 'bad intentions' JdP sticks had iron spikes and ferrules on the ends... just like a (possibly lighter) version of the goedendag. And I don't think anyone who has seen M. Nuno Russo perform with a spiked JdP staff would doubt its speed or reach (there is such a form in the Jogo do Pau DVD released by Budo International). Imagine the following strikes with a goedendag (or the old JdP iron spiked sticks):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSDSsereOdg
That would probably be a challenge for any longsword fencer. Those strikes, with the extra momentum of the iron spike, would drive through many normal longsword displacements and parries designed for opposing other longswords. This is not to say a longsword fencer could not adapt, simply that it needn't be one sided: I think it would come down to the abilities of the fencers.
| Quote: | | So back to your four and a half foot godendag against a longsword, you really aren't starting with an advantage initially, and then after the first bind your 8 pound weapon |
A 4.5 to 5 foot long stick, even one that is thicker on one end, is a couple of pounds in weight. You pointed out earlier that real pollaxe or pollhammer heads are much lighter than most people realise. A steel spike and ferrule for a goedendag can weigh as little as a pound, maybe two depending on how you make it. This is a 3 to 5 pound weapon (A&A's version is 4.5 as already noted). In order to make the goedendag 8 pounds it would have to look like the ridiculously overweight and unhistorical version in the Conquest video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqlIcT9Ps8w
It's a shame the makers of that show didn't procure one of the A&A goedendags: it would have made for a more interesting and realistic episode.
Some extra grist for the mill to hopefully rouse some interest in these alternative, simple, effective and unfairly undervalued weapons.
Bill
Bill Carew
Jogo do Pau Brisbane
COLLEGIUM IN ARMIS
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