Faskvar Hand Forged 51CrV4 Blunt Arming Sword with Narrow Fuller & Demi Lune Pommel | About 37 Inches Overall | Tan Leather Grip and Full Lifetime Warranty | HEMA Gift | RK-3029

The Faskvar is a single handed blunt arming sword built for club drill and measured sparring. The blade is narrow across its width for an arming sword, with one fuller cut down the centre that starts under the cross and stops well before the point. The cross is a plain straight bar with no rings and no bends. The pommel is a demi lune, a half moon block that fills the heel of the hand and gives the wrist something solid to press against when a parry lands hard.

The grip is tan leather with three cord risers wrapped underneath it, so the hand finds the same place every time instead of creeping up or down the handle between passes. Risers are a small detail that club fencers notice inside an hour of use. The edges carry a flat blunted land, the point is rolled and flared, and the piece is finished for contact rather than for a display bracket.

If this is your first steel trainer, read how to choose your first HEMA sword before you buy, and blunt and sharp training swords compared if you are still deciding which side of that line you want. The rest of the single handed steel sits in HEMA arming swords.

Specifications

The arming sword in sword and buckler play

The single handed sword of the high and late medieval period turns up in the earliest fencing book we have. Manuscript I.33 teaches sword and buckler as a system of wards and counters, and almost everything it shows wants a blade of about this length and this width. The buckler sits in the left fist and covers the sword hand, the two move as one unit, and the sword is expected to bind, wind and strike from the bind rather than to swing in isolation.

Later Bolognese practice keeps the same blade and adds a great deal more. Single sword, sword and dagger, sword and cloak and sword and rotella all rest on a one handed blade of roughly these proportions. The guards sit higher and the footwork opens up, but the sword itself is the same tool. A narrow blade with a fuller suits that work because it recovers quickly from a cut and does not fight you when you have to change line twice in one tempo.

For a club, this is the plate the rest of the curriculum sits on. The Faskvar was specified for that job, which is why it is narrow rather than broad and why the fuller stops short instead of running to the point.

Spring steel, a narrow fuller and a blade that stays honest

The blade is 51CrV4 spring steel hardened to 49 to 52 HRC. Spring steel is chosen because it bends and returns instead of taking a set or snapping under a hard bind. That is the whole argument. A high carbon blade at 54 to 58 HRC is a fine cutting sword and a poor sparring one, because the same hardness that holds an edge through tatami is the hardness that turns a bad bind into a broken blade.

The fuller is a groove, not a decoration. Taking steel out of the middle of the blade where it does least work leaves the mass at the edges, so the blade stays stiff in the plane you cut in while losing weight you would otherwise carry in the wrist. On a narrow blade like this one the effect is noticeable in the last third of a long drill, when a heavier sword starts to drop.

Flex on this piece is medium, the tier most clubs treat as the default for one handed steel. Light blades feel fast and flatter your technique. Stiff blades teach you nothing about control and land hard. Medium sits where the blade gives on a thrust into the mask, without wobbling through a cut. The blunted edge land is flat and wide, the tip is rolled and flared, and neither is a substitute for a mask, gloves and a gorget.

Engraving, runes and your own design

Use the rune converter on this page to turn a name, a date or a short phrase into Elder Futhark and we will cut it into the steel or the grip.

Engraving is cut in the United States after the sword lands in North Babylon. Text and runes are $19, a symbol is $39 and a family crest is $49. On this piece the flat of the blade below the cross takes a rune line cleanly, and the demi lune pommel has a broad face if you would rather keep the mark where only you see it.

If you would rather have your own design than a rune line, choose your own design in the engraving option above the add to cart button and tell us where it goes. Where a piece already carries an engraved design, your chosen engraving replaces it rather than sitting alongside it. More on the engraving page.

Handling and balance

We do not publish a weight or a point of balance for this sword. The photographs carry no scale, every one is made by hand, and a number invented for a product page is worse than no number at all. What can be said honestly is how it is shaped and where the mass sits by design.

The demi lune pommel is a counterweight as much as a stop for the hand. With the fuller pulling steel out of the middle of the blade and a block of steel behind the fist, the balance point sits close to the cross, which is what makes single handed work possible for a whole class rather than for one round. The sword turns on the wrist rather than on the elbow.

The three cord risers under the leather do the other half of the job. They index the hand, so a thrust from a high ward and a cut from the same ward start from the same handful of grip.

Care

Spring steel rusts. Wipe the blade down after every session, especially where sweat has run off a glove onto the forte, and keep a light film of oil on it between classes. Do not store it in a bag with the padding still damp.

Check the peen over the pommel every few months. A blunt trainer takes percussion that a display sword never sees, and a hilt that has gone slightly loose is fixed in five minutes by a smith and ruined by six more months of drill. Nicks and burrs raised on the edge land by another blade should be taken down with a fine file so they do not cut a training partner. Full detail is in our care guide.

Made in the Czech Republic

Made by hand in the Czech Republic and imported by Ransack Viking. Nothing here is drop shipped out of an importer catalogue straight to a customer. Every one is checked for hilt tightness, pommel seating and blade straightness at our North Babylon, New York warehouse, and ships from there. Shipping in the United States is free, returns run for seven days, and the lifetime warranty against defects in the forging, the grind, the heat treat and the fittings has no end date and needs no receipt.

Country of origin is on every listing because it should be. Nothing about this sword is made in the United States except the engraving, which is cut here after arrival.

A note on handmade variation

This is hand forged. It is not machine made, not cast and not bulk produced, so what arrives will not be a pixel for pixel copy of the photograph on this page.

The fuller may run a fraction longer or shorter, the demi lune may sit a degree off true, the leather may take dye a shade darker or lighter than the photograph, and the satin finish will show the direction the abrasive last travelled. None of that is a fault and none of it is covered as one, because a hand finished sword that looked machine identical would be a machine made sword.

What is covered, with no end date and no receipt, is a defect in the forging, the grind, the heat treat or the fittings. A blade that takes a set in normal club use, a hilt that works loose, a pommel that was never peened properly. Tell us and we will sort it.

Frequently asked questions

Whether this sword is sharp

No. This is a blunt trainer. The edges carry a flat land of about 3 mm and the point is rolled and flared to about 15 mm across. It will bruise through light clothing and it is not a cutting sword.

Whether it is legal for tournament use

We will not claim that, because legality depends on the ruleset. Check the event handbook for tip diameter, edge land and flex requirements before you enter, and be aware that some organisers set a minimum spatulated or rolled tip of 1.5 cm.

Whether a scabbard is included

No. This ships as the sword only. We do not supply a scabbard with it and we would rather say so here than let you find out on delivery.

Whether it suits sword and buckler

Yes, that is the work it was specified for. The blade length and width sit in the range that I.33 and the Bolognese single sword material assume.

What flex it has

Medium, the middle of the club range. We give flex as a named tier rather than a pound figure because we have not measured this blade on a scale and will not print a number we did not take.

How long engraving adds to the order

Engraving is cut in the United States after the sword arrives in North Babylon, so allow extra days on top of normal dispatch. Runes and text are $19, a symbol is $39, a family crest is $49.

What is in the box

• One Faskvar blunt arming sword, about 37 inches overall.
• Care and handling card.
• Lifetime warranty against defects in the forging, the grind, the heat treat and the fittings.
• Your engraving already cut, if you chose it at checkout.

Explore the range

More single handed steel sits in HEMA arming swords. If you want a longer blade, look at HEMA longswords or the purpose built feders. Complex hilts and later cut and thrust blades are in HEMA sideswords, and the whole training line is in the HEMA swords hub. Background reading sits in the guides hub.

Close to this one

The nearest pieces by size and handling are Draugmar arming sword, about 38 inches overall, Haldvane arming sword, about 37 inches overall, Skarnvik arming sword, about 36 inches overall and Brekavik schiavona, about 41 inches overall.

The rest of the group is in the HEMA arming sword category and across the HEMA sword hub, and the custom sword builder takes a custom order.