The difference between the FALCHION and MACHETE - why one is a sword and the other is not

[Music] the shadow vest greetings I'm shad and I want to talk a little bit about the differences between the machete and the Falcon and this is in a falcon according to the uh the hilt it's actually a Cutlass but if you were to change the hilt on this and give it a cross guard and a nice you know round pummel perfect example example of a falcon so that this is kind of my fashion standing but what's interesting about these uh things I've been considering about the differences is that I have an opportunity to make a very authentic fashion and I'll talk a little bit about that in its own dedicated video and so there's a bit of misunderstanding I'm finding between Falcons and machetes because there's actually a lot of similarities the first similarity that people will find when they look at a stereotypical machete is the profile okay looking at the profile here there are reasons why this machete is not a falcon but there are some really important similarities the blade profile being one of them okay see how it swells at the tip all right many stereotypical functions have that not all of them okay in actual fact the Falcon is a very broad category people usually think of the Conyers Falcon and I'll bring up an image here of what the conus function kind of looks like that's the more stereotypical type of Falcon and there are a lot of similarities to the blade profile having this machete to the most iconic stereotypical Falcon but fashion blade types there's a lot in fact look at the Elmsley typology and if you have a look you'll see a whole range of different Falcon blade profiles for instance this blade profile on this Craig's Messer if you change the Hill Construction from that being like a knife construction to a sword construction you would now have a two-handed falsion very broad categories as I mentioned but when we look at the iconic type of Falcons right with the type of Blade profile where it swells towards the tip there are some very important elements that are often missed in the Falcons that you can buy online I'm still looking for a really good affordable fashion model that is historically accurate and I haven't found one yet this little Cutlass here it has a great Falcon blade but you'll also notice it doesn't necessarily have that really strong swelling at the tip that you see on many iconic Falcons the more stereotypical types of Falcons so it's another good example representation of different fashion style blades the thing that this has which makes this what you would consider a sword blade and this blade being a machete blade is it in the specific type of machine look I haven't even taken the thing it's the specific type of Machining and Engineering that goes into sword blade so what we're talking about is distal taper and so distal taper is when it tapers gets thinner towards the edge on this plane but not only that it's how the bevels are put on them now what's interesting is that I am confident enough to say that I could bet there would be cheap blades historically that were pretty flat like this and just as a really basic single edge bevel ground onto it just like that it would be considered poorly done because more I guess um refined sword blades in actual fact the more standard types of saw blades have bevels that are far more sophisticated so if you see here there is actually a consistent bevel all the way from the Fuller down to the edge but that's not the only bevel it has it doesn't go all the way down into a straight line there is a micro bevel so it comes down really really thin consistently and then there is a small micro bevel at the very end otherwise the edge would just be way way too thin if there was a consistent bevel that that came down at a very consistent gradual rate to the edge from the Fuller line but by having a reduction from the Fuller line down to the edge you take off unneeded material making the blade lighter and more maneuverable as a result and so this type of shaping from the way that the edges are handled the bevels and the distal taper is what you want to find on sword blades this is why when you look at this you would say that's a sword blade and this is a machete blade so there are distinct differences even though I think there is the exception as I mentioned that you probably could find cheaply made sword blades that were just like this historically the interesting thing that I find about a lot of these machete blades this is my favorite at the moment it's the cold steel kind of d-guard you know machete but what I'm saying well the interesting thing is how thin the blades are on these machetes because most fashions that you buy are way too thick it's not to say you can't get thicker Falcon blades like remember how I said this blade could be a falcon blade if the handle was different very thick spine but what you see here see how gradual the um the beveling is from the Fuller and there is a very distinct distal taper on this so This is actually a very beautifully engineered sword blade that we have on this Craig's Messer Cold Steel Creeks Messer dedicated review if you're interested so even though you can get Falcon blades that are thicker one of the iconic elements of the stereotypical types of fountains by looking at the Conyers fashion and types around that is how thin the blades are blade types of this that we're seeing here if they're going to be historically accurate they are supposed to have very thin blades so thin in fact James Elmsley is the expert in this right I got to have it back and forth with him and he gave me some really intriguing information one of the things he even pointed out so some of the surviving fashions that we have historic quickly right we're so thin that the rusting has actually made holes in the blade okay they're that thin they're actually holes in the blade on the surviving examples so these are meant to be razor blades and it's a complete misconception to say that they're supposed to be heavy Cutters no no they're supposed to be like razor blade Cutters okay they're great at cutting they will slash up and they get the advantage of you know in the cut due to the blade profile okay but like even though they're thin by having the swell here it does situate the main kind of driving power in the cut at the top end which is why we see it on machetes as well machetes are there to just cut and hack so it makes sense that they have similar blade profiles as we see on traditional Falcons the thing is as I mentioned I just find it so interesting I have found more blade profiles that have the correct width on machetes that I have on fashions that I've I haven't purchased I Hills handle I went to some stores and everything sauce and Falcons people are just way too thick but yet when I bought these machetes I was like huh there's some really interesting things so much sorry that with the corre correct type of grinding to just correct these Edge bevels right maybe even putting a fuller on it this sounds gorgeous not only is actually really good spring steel okay this is actually a perfect blank for a very historically authentic Falcon blade just needs a bit of extra work on it and what really threw me right is when I picked up this one and I compared the weights between these two and this one's lighter and more Nimble and then I looked at it and oh my goodness this one has a distal taper I'm not kidding it starts out as at one millimeter at the base and it thins down up here to half a millimeter just I can tell by looking at it the fact that this has a distal taper and is appropriately thin even though the bevels are not perfect and when I like I was almost going to say historically inaccurate as I mentioned I think you could find crappy bevels like this even on historical swords right but it's just not near the refinement that you would expect on really good swords and even most swords honestly but the fact that it got these other two really important elements correct I on this blade which is the distal taper and the thickness of the sword this is actually a more historically valid blade than a lot of the ones that you can buy online and so you can actually get machetes that are more accurate functions then you can even buy Falcons online guys if you know some great quality affordable Falcons that have the correct properties which is again proper profiling on the bevels distal taper and correct thinness with good quality steel I'd love to get one I've already ordered one from Cult of Athena and I have no idea if it's gonna be correct or not but it's actually quite sure and guess what since having filmed that video The Sword I mentioned I ordered has in fact arrived uh the so-called Falcon uh and um it is everything that I have talked about to the point where I want to get someone's uh impression of this so bring Nate in just to see what he thinks about it I heard swords you did so so Nate yes oh oh do you do you see this fashion that time that looks pretty that's patina that's the it's a little small on the thing but there's a that looks okay okay very nice it looks nice doesn't it it does so I want to get your impressions for everyone sure when you hold it first could you pick up this machete and get a feel of the weights now that's what I was about to say now we're not talking um modern representations of hmb we're talking proper medieval history so weight comparison okay that feels like a sword doesn't it that's a little misweighted but the weight overall feels feels about right so uh have a feel of this okay it's it's heavier than what it should be way heavier it's it looks a lot prettier than it feels it looks a lot prettier than it feels I love the patina I gotta say but is that actually I think that's a fake patina it might be but oh it's like this is the thing this is made out of decent steel yeah okay and it has the correct profile but is it it barely has a distal taper we are talking about this is two mil at the base and it's by the look of it two millilitant like barely any if not a distal taper at all and has no large bevel no I was just going to say it looks like a machete because it's such a fine exactly exactly this is a machete Blade no it's heavy from machete blade and it would be heavy for a machete blade because what we see here is all the subtle important elements to make this like a representative historical replica of a medieval falcon it's not here apart from The Superficial appearance and because what I was talking about the most important part of Falcon is that the blades are supposed to be really really thin really thin because the way that the tip swells at this weight it becomes way too top heavy okay the Falcon has this ingenious and I mean ingenious design feature okay there is this interesting dichotomy when it comes to sword design about fit having a thin blade means that it can cut easier because it doesn't have to push apart as much material but that also means if you're making it thinner you're going to be reducing the weight because you need a certain amount of weight to actually get driving for uh Force through and so the actual design philosophy of real Falcons was that we want to make a very very thin blade but if it was the width of a regular sword it would then be too light so you know what they did to keep the weight at the standard level they broadened the tip okay and that was specifically to keep it in the standard weight range that you want in regular swords but that only works if it's the right thinness exactly so that's that's kind of if I can pick this one back up please do but it's like they didn't quite know that it had to be thin the the plain very thin bar of Steel um but that's way too thin the Pummel is Tiny yeah but it is like it's a good looking sword it's just not a ha historically accurate exactly when it comes to the historical accuracy it's a piece of junk a pretty piece of junk it's a pretty piece of junk but it's a pizza I like it like just trying to use like this is not you know it is not wieldy at all because it's so top heavy and the failing is that the most identifiable feature Fashions yeah it's got the broad thing but so often people miss how thin they're supposed to be yes and then they made it as robust as like a machete to the point where now this is just completely unfunctional as a result it's kind of verging on hmb which is historical medieval battles um and the guys there they use the Falcon admittedly in some of the fashion techniques but they are just big heavy Cleavers that are blunt and that's kind of where that one's starting to go it's not a yeah yeah it's not a fellowship now what's interesting the hmb has some historical precedent in medieval tournaments combat yes because I would all wear heavy armor and so the way that you defeat heavy armor is with blunt force but a regular sword doesn't have the mass to actually regularly do blunt force through you know the armor and so because a lot of it is just hitting on Armor right they purposely have really overbuilt swords which might actually be somewhat accurate to Medieval tournament swords but not medieval warfare or combat swords no and one of the things of a really thin blade which I'm sure people have already jumped in the comments for this one is you can get it and lever it up inside plates now with hmb stabbing is actually not allowed because it is stabbing is the most dangerous thing I can do um but a really thin blade will then get up inside those really close tight plates so yeah yeah not quite it's just interesting that this sword arrived with all the criticisms that I was already mentioning about most of the Falcons that you buy online where they haven't thought about true functionality it's way too thick and therefore way too heavy and it doesn't have the correct armor bevel profiling so this is all flat okay when there should be some level of bevel tapering here to reduce weight and then if you had it thinner and you had the bevel running all along from the Fuller this blade would easily be half the weight easily easily easily because you're actually taking off more than half exactly exactly and so it would still look the same on profile except perhaps maybe such a profound and prominent main bevel and you can see why from a modern standpoint like just getting a machine to jig that out is is easy but like it would go from you know a bevel starting around about here to then coming up at a nice tight angle which would need a custom jig if we're going to going to machine it so to get such specific um Edge profiling you need to do it hand ground on a sander most of the time and as a result yeah this is a perfect example of all the like worst types of factions you can buy online because they all fall into this um you know this thing and it's just so interesting that this machete technically has a more historically authentic blade on it than his Falcon this Falcon has a more machete like blade so it's interesting because like you said that that was the cheaper of one of the ones and they've gone cheaper to be thin and it's actually come out more historical not that that's what the manufacturers intended but it's a it's a beautiful fluke for us I know I know we're going to be having fun with this one there's going to be a future project video coming up where we're going to see what we can do with this blade but the purpose of this one is to actually more accurately help you define the difference and know the difference between a machete and a falcon okay and there's subtle differences summarizing it quickly correct profiling on the edge bevel and distal taper most machetes don't have that the fact this one from a true like the thing is I don't think that this is a great machete The Edge is complete dog crap and there is such a like a bevel lip on this where there is like burring over on one side that this would almost be unusable so this isn't a shout out to this one there's problems with it but the fact that there are some really good elements that they got they nailed really great this is an excellent blank to make a very historical Fountain like like look how light and Nimble this is and this is with not even with a counterbalance so there is some fun we're going to have with that but there we go that's the difference not all Falcons are machetes not all machetes are falcons but you can find some that are actually far more fashion-like than even Falcons that you can buy on the market today thank you for watching guys hope you've enjoyed hope you found it informative and of course I hope to see you on the next video here on shadowversity so until that time thank you [Music] foreign foreign foreign foreign [Music]

Channel: Shadiversity

Views: 143,181

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Id: 27PG_noItfQ

Length: 17min 49sec (1069 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 18 2023