Synthetic swords vs Steel swords! (pros and cons)
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- Опубликовано: 9 фев 2025
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Hey guys, SnapJelly here and today I would like to talk to you about ome of the good and the bad things about Synthetic sparring swords vs Steel swords.
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Sometimes after a rough day when you just can't be arsed to put all the protective gear on, I think it's nice to have the synthetic ones. I just use a mask, casual clothing to avoid direct hits into the bare skin and padded gauntlets when sparring with them and the worst I've received so far are bruises.
I disagree on a few points. As a general rule I do think synths are a fair bit safer than steel. I've seen blunt steel draw blood about 5 times and a few broken hands whereas the worst I've seen from synths is big bruises. That being said there is definite overlap, some synths are a lot safer than others and this goes just as much for steel.
If I had a synthetic sword I'd much much rather it went against a synthetic buckler, steel ones can damage them. Steel swords can still dent and take chunks out of wood/rattan too so it may be preferable to use synths against them too. It's really going to depend what everyone else has.
The light weight of synths makes them good for beginners, if they aren't well conditioned steel will feel heavy after a 90 minute lesson, I think this is the main reason though some beginners are also afraid of using steel which will also be detrimental to their learning. Their light weight also makes them good when you're doing high volume training or you're recovering from an injury.
Also a steel sparring sword is not "the real thing" The weight distribution is off, they are generally a little heavier than the real thing (not including feders), they don't bind the same way and flex differently.
another nice side effect of synthetic swords is that due to them being lighter you can use them for longer. Some of the muscles used, especially for stuff like Ochs and Zwerchhau, don't get much use in our daily lives. A light sword might help getting longer training times.
Another interesting niche imo are aluminium swords. We have some in our club and apparently they last forever. Another nice plus is that they look very close to the real thing. A thick, blunt almuminium sword weights about the same as the sharp version made out of steel. And they tend not to get sharp bits from clashing together. However, just like with synthetics, you shouldn't combine them with steel
Source?
>Yes
14:23 That price tag sounds about right. I got mine for around $85 American, so the exchange rate should check out.
One thing about sparring with longswords that I feel is worth noting is that in my club, you are not allowed to spar with longswords until you've trained long enough(six months)or alternatively shown proper control. In the end whether oyu are ready to spar or not is up to the trainers. In this context it makes no sense to get a synthetic sword for the investment reason as if you've trained for six months, you are clearly already invested.
How you have to clean the sticks so they don't rust :)
Blood and Iron martal Art's touched on this subject and they said the primarily use synthetic for training just because the last longer under repeated and heavy use and mainly only use steel for tournament
Synthetic doesn't have an edge. Even if it can harm, isn't as dangerous as steel swords. Synthetic swords are always thicker. The same force in both will do more harm with steel. And the force is controlled by the person. Also, synthetic absorbs more of the impact than steel. Still dangerous, but not as dangerous.
Steel swords don’t have to have an edge either.
If you want a cheap synthetic sword, make one yourself. Take a piece of pvc pipe and heat it so you can flatten it, then attach a crossguard and some handle scales, I prefer glued together paint sticks that I sand to get a nice comfortable handle. It won't be as pretty as one you buy, but it would work and could be done for less then $50 (usd)
I think it would be too light and too hard.
Maybe, I'm not an expert, I just like making things and pvc is cheap and easy to work with. You could always pad the blade with conduit foam and you could add a core to increase the weight, maybe with metal rods?
Try packing it with sand or filling it with water.
Synthetic swords cost a lot, but hurts less than wooden ones ( full contact sparring) for me I bought synthetic one for about 67 euros and the shipping to lithuania cost like 40 euros, soooooo living in lithuania sucks a bit :(
The department of transportation won't allow me to have steel. I'm a trucker over the road and synthetic is what I'm going to use over the road.
It takes a looong time to polish greatswords
Very good, my Dutch brother.
Well roman soldier recruits trained with heavier wooden swords so that when they used a real gladius they could use it with more speed. Reckon thats how it should be encouraged in Hema clubs in their training practice. Synthetic swords are light and if you're only using it for larping i see no problem, but if you want to try out with Hema there is the weight difference but that could be ingrained in you in the training if you do it for a while. Honestly its up to you the price and your budget.
HEMA practitionners aren’t soldiers. And i would rather not have my fingers broken by my sparring partner just because i don’t want to immediately spend two grands on protective gear.
well it is historical for historical European martial arts
Sorry but that’s bs. 16th century longsword duellists didn’t wear any form of head protection. Does that mean i should get rid of my fencing mask because it’s not « historical »? It’s HEMA, not reenactment.
Richard Bug overreaction much?
shots fired!!!!
I have two decent swords, an L6 type steel differentially hardened katana, fully sharpened and ready for an emergency (the L6 allows the blade to survive much more abuse which could be necessary, at the expense of not keeping a great edge as long), and I have a normal tempered steel swept hilt rapier, with sharp point but unfortunately isn't sharpened yet. I know many people prefer training with dull weapons, however I don't... I do however own a hickory wood bokken (wooden katana), which is great for non-strength based practicing, and showing maneuvers to friends. Besides these I have purchased cheaper garbage swords in the past, and have regretted it... even when we can recognize something as trash and useless, it can be hard to throw it away, and the same applies with swords sadly.
Shadow Girl i have a steel nilfgaardian sword with nonhuman oil :v
You spare other people with a sharp sword?
@@michaelsauls1142 I'm assuming he means practicing on his own. I also prefer to use my sharp sword when practicing.
Can’t butcher your friends during practice. Pro.
Swords don’t bite. Con.
Those are the pros and cons of blunt swords, regardless of the material. It was funny though.
They do make synthetic swords that bite, but they are simulated sharpening and look ridiculous.
Yeah I know. I also heard it didn't really work, although I haven't tried it myself
Just a random question, does the fighting style of the jedi make sense due to light sabers having their point of balance on the hilt?
No, it doesn't. The point of balance on a lightsaber being in the center of the hilt means that a Jedi could make fast, unpredictable movements with a lightsaber using only their wrist.
I practice with synthetics a lot at my school... they are mostly the same weight as their steel version
The purple heart armory Penti III is 2.9 lbs and the steel longswords are around 3.1 lbs
i'd argue they are 'less dangerous', in that if you use a sharp sword lightly, there's still a risk of cutting, but if you use a synthetic one lightly, it's notably less dangerous.
i know that that's only a small difference, though, becomes less relevant when you're talking about full force sparring.
There's an adult video chain in my city called Classixxx adult store. I can't stop staring at your shirt...lol. Also I know blood and iron martial arts uses the cold steel bucklers because it's easier to get in that area and they surprisingly withstand steel weapon sparring. Not trying to say synthetic is better though.
Also in rossfechten its smart to use a syntetic weapon for horsesaftey.
Hey snapjelly plz try kingdom come deliverance its the most historical game about the middle ages you will ever play and really interesting no magic no fantasy just plain history
I have 2 synth wasters from Black Fencers which I use quite regularly, at least for form practice and against other synthetics. I got them for two reasons: their combined price is still lower than that of a single steel sword, and they require very little to no maintenance compared to any metal sword.
I generally avoid Rawlings because they're way too floppy and wobbly and I got more scratches and bruises from Rawlings whipping me with the flat than from any other model's blow XD
hmmm strange, mine isn't wobbly at all...
Frankly, most Rawlings I have come in contact with have been quite soft and floppy, and especially with inexperienced guys if edge alignment was off I found they tended to bend and whip at the point, and that's the main thing that sold me on the other models.
no idea about the wobbles, but the low maintenance is a good point as well
$75 for us in the US. Still not bad really
What do you think of Cold Steel’s polypropylene sparring swords?
We start with modified shinais. Those are cheap and while you shouldn't do thrusts, for sparring you just need very basic equipment. Even later when you have steel swords and equipment we still do some shinai sparring once in a while
3:57 that's the type of content I want to see ^^
If you were blond you would be the prince from shrek mate xD
maybe its dark blonde :0
Damn, that shirt is making my eyes hurt.
SnapJelly, why you troll us?!
Anyone know where his accent is from ?
ruclips.net/video/Zi0JPTE0Gqs/видео.html
Netherlands
where do you get that synthetic sword?
goo.gl/RffQt3
thanks
Advice: don’t buy a Rawlings synthetic sword. Too wiggly. Grab a Black fencer instead. The weight, structure and feeling are much closer to steel than the Rawlings. :)
Advice: get a rawlings, mine isn't wobbly at all ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
where is the cheapest place you can get them?
What is a synthetic sword made of? What is the material?
navigator ofnone afaik latex
@@Glimmlampe1982 so it's foam not just a hunk of cheap metal?
@@Ahhhhhhchoo not foam, Latex. Plastic. Basically hurts the same as metal
I'm looking for a steel sword to up my game in my class, so do you know where you can get one for a good price leave a link if you do
goo.gl/RffQt3
SnapJelly thanks
Everything you said about prices is not true in many countries. In truth,almost every place where HEMA is practiced today has to import feders from a small group of countries where they are made. Basically, if you live outside europe or the US,your feder (please pronounce it like a german word, I beg you) will be imported, when you can have a polymere sword made near you for one fourth to one sixth of the cost of importing the cheapest feder you can buy online.
Paying 1/2 of price of a steel sword still makes me sad. I'd rather use a foam boffer than a nylon sword shaped object.
maybe you can have a search about nylon sword made in China，it is very cheap and useful😊
Why SnapJelly? You make sword videos not toy unboxing videos.
Instead of using a synthetic simulator just get a decent wooden waster....the steel
commentthisearlydoesnthavetimeforspace
synthetic "swords" ;)
Actually it was a joke referencing another body part...
Or whatever the fuck!
>Snap Jelly 2018
You would be better off training with something heavier than a real sword,that way when you pick up a real sword it will feel lighter too you and you will be faster with it.Kinda like when drummers train for double bass they will wear ankle weights while they train and build up speed much faster.
Research suggests it' actually harmful. See the article below for more info (BTW scholagladiatoria made videos about it) :
thehemaists.com/2017/05/07/should-you-be-training-with-an-extra-heavy-sword/
Matta Maynard that's not how research works. This research was meant to help athletes anyway, you're not harder to hurt than athletes.
Scholar'd Sword I'm not sure I understand your point and I'm pretty sure you misunderstood mine. You should definitely train for fitness, by doing push up, running, etc. It's just that you shouldn't practice with heavier swords.
Again, not training with a weighted tool does not mean you are weaker. You can (and should) train in other ways.
It's generally a good idea to trust historical people to do the right thing when their health is at stake, but no always. A very good example of that is medicine. They believed in total nonsense and used bloodletting or other thechniques that were clearly making things worse. It litterally took thousands of years to overcome that. And guess what tool allowed us to do it ? Science ! Don't forget humans are biased in numerous ways so you should always trust the scientific evidence when it's there.
Lastly, it's not even true that people who actually used swords recommended training with heavier ones. This point is made in the article that I provided, but in his 1872 sabre treatise the captain Settimo Del Frate encourages the use of lighter swords.
You're cherry picking parts of the article to prove your point, read it entirely please. In the next paragraph it says that if you train with a heavier bat you get better at using a heavier bat and that's all. A real bat will have a different balance and behave differently. Hence your brain need to "recalibrate" when swhiching back to a real bat. It shouldn't surprise us that muscle memory is adapted to a specific exercise.
You also missed the point of the experiment where they swang a normal bat right after swinging the weighted one. The players reported that they were faster after having used the weighted bat, even though it was the same. First, it means that the bats weren't so heavy that the muscle were sore so your comparison with the dumbbell is dumb (pun intented). But more importantly it means that the players are biased. If you don't measure speed but rely on personnal feeling instead (as was done in History), you get the wrong impression
that training with a heavier sword helps. That means you can't trust historical people on that one.
So it's ineffective, it gives a false impression of effectiveness, and that's not even all. It also increases your risk of hurting yourself. I shouldn't have to write all of this down again. It was well established in the article, the sources are even given.
Dude, don`t burp pls, thx!