Bronze to the Limit: Destructive Testing of a Ewart Park Sword
17,311http://www.bronze-age-swords.com/British_and_European.htm
Neil Burridge, a highly skilled maker of Bronze Age swords, sent me an unpolished version of a Ewart Park type sword for hard, abusive testing to get an idea of the material's limits.
The link to the full video of Neil explaining the sword:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGqPnzkRZp4
I used it to chop hard wood with, tested the cutting performance on soaked newspaper rolls, cut into a wooden shield, and attempted to parry a steel gladius with it.
Considering how hard and unusual those tests were it held up very well. The wood chopping made the blade bend as it twisted inside the log, but straightening it was quick and easy. The advantage of softer material is that it bends rather than breaking, which is obviously simpler to fix.
It suffered a lot from the contact with the steel sword, but that is of course to be expected. Modern high carbon steel is much harder than even work hardened bronze, and would also chew up iron and non-tempered steel.
The forged edge of the bronze sword definitely makes a difference. It hardens it enough to keep a good edge even after heavy use.
Review of the bronze Khopesh:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFTAdzHbp2I
In general I can only recommend Neil's work. He is very knowledgeable and puts a lot of effort into creating beautiful, historically accurate reproductions. Easily the best bronze sword replicas I've seen so far.
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