03.07.08
Recent Purchases – Reviews Forthcoming
This week I pooled some money and went after a few things I’ve been looking at buying for a while.
I first decided on a fluted steel buckler from GDFB, supplied by Therion Arms. These bucklers are purportedly the modern day equivalent of munitions grade weaponry – cheap, ugly, but serviceable. Unfortunately the buckler has a grotesque offset handle which I understand to be completely historically inaccurate. That can easily be fixed, though. I’ll have a review up for both the initial and my customized version soon.
I also bought a messer waster coming from With Intent Wasters. These are the plastic wasters that bring about a good deal of controversey, but I think they are worth every penny and definitely look forward to getting mine. I have heard nothing but good things about it and look forward to being able to provide my opinions on it.
02.27.08
Finding a Messer Waster
Messerfechten (fighting with a messer, or long knife) appears to be one of the burgeoning arts – books are beginning to be published on it and it seems more and more people are experimenting with it all the time. Looking into it for my own personal studies, I’ve had a tough time finding a waster.
After a bit of research, I’ve found two makers, one American and one European. With Intent Wasters out of Wisconsin makes all their wasters out of a secret type of plastic that reacts much more like steel than wood – it bends, it slides, and it doesn’t bounce very much. Their messer waster is available for purchase at a price of $90 (without the price of shipping or tax), but is not posted up on their website yet.
Glorymade produces both wooden and steel messer trainers, but does not seem to have an English version of their website up so I am unable to provide pricing information.
The Guild of Armoursmiths Video
The Guild of Armoursmiths have posted a rather good video showing a number of techniques with different weapons including longsword, messer, dagger, wrestling, and fighting in armour.
Take a look: (link)
