Museum replicas Xiphos

[Theron_of _Sikyon]

[attachment=534]DSCN0470.JPG[/attachment]

Hello, I have collected one of the old museum replica xiphos and am thinking of doing a major overhall on the handle. Right now the handle is a too small piece of mystery wood that has been painted red. The guard is a rough piece of carved steel. Over all it is an allright looking sword that would get me killed in battle. Uncomfortable and ill ballanced. What I plan on doing is carving a new handle from a piece of nice olive wood, adding an ivory pommel and making a new bronze guard. The pommel will be a bit pricy but I might even get spunky and have some carving done to it. I am also playing with the idea of a new scabbard but am unsure what it should look like. What do you guys think?

Edward

[john roberts]

Be aware that, whatever it ends up looking like, it's never going to feel very good in your hand. There was a reason why the Romans switched to the gladius hispaniensis as soon as they had a chance to handle a few.

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

Bronze guard is plain wrong. In fact,due to the fact that the tang goes through the handle doesn't leave you many chances for a really accurate construction. You can make it of a bit better shape though.
I'd suggest reshaping the existing guard.
I also wouldn't make the grip any bigger. Real swords had fairly short grips. You can make it of a more comfortable shape instead.
All in all,you can simply take the "sword of Philip" and copy it,replacing all the gold parts with iron,and the iron parts with wood.
http://www.awesomestories.com/images/use...9c4820.jpg
Part of the scabbard has survived,as you can see,chape and throat were ivory,but you can use bone,or wood,or wood covered with iron.
http://www.awesomestories.com/assets/iro...-philip-ii
Khaire
Giannis

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

Be aware that, whatever it ends up looking like, it's never going to feel very good in your hand. There was a reason why the Romans switched to the gladius hispaniensis as soon as they had a chance to handle a few.

Are you suggesting that the reason a cheap replica sword doesn't feel well in the hand has anything to do with the reasons the Romans adopted any sword in the place of another?

These swords were very well balanced in fact,and survived 4 centuries virtually unchanged for a reason: they served well the soldiers that were fighting under specific situations.
Khaire
Giannis