# New wooden trainer sword



## Flying Crane (Jul 12, 2022)

I’ve been experimenting with making my own trainer swords for Chinese dao (saber/knife), having discovered very quickly how the typical red oak pieces available from most suppliers simply splinter and crumble when you do even light contact drills.  I shaped this from a single piece of hickory, finished it with linseed oil and teak oil, glued on a hand guard made from heavy, stiff shoe sole leather, and then glued another strip of leather over the blade covering the edge, hopefully to help it last longer and resist the inevitable denting that happens during contact.  Hopefully it will perform well.


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## mograph (Jul 12, 2022)

Nice! As examples, have you seen these?





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## Flying Crane (Jul 12, 2022)

mograph said:


> Nice! As examples, have you seen these?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That is some nice work, I had not seen them.  The price makes sense too, for that kind of work.  The cheap red oak runs about $25-35, and honestly I’ve even been nervous about using them for forms training.  Often it is unclear how they are constructed, and if the blade might fly off at some point. 

I tried to keep mine as simple as possible, assuming that eventually they will be destroyed if used in contact drills on a regular basis.


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## Dirty Dog (Jul 12, 2022)

Flying Crane said:


> That is some nice work, I had not seen them.  The price makes sense too, for that kind of work.  The cheap red oak runs about $25-35, and honestly I’ve even been nervous about using them for forms training.  Often it is unclear how they are constructed, and if the blade might fly off at some point.
> 
> I tried to keep mine as simple as possible, assuming that eventually they will be destroyed if used in contact drills on a regular basis.


I think simple and cheap is the way to go for training weapons. They're supposed to be disposable.


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