The pommel is a flattened pear shape, and is actually constructed from five pieces of steel. It seems that the same piece of steel forms the blade and center of the pommel, the meat of the sandwich. On the sides of the tang, there are two separate pieces of steel, much like lettuce and tomato. Then, two pieces of steel are laid on top and bottom like bread. Finally, all five of these pieces are peened together with steel rivets, much like the steel rivets found in my father’s sandwiches he made for us as children. It’s all solid though.

Two, the grip. The outer grip is thick cord, but with some sort of bonding agent. It provides a grippy ... but not too grippy ... surface without being too abrasive, and it’s rock solid. It’s tapered rather nicely, which I am a huge fan of. It is a little uneven towards the bottom, however. You can slightly feel it in your hands while it is not in motion.

Third, the curves. Particularly, the curves of the parrying hooks, and the curves of the point. The point has a nice swelled tip. The parrying hooks also have nice squared/rounded points. I’ve accidentally driven these parrying hooks into my back and across my scalp while practicing some de Viedma, and boy, am I a fan of those curves.

Performance

“Dance with it”, “It’s not a longsword”. -Montante Swordsmanship comments under a thread about what you wish that you could tell your past self in regards to practicing the montante.

Yeah, all of that. x100. It handles well, it flows nicely, but if I don’t move it how the treatises say to move it, it fights me. With an aligned edge, it provides a nice sword wind that even my cell phone camera can pick up while outdoors.

And yes, I did have the chance to do something incredibly stupid. Slow and controlled free play, montante-a-montante. This wasn’t planned, but it (and I, and he), held up. The blade did not get chewed up, and the swelled point performed rather well at a slow speed as I landed some thrusts on a friend while he was wearing a HEMA fencing jacket.