danelli armouries

[Sword]

Hello everyone,

I'm thinking about a steel longsword for training with. The only two I've had experience with are the Albion Liechtenauer and the Arms and Armor heavy feder (both American makers). I'm interested in opinions of Danelli Armories - longswords or arming swords. They look very nice. I emailed Mr Danelli and he seems busy and very nice. I have heard that the rapiers he makes are well liked in the UK and I'm wondering if any one would be willing to relate your experience with his longswords or arming swords. I have a Albion Maestro arming sword I use with my group for sword and buckler so I am quite familiar with that and some of the longsword group use Albions so I've used those as well. I'm also curious if the edges are tough enough to use with the Albion ones as they are the type in use in the longsword group.

Thanks for any help
Christopher

[admin]

Danelli Armouries quality is superb - for rapier he is about the best you can get without going super high-end custom. Certainly much better than Darkwood. The steel quality is excellent and the heat treatment outstanding. My only criticism of his broader blade types is that they seem to often end up just a little on the heavy side. I have a rapier on order with him, currently being made in fact, but if I were to order a broadsword, sabre, longsword, sidesword or suchlike, I would be very specific about the weight and balance requirements. Also worth specifying is the flex - for my tastes most of the backswords, longswords, sabres, sideswords etc that I have seen from Marco have been too stiff for our sparring. I would therefore specify the weight, balance and flex. That done, you could expect excellent quality and service.

[Sword]

Thank you for the reply. I was particularly worried about the edge durability as I've seen some hanwei blades get chewed up by the Albion longswords. It's good to know they are durable. When you refer to the weight being on the heavy side, do you mean overall or just more blade weight/presence than you would expect? His fit and finish seem very good from the photos on his web site.

[admin]

I mean the overall weight, but also sometimes the blade presence. It's worth emphasising that you want the sword to be light and nimble - some customers specify lengths and widths and that can often lead to overweight swords.