The Armour Archive

When I first started carving wasters for sale, I created a thread on this forum asking people what size sword they fought with. More than half of the answers were within a few inches of 36" overall length and very little concern over blade vs tang length. Assuming an added inch from pommel and thrusting tip, I started making the standard length on all of my rattan wasters 35" with a 7" tang.

Since that day, my wasters have grown in popularity and I've seen more newcomers ordering them. Also, this picture has started to haunt me a little.

http://www.museodelarmablanca.com/tiend ... eshott.jpg

Knowing that 36" is an SCA norm, not a historical one, would the Society be better served if I made my "standard" size wasters historical length? Note that this would not prevent anyone from ordering any length they want, just alter my defaults. Or would I be better served by sticking to a single popular size by default?

If what you are making is selling, why change it?

Our weapons do not act like real weapons, so the specs do not have to be like the historical counter parts.
Making them look better does a lot for this game already.

If your "standard" is doing well keep it. Let people who want different order what they want.

Uric

I did a bit more research and realized that for many of the styles I sell (the 10, 12, 15) the length is close to the historical counterpart in terms of overall length. The real difference is in the handle,which is longer in the SCA to accommodate gauntlets. SCA gauntlets are commonly an inch and a half or more wider than the hands inside them.

Educate your customer. Provide the historical length as a reference when you have it. Let the customer choose historic vs SCAjun efficient. I strongly think those going for a more authentic look and more authentic cross-section will choose the historic length... otherwise they could grab a min diameter stick with a plastic basket hilt for sport performance and replace it when it brooms out.

Sean

Make the blade length close to historical and add the 2 inches to the handle for the SCA gauntlets. That way you get a historical length from the crossguard to the tip, but still have a useable item for SCA. make those lengths your standard.