Overview
Our sharpening service will provide a good serviceable edge on the blade. The result is typically “very sharp” with a small secondary bevel and a bit of an “apple seed” profile. The resulting edge is somewhat dependent on the particular blade. Some blades will take and hold sharper edges than others and the thickness of the blade will determine how wide the bevel will need to be. We adjust the angle of the edge to suit the specific blade and attempt to get as close to a bevel-less edge as possible without marring the surface of the blade.
The Sharpening Process
The sharpening service is done with a belt sander. The process involves many passes with sanding belts of various grits. The blades are rested between passes to prevent them from becoming hot and damaging their temper. By default we will sharpen as much of the blade as possible including any false edges if appropriate. If you have a different preference, feel free to make that request in the special instructions at check out. We can sharpen only the last half or third of an edge, for example. Our sword sharpening expert has personally sharpened several thousand swords at this point, so will provide you with a professional service.
What the Service is Not
The resulting edge will be “sword sharp” not razor sharp. Our goal is to provide you with a usable edge for cutting practice that will hold up to some use and not require constant re-sharpening. In other words, we intend to provide you with a serviceable weapon, not a personal grooming implement. The service will not provide a completely bevel-less edge. To create that type of edge will necessarily scratch up the blade surface and we lack the machinery and time to provide a full re-polishing of a blade’s surface. A service of that nature would be significantly more expensive as a great deal more time would be required. We do not offer this type of service at this time.
Disclaimer
We make no guarantee that the resulting edge will meet with your expectations. Every blade is different and some will take and hold a sharper edge than others, due to the blade material, heat treatment or geometry. Some customers can also have incorrect assumptions about sword sharpness and improper expectations as a result. All we can say for sure is that the resulting edge will be sharper than the default edge, in most cases, significantly so. We can not provide any refunds for the service once it has been completed, so consider it to be provided “as is”. That being said, if you are unhappy with the product for any reason, we do still allow you to return the item for a full refund, including the sharpening costs under our normal return policy. This does not apply to special sharpening requests, for example if we sharpen something specially for you that does not normally list that option on our site. The vast majority of our customers are happy with the results of the service, so as long as you keep the above mentioned in mind, we are confident you will be pleased with the results as well.
maciakl (verified owner) –
I have mixed feelings a bout this item. I had high hopes for it, because I own a medieval sword from Windlass which was absolutely top notch in both design and execution and around the same price point. Unfortunately the saber is a bit underwhelming. Not terrible, but not great.
PROS:
– The blade is very light (lighter than my other shamshir)
– The grip is comfortable and fits well in hand
– The blade is balanced about 5-6″ from the grip, making it choppy but not too front heavy which seems right for a saber
– It’s a great looking sword, save for the crossguard (see below)
CONS:
– The ornamentation on the crossguard appears to be hastily spot welded on. You can literally see burn marks on the metal, that were not properly cleaned up. I own another shamshir (from universal swords) that has an almost identical crossguard design, and the ornamentation there looks like an internal part of the design, rather than a last minute welding job. Windlass dropped the ball here. I would rather not have the ornament at all than have it looking like this. It it ruins the blade’s potential as a display item. This is my biggest and most significant gripe with the blade.
– There is something wrong with the crossguard fitting. When you wobble the saber side to side, there appears to be a little bit of play and you can hear the blade hiting against rainguard/chape on the right side (but not on the left). I’ve seen other vendors securing the chape by putting padding on the inside, likely to prevent this exact issue. The pommel is secure and this does not seem to have much effect on cutting action so far. This could be a unique fitting defect specific to my blade.
– The scabbard for the blade is almost comically oversized. You can kinda see it in the pictures, but in real life it is just plain huge – way to wide than it should be with such a slim blade. The saber rattles in it when you carry it. Thankfully, the crossguard design of this blade, they had to make a fitted receptacle for the chape/rainguard bolts so the blade is secure and does not slide out which is the only saving grace here.
I think Windlass should just skip the welding step in their production pipeline and sell the sword with a plain un-ornamented crossguard. Clearly they are not very good at this type of thing, and the decorative aspect of the ornamentation is completely ruined by the weld marks.
Properly sized scabbard would be nice too.
Brad –
Thank you for the thorough and candid review maciakl. I like the general shape of the blade and the fullering job looks decent, but you talked me out of buying this one. I’m not a fan of spot-welding as it pertains to the construction of real swords. It doesn’t indicate in the product specifications that they do any spot-welding and that’s a huge departure from traditional methods, so this one ought to be priced substantially lower. Seems like Windlass is working on a reputation of cheaply fashioned blades.