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I’ve been hunting for a good, ‘affordable’ (not always but usually an oxymoron when it comes to live blades) double edged rapier for quite a while. A rapier combines speed and reach more comparable to a foil (or the epee’s triangular blade) than a longsword while still retaining a usable cutting edge.

In fact, the rapiers higher velocity and lower mass (again, compared to a longsword) can render some amazing cuts. Not the ‘lop off an arm, leg or head’ type of cuts the longsword can inflict but pretty deep and effective cuts even so. A properly honed rapier will still slice through ribs like they were butter but the cut won’t have the digging inertia that a properly executed strike from a longsword will deliver.

I’m also on the hunt for a Norse (“Viking”) style sword but like the rapier I haven’t found one I fell in love with and can afford so the process is ongoing.

I do a significant amount of practice cutting and HEMA drills but have no one to practice with so … I don’t know how well I’d do in a real combat situation with live blades. Which is OK because the blades are a hobby and I’m a pro with a wide variety of other weapons.

If ever there were a reason and circumstance to square off with someone carrying a blade of any sort, they’d be dead long before a swordfight could properly get started and yes, I realize that swordfights are not the way they’re portrayed in the movies and TV shows. Cinema blade combat is carefully choreographed, a real swordfight is intense, violent and quick.

When my two boys were young we’d practice firearms and archery in the backyard. I had a rifle and pistol range set up in a pasture with archery target butts along a treeline.

One time my oldest boy looked at me as I was demonstrating something I wanted them to learn and said “Dad, is there any weapon you’re not deadly with?” I had to tell him that yes, there are edged weapons and particularly swords that I was less than proficient with. So later in life I set out to remedy that lack. I feel like I’ve done OK, not as good as I am with fighting knives, bows and firearms but not too shabby for something picked up in my later years.

I have a very serviceable leaf-bladed spear, a bearded Danish fighting axe and a bunch of knives of many sorts too.

The spear is an antique that I picked up at a local auction house, they didn’t even know it was a spearhead they were selling. It was in a lot with a bunch of other junk that I threw away. The haft was broken off short and the blade looked like any other piece of metal junk so it didn’t occur to the sellers what it actually was. Once cleaned up, polished, sharpened and mounted on a suitable haft I wound up with a really great spear that cost me less than $10 for the business end. I’m kind of chuffed about that.

It’s a good enough spear that if I were in better physical condition I would not hesitate to use it on wild boar. The lack being me not the spear is what’s keeping me from trying that. The spear could handle it just fine, me not so much. Dancing with a wild boar skewered on spearpoint requires physical prowess that I don’t feel I can muster anymore.

I don’t own any wall hangers, sword-like objects or display only type pieces. If I own it, it’s the real deal. I can see zero purpose in having something that looks like a weapon but is not actually a weapon. Every single one of the blades I own including my EDC folder is honed “wicked sharp” to a micro polished edge that makes a razor look jagged and dull. More on that in a bit.

$600 is about right for a decent katana years ago, it would be more now. I won’t own a katana much like I don’t own a ballpoint pen. It’s not a matter of katana vs. longsword, it’s purely a matter of personal taste. I’m not saying a decent katana isn’t a worthwhile blade. But I’m not Japanese and I prefer European style live blades. (I’m not prejudiced against Japan or the Japanese either, I have quite a few fountain pens made in Japan even though my EDC pen is a Waterman made in France.)

Sharpening …

The system I use for sharpening is called “wicked sharp”. I use a one inch belt sander for sharpening with grits ranging from 60 – 2000. I use the more coarse grits to shape the edge geometry fairly rapidly (be careful, “rapid” is relative and you don’t want to burn the temper off the edge). Once I get the edge shaped and polished to the 2000 grit range I use a leather belt specially made for a belt sander and apply jeweler’s rouge and other fine polishing compounds. The belt is two sided, one side natural rough and the other side smooth tanned. Put liquid or paste polishes on the rough side and put cake polishes like rouge on the smooth side.

This yields a different edge geometry than a flat stone can provide. You will only ever get a straight edge bevel (would look like a “V” in cross section) with a stone. I use stones to touch up only the very edge after using the blade to the point where I can notice it’s not as sharp as I like and to hold me over until I have time to break out the belt sander and put a proper edge on the blade again.

For the EDC folders I own I generally use an old fashioned razor strop to touch them up between full fledged work on the belt sander. A sword is a bit long for a razor strop.

Using the belt sander I get an edge that is slightly convex, looks like the pointy end of an appleseed in cross section. In fact, this is often referred to as an “appleseed” edge and you can look that up on the ‘net if you want to see what it looks like. It takes a bit of practice to learn how to sharpen a blade this way but for me it’s worth it because an appleseed edge provides a stronger shoulder for the cutting edge and tends not to chip, dent or compress. It also “wears to sharp” to a much more significant degree than a “V” edge will.

If you can feel ‘bite’ from a blade edge by whatever means you use (finger, fingernail, etc.) that is because there are microscopically uneven points along the edge that are dragging and biting. Through a microscope you see a jagged edge, and probably jagged enough that it would surprise you.

A properly configured polished appleseed edge geometry does not “feel” sharp because of the high polish. It’s sharp as f**k so you need to be very careful with it.

I demonstrated this to a friend one time by letting him handle a Gerber Commando I own. It’s an old one from back in the day when Gerber made good knives out of high carbon steel. I told him to gently feel the edge and he did, commenting that it didn’t feel sharp to his thumb. Then I dropped a sheet of copier paper and sliced (sliced cleanly, not torn) it in half while it was falling and said …

“Still think that edge isn’t godawful wickedly sharp?”

The thing about an appleseed edge geometry is you have to put just a bit of pressure on the cut and then it doesn’t just bite, it eats voraciously. You can drag it lightly across a thumb and it feels dull because of the extreme polish on the edge. Drag it lightly and you’re OK, put any pressure on it and it will slice to the bone.

Of course for kitchen cutlery and generally any blade that will never be called on for social applications I use really good stones and various steels to sharpen them to a razor “V” edge. I’m not fanatical about this, kitchen knives are not meant to serve as weapons. A good “V” edge geometry is fine for working blades. An appleseed edge is the best possible configuration for a fighting blade and all my edged weapons are sharpened that way.

I got the belt sander from Harbor Freight for about $30 and the belts and polishing compounds are probably another $60 so I have less than $100 in the whole shebang. That’s not a lot more than a really good set of stones and steels would cost.

Except for the grit (caliber, size, whatever grit numbers mean) there is no difference from any sander belt. I’m just buying them off Amazon for 1″ belt sanders. If the grit looks too coarse for working on a blade, it is. What would be a fine grit on wood is a coarse grit on steel. So be careful in selecting the grit value of the belts you use.

That doesn’t include the leather belt of course. I can’t think of anything you’d ever use a leather belt on wood for. These can also be found on Amazon along with a myriad of polishing compounds.

Polishing cakes are rated for which material they work well on and the aggressiveness of the emory component by the color of the cake. I generally use green polishing cakes, they’re the best all around application but I also have several other color cakes and a rack of paste compounds of varying aggressiveness too.

Here’s a link to a brief description of what color cakes work best for what application …

https://www.fintechabrasives.com/blog/a-guide-to-polishing-compounds–their-uses/

Sometimes for no good reason other than the fun of it I polish the crap out of a random hunk of metal just for practice.

As for creating an appleseed, or convex edge geometry, that takes a little practice. Ok, maybe more than a little but it’s a relatively easy job using a belt sander with a semi-slack belt. By that I mean a belt without the backing plate that holds the plane of belt travel rigid. Without that guiding back plate the belt will just naturally curve slightly around the work and create a convex edge all by itself. Always run the belt OFF the edge, not onto it or you’ll dull your blade and slice a lot of belts up. You can control the depth of the appleseed bevel with the angle you hold the blade to the belt. Steeper angle, shorter bevel, shallower angle, longer bevel.

Here’s a link about blade geometry just so you can get clear in your mind what you’re trying to achieve …

https://koboldpress.com/real-steel-edge-geometry/

I also use a dremel-type tool for touch ups and for other applications in the process of keeping my blades sharp and looking good but the belt sander is the tool I use most.

With a little ingenuity you can do all sorts of other grinds on blade edges too. I use the belt with a straight backing plate to make a flat “V” grind or a different convex plate to work on hollow grinds.

Like anything on the internet these days there are pros and cons, some people really like the convex edge, some people don’t. There are a lot more people that do than don’t so don’t let anyone, including me, convince you of anything. Try it out and see how it works for you. It works great for me and I recommend this method but it’s neither free nor easy to do until you get the hang of it.

Don’t put your expensive katana on a belt sander until you’ve had some practice with other, cheaper blades. Be extremely careful and mindful of heating that will take the temper out of the steel, especially on the edge and tip which are thin areas that will heat up much, much faster.

Once you’re used to it, if you your experience is anything at all like mine, you’ll be wondering how you ever got along with other systems.

This is also a great way to put a razor sharp factory grind back on a dulled folder, a hatchet or axe, etc. You don’t have to go all the way to a hyper micro polished edge to get good results. I only go to that extreme on combat rated weapons. For a cheap folder or a working axe or hatchet used for lopping vines off my trees and that sort of thing I go up to about 600 grit and stop there.

You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear but you can make that ol’ sow’s ear look and perform mighty good. Something that’s already a silk purse you can bring out the very peak of its capability and that to me is more than worth the effort and expense.

You can use this gear for other polishing jobs too. Arguably the best piece of cutting steel I own is my Dad’s old “Eszret” brand hunting knife forged in Solingen, Germany between the wars.

I saw my Dad use that knife for decades for everything from dressing out big game to filleting fish. Unfortunately I lost track of it and found it in his stuff after he died. The blade is high quality high carbon steel and it had rusted deeply. I used this gear to remove the rust and pitting and restore the edge, stabilized the wooden grip with UV polymer and now it looks and more important functions as good as new. I’ve already told my eldest grandson that’s his knife when I go and gave him the history behind it.

If you’re interested and already own a 1″ belt sander then the cost is negligible and I encourage you to try it out for sharpening. Let me know if I can help you any further on this topic.