WHY BUY MY SABER GRIP WIRE WRAP
Here we have an early German worker drawing wire through a iron plate with a series of progressively smaller holes to obtain the gauge, diameter size, wire needed. the worker would use a pair of pliers to grasp the wire, then placing his feet on the base that holds the iron plate, use his legs to pull the wire through the sizing iron plate. The swing, a labor saving device, would allow him to pull back on the wire and then return to his original position to gain a new hold on the wire and do the whole process again. This could get real interesting since he was working with near, if not, red hot metal. His leggings were probably made from leather.
Do you know why the higher the gauge number, the smaller the wire diameter is?
Click Here for the Answer
There is much erroneous information about U.S. swords and sabers in print. I find myself constantly bombarded with insults hurled by individuals, whom I refer to as "flat earthers". Instead of looking at the facts before them, or even the very blades they are restoring, these so called experts quote chapter and verse from their high price tomes and name me a heretic. So be it, I'll show you what I know and let you be the judge.
I am compiling this web page and others to demonstrate my findings to others who will listen and to help an author/editor, who is revising an already published book on American swords and sabers. Books should be used as a reference, not held as the word of God. People do the research for the books many value so highly, and people make mistakes.
Some may ask why I don't "restore" swords. Its not that I can't, its simply because I don't. I find swords have history to tell. They speak loud and clear to me in their original state. They are old soldiers with stories to share. Their scars speak volumes if one only listens. How many dented saber scabbards have been restored? Do you even know why many were dented by their original owners? Click Here for the Answer. This is a question whose answer can tell if you really know anything about military swords. Not the statistics that can be found in a book written by someone with a passing fancy and paying little attention to details. Many a cavalry and mounted artillery saber have dented scabbards because these were the tools of the real soldiers, not some faunning fop who sat in the shade on a hill sipping either a mint julip or a snifter of brandy, while others gave their lives for their beliefs and principles.
Every nick in each blade has to be translated, was this a brush with death in the heat of battle. Or simply a childhood near miss of a trip to the emergency room for stitches? Each dent in each scabbard tells of near cataclysm from musket ball, saber blow, sharpnel strike or of happy childhood play in days long gone by.
I may sound like a hypocrite, since I sell supplies to those who restore swords, but I am a realist. If someone is going to restore a sword, I may as well help them do it right.
The wire I work with is sized with the Brown & Sharpe gauge system. The Brown & Sharpe gauge system was established in 1855, which has been adopted in the United States as the American. 20 Gauge wire by the Washburn & Moen standard should measure an actual .0348. However, by Brown & Sharpe standard, 20 Gauge wire should measure an actual .0320. So, the Brown & Sharpe 20 gauge wire I work with is a little larger than 21 gauge by the Washburn & Moen standard.
Sound confusing? There are over fifteen differnt wire gauging systems, and at least a third of them were in use during the time of the American Civil War!.
WHOMISIT, © 2004, Created - [April 6, 2004]
