French dagger for comment

[Sajen]

Originally Posted by Helleri

Curvature in a blade is for:

1) Increasing the amount of edge contained within a length (A curved blade has more edge than a strait blade measured guard to tip in a strait line).

2) Increasing ability to absorb and redistribute shock from lateral or shear impact.

3) Decreasing the area of contact so as to magnify force (a reduction in area concentrates and amplifies force in the same way that a lens can gather light into a single more intense point).

When a blade is curved it looses some thrust efficiency. It also gains cutting efficiency. However the veins of the foiling on this blade would prevent the blade from making a through cut. That doesn't mean that it should have no cutting capacity. Push and pull cutting is a useful tactic in many combative forms. But the same increase in cutting efficiency can be achieved without sacrificing thrusting efficiency by profile tapering of a blade.

The foils get in the way of the curvature being effective for cutting. The curvature brings the tip off center-line and thus detracts from the foils ability to aid in thrusting. The design of the blade shows confusion. It doesn't know what it wants to be so it ends up not being particularly good at either mode of use (or at least not nearly as good as it could be in either capacity).

It's still cool looking. But I wouldn't want to take it into a fight over a blade that is better designed for doing one thing or the other. Or over a blade that uses tapering to be good at both things. Not all old weapons were necessarily well conceived. A maker might be really good at the technical aspects of constructing a blade but have no eye for practicality due to no combat experience. Or maybe they are deliberately departing from what is known to work as an experiment.

Not saying the blade isn't worth owning. Because of it's odd design it might be more worth owning. As it makes it a good conversation piece. A blade that shows how a blade should not be designed is as useful as one that shows what works the best for purpose in use.

Hello Helleri,

you are certainly correct but there a lot of similar styled blades like this, think only to khanjars.
And think about that you push a dagger not always in a straight line. I am not used in material arts so I only can guess.
Anyway, I like it and it will stay for some time in my collection.

Regards,
Detlef