Chenness Cutlery "Shura" Test - Page 2

It's been a while since I did the first part of this test, a week to be precise. I was determined to beat this sword today. I had a few things lined up for it, the first of which was to see how it stood up to thrusting.

I started out with a section of MDF, approximately 1/4 inch thick.

Two thrusts later the sword was untouched and the board was pierced twice.

Now I moved onto a target with a little more substance. A metal shelf. Two more thrusts with much the same result. The extra resistance of the target lent itself to a much neater hole but other than that the sword remained in the same condition as when I started.

I was now rapidly becoming disheartened. Pretty much everything I had thrown at this sword had left it in a reasonable working condition. I now decided to make my last cut something spectacular. I've always been a fan of Highlander (the original movie, not the series) and I figured I'd have a go at recreating the carpark scene.

One solid cut into the corner of the concrete block

Just call me Connor...

But how was the sword?

Yep, you guessed it, it was fine. A couple of scratches but nothing worse than it already had.

Now I moved inside. I was determined to break this sword today. My fist idea was to see if the blade would chip against hardened steel so I let it fall from approximately 3 feet high against the edge of my larger anvil (Just over 2 UK-Cwt) three times. The blade came though unscathed, the anvil had a tiny cut.

I clamped the blade in a vice leaving about six inches free and with a large smiths hammer firmly hit the blade five times.

No obvious damage, the blade had no cracks and had not taken a set. I took a video of this but due to it being too dark I have not put them up on the site. I will email them to anyone interested and in the mean time I will attempt to get them lightened.

I took the blade from the vice and laid it along the anvil on its blade. On the fourth hit to the spine it snapped.

The video is here. I apologise for the poor quality.

In the end I beat it, I managed to break the sword, but it was a hollow victory. There hasn't been a sword forged that will stand up to a large hammer and an anvil. I had wanted it to break by using it as a sword should be used but it was not to be. At least my favourite hammer came through unscathed.