Chinese saber guards - forged or cast?

[Timo Nieminen]

The most common are:

(a) Tang through grip and peened at end of pommel, often with a hole through grip or tang which might have a rivet/pin or tubular rivet through it (or just a lanyard, but note that a tubular rivet allows a lanyard), or

(b) A wider tang with two grip slabs rivetted to it. Often with ring pommel, but sometimes no pommel, or a butt plate (with a little projection at the end of the tang peened over it), or the end of the tang is flared and the very end flattened into a butt plate, or

(c) Sometimes, with a ring pommel or pommel rivetted to a flared end of the tang, there are no rivet holes where the grip would be. Probably just grip made to fit between guard and pommel, and then cord or cloth wrapped; the pommel will stop it from coming off. The tang can be narrower than the grip, in which case the grip encloses the tang (basically, the same as Medieval European grip construction, except for the absence of a leather grip covering), but I've see one where the tang looked to be the full width of the grip.

Some examples (see pics):

A: Tang has rivet holes. Tang is narrow and fairly square. Looks like the (two piece) grip would have enclosed the tang, and been wrapped with cord.

B: No rivet holes in tang. Two piece grip would enclose tang, wrapped.

C: Grip slabs rivetted to tang (this is the single-slab sword noted above, but it would look the same from this side with two slabs). Maybe this grip would be wrapped too, but it's optional.

D: No rivet holes for grip, tang is wide. Two grip slabs, wrapped?

Modern construction varies a lot. A common good modern construction is that the end of the tang is threaded, and a large nut and washer hold the grip on, and a small nut holds the pommel on, and a rivet/pin goes through the grip and tang. Steps towards worse quality include one nut only at end of pommel, one nut at end of grip and pommel glued on, no rivet/pin through tang, threaded rod welded onto end of tang instead of the end of the tang itself being threaded, tangs too thin and/or narrow, and single piece drilled grip instead of two-piece grip properly fitted to the tang. This last defect is very common (but can be fixed by suitable use of epoxy or epoxy putty (or by making a new grip)).

I have one old ring-pommel dao with only one grip slab, and it looks like it only ever had one. Must be 1/2 of a pair-in-one-scabbard.

Usually, it isn't too hard to replace a guard with a new one (a plain mild steel one, for example). It also isn't too hard to make a plain steel guard - hacksaw, drill, files, and some time and effort. A cup guard could be cold-forged, if the steel isn't too thick.