@@tommeakin1732 US stuff is usually called "freedom stuff". So that's US dollars. Another thing is "freedom units" aka Imperial measurements (inches/oz/whatever) used in the US.
Have you thought about using wax rods? ...Depending on the type of wax you can make them of different levels of hardness and once you have done cutting them you can simply retrieve the pieces and melt them into new rods, making them essentially endlessly recyclable!
A blend of Freeman Premium Injection Wax, Paraffin and Beeswax (ratio 10-30-60) should for instance give you pleasantly firm rod to cut wile also being malleable enough as to not shatter on impact, I tried the recipe a year or so ago (found it on YT) for carving and felt extremely good to cut with a small knife, I imagine that the same would apply with swords...
@@odiogoponto That could also work but using water bottles would kinda defeat the recyclability aspect... Maybe conbining the two ideas? ballistic for flesh and wax for bones? ...Though to properly cast it you would have to use two molds and a wax with an higher melting point of ballistic gel, first you would cast the "bone" and then place it in the middle of the mold were you would cast the gel.
Also, wax could be used to add rigidity to other materials, say waxed paper or waxed textiles. May have advantages and disadvantages compared to pure wax.
a cheap alternative to tatami are beach mats, the straw ones, we use them in iaido practice definitivly suggested you prepare them in the same way of tatami mats
I was about to say the same thing. Since the plastic foam can't biodegrade or be recycled, it can at least be reused; ground-up pieces of it could still be useful for a long time. I think it would especially work as stuffing for things that will be struck with blunt force.
@@lunarkomet Not all forms of plastic are the same, and some are easier to recycle than others. And depending on where you live, the nearest recycling plant might not accept certain kinds of plastic waste, even if it is technically recyclable. (If you're curious, try searching for an article about the 7 types of consumer plastics. They'll usually lay out which ones get recycled and which ones don't.) Pool noodles are generally made out of polyethylene foam, which most facilities don't recycle. So, that's why we're suggesting ways to reuse the stuff as many times as possible.
I really like this, like stick and compress them into a thick pad somehow? Or even like compress them in a cardboard box until they stick together and stay together Not sure if heat or some liquid glue poured in would help with that? You might just have to shredded them small enough to make it work
Shad will probably like this suggestion. I hear emus are GREAT for testing the cutting capacity of swords, plus, it’ll help prepare for the second great emu war.
Even suggesting such transgressions could escalate the tension to a full blown nuclear war. I'd be careful if I were you, the emus have spies everywhere
Sellsword Arts has a vid on how he prepares cardboard for cutting. Seems to work when he does it. He wets them before rolling, rolls them tightly whilst wet, dries them for 3 days, then when he cuts with them, he dips them in water with detergent for 60 seconds.
True. I see an opportunity to live vicariously through someone cutting random things with awesome swords I can't afford, I take full advantage of that opportunity. Really good "bad day" therapy too.
But then, according to some sources, said convicted criminals found a way to get their revenge by swallowing stones prior to execution, so the swords would get blunted when cutting through said criminal.
Since Shad and them wanted suggestions for cutting stuff that helps with sword testing here are my picks: Fruits are a good medium(coconuts and pineapples for hard targets, watermelon and honey dew for soft targets) but can be on the expensive side of things depending on where you buy it. Straps and other material similar to it can be used just stretch it tight and cut and you can get multiple cuts, but again expensive. Rolled up banana leaves may be a good option, idk about price. Finally, small tree branches less than 50 mm or 2 inches in diameter would be a solid target to test both for sharpness and angle the best part is price it is free once you get done trimming the trees and stuff.
As an addition to the tree branch thought. Neighbors are a good source of wood in the summer as they may be able to offer what they have pruned. Local park maintenance groups and woodland management groups are also an option. I say the latter as I've worked with a group that did the maintenance for a local nature reserve and would take requests by folk on occasion if they asked nicely.
Ear of corn or a baguette would probably be good. They should still be good to eat after getting chopped as long as they don't land in the dirt. Candles/wax. If you make a mold you can even melt down the chopped bits for re-use. Roll of cheap crafting leather. Might be a bit on the pricey side, but I bet it would be satisfying to cut. At least the guys could probably find it locally unlike tatami. Scarecrow. Make an old-fashioned scarecrow with burlap sacks, sticks and straw. Would be cheap and easy to repair, unlike their poor test dummy.
what about a bundle of cattails or reeds freshly harvested from the lake in the shadlands? because that is essentially what tatami mats are made from. it will take some figuring out for the proper binding technique but the material should be free (as i said, shad litterally has a property with a lake on it where they should grow like weeds)
If you want to roll cardboard tighter, wet it slightly, not to much just enough for it to be more malleable, roll it and them dry it. There might be some warp introduced if it's drying at the different relate in different spots. You can also separate layers of cardboard to make it more "flexible"or whatever correct terminology is right, then wet it, roll and dry
@razzo086 sure if you like grown men acting like children. It was a little too on the nose for me. But then again I'm not the type to fart in the bath and laugh about it.
I am not sure if anyone has mentioned it, but you can get pipe isolation material at hardware stores that is essentially a pool noodle in varying thicknesses and diameters. Also I got a package with some starch packing peanuts. It is extruded starch foam, if one could make them bigger, I bet they would be great for cutting. And when they get wet, they melt away.
Pro tip: for anyone getting into cutting and wants to use pool noodles, buy them in the Fall when stores are trying to get rid of them. I would say Winter but they're usually trashed by then
Shad does a great job showing how even a blunt, unsharpened sword can do a lot of damage. His sword didn't cut through the mat but if that was a human they would be toast.
Remember Skal saying that water bottles are really good practice for edge alignment cuz really only proper edge alignment allows you to cut them cleanly without knocking them over so you have quick feedback on that
I think you could stiffen the pool noodle by putting gardening bamboo tutors in them, in my local gardening shop they are pretty cheap and could be a good core (the problem with them lies in their hardness so having between 2/4 should be plenty bc else it could start to be really rough on the blade)
I came down here to comment about using wooden dowels in the pool noodles. Your alternative is probably cheaper. On the other hand there are many choices for the wood used in the dowels. This would allow choice in the hardness/resistance.
I heard that in acent turkey, worriors would train their edge allainment as well as the power of the cut with clay blocks so that's a interesting one, but hanging paper also works well for simple edge alignment training
Suggestions to try: - Freezing.1) Lightly dampened, then rolled, then frozen cardboard. 2) Frozen pool noodle. - Sunflower stalks, as fresh as you can get. See if there are any florists/farmers that could help you. A bundle of those could be pretty good. Other long stemmed flowers/plants might work too. Something with the right level of firmness and suppleness without being overly fibrous like corn stalks. - Stale baguettes.
I came here for the cutting fun. However, at 16:00, when you guys are talking about the pool noodles. That part of the conversation is a perfect example of of explaining what you feel vs explaining the characteristics of the object. A little context to why I found this AMAZINGLY INTERESTING : I'm a musician that works with music technology. So basically my world is walking on the fence between engineering and art. This means I have to balance subjective vs objective methods quite frequently. And teaching this often times to musicians, whom are very profecient in the subjective matter, but not the objective, and the most important, being objective with the subjective description. As the case of the video! The gentleman on the left (sorry I don't know your names, please someone let me know for future comments, I'd like to pay the due respects to all the mad lads at shadiversity) was explaining his feeling of what the experience was like to cut the noodles. Where as the gentleman on the right explained the physical aspect of the noodles as to why it was strange. When saying "foamy" I can't understand what that is like, because for me I was starting to think "like foam in the soap?" and when the other gentleman said "floppy" I fully understood. Both descriptions have their place, but one actually explains to others that didn't partake in the experience much better than the other description given. As always, great content to you all. Peace from Brazil!
there are different kinds of "foam" they all describe a lattice made of thin material surrounding cells of air/gas there is open celled foam, which is used for filters and artificial sponges. then there is closed celled foam which is usually created by mixing a self curing plastic material with a foaming agent that produces a gas (poly urethane foam for construction, styrofoam) or by introducing air under pressure before extruding it.(pool noodles & packing peanuts) if the material surrounding the bubbles does not cure into a solid the foam will dissolve eventually (egg foam, whipped cream, soap foam)
You can soak pool noodles. It takes like, a freaking week, but they become completely waterlogged. If they don't soak anything up first try leave them in the sun for a week then try again.
How about hay/straw bundles? If a sickle can cut it I think a sword can. Reeds maybe or similar perhaps, whatever is local. In general any green plant growth would work well. You could also try cucumbers and similar veg.
@@nathanc939 Some posts above someone suggested coconuts sooo.... Since tatami itselve is the straw leftovers of riceplants I'm not shure wether your argument is realy appliable.
@@leoncaruthers its the same with tatami mats. Swords are generally a higher quality steel so hold their edge better and the volume is far less. You could cut a hundred tatami mat cuts worth in a few minutes with a scythe on grass.
When I was in the dojo, we came across the same problem with Tatami mats....What we found worked as a "close enough" analog was beach matts.......they are dirt cheap like the pool noodles and we had a side by side comparison. Yes tatami is better, but the straw beach mats worked out close enough. Specially the straw kind, you might get some made of plastic strands which could also be interesting. And Someone get Shad balistic gel body to hack up!
Some cheap wax, soap, bad colored cheap art clay, or other such material can be formed into test blanks (possibly with support material) and also be recycled by just resetting it back to the blank block form.
Things like wicker, reed and several other natural origin types are easily available as materials for fences or decoration in hardware stores, in rolls, with different finishes and different measurements. I'm sure one could find something analogous to tatami somewhere in there... something not containing metal links and with as little finish as possible should be the the better option... safe for testing purposes, at least! Cool video, as always, thanks for all your work, guys!
As someone who's been called a weeb, I laughed when Shad called Tyranth "The Weeb." It's a word that started as a derogatory term, but it's just hilarious how it's become an embraced identifier.
I love how shad is just slowly slowly becoming a background gag in every shot, this isn’t even sarcastic it’s genuinely hilarious to have tyranth genuinely discussing blades and then shad shouting in the background cuz his fingers trapped in a pool noodle
Im in the middle of watching this, but ThegnThrand does soaked newspapers, and its where I got the idea from and they work fine. You give it like a 5-10 minute soak, and since its all rolled up it holds together fairly well as a mass.
what you might be able to do to get better use from the pool noodle is sliding a thin cardboard tube inside of it, like a paper-towel roll to help stiffen it up a bit more or something similar that isn't too large. Or maybe even wrapping paper tubes by themselves, those might work.
Wood is also very much fun to cut, my brother, parents and I often go to the woods and set a campfire up cutting the wood ourselves and so on, the only “sword” that i own is a machete with a blade kind of similar to a wakizashi and i love cutting wood with it, i know that axes are better suited for cutting wood but its actually really good for edge alignment and testing the importance of velocity and the amount of force used. Its just great.
Since you live out a ways, one thing that you might consider is growing a Bamboo Grove. It will take a few years to get them fully self sustaining, but Bamboo may also be a good eco friendly cutting target. And if you create your own Grove, it can be very affordable and it grows very quickly. I watched a couple videos about a guy that grew his own bamboo grove and had several different kinds. It had tips on what to do if you wanted to grow your own.
I LOVE using newspaper... I'm an archer & used 6" of NP with cardboard on the out-side. I was using a 55 lbs. compound bow @ 15 yards. After a reasonable amount of hits, it would blow out in a cloud of confetti!!! Very satisfying! I was good - 6 arrows in 6" dia. consistently @ that distance.
It always surprises me when countries don't have drinkable tap water. I mean, I get it if your a very poor country but so many very wealthy country don't have drinkable tap water. How can you spend billions if not trillions of dollars in government budget and at no point go: Maybe we should ensure everyone has good quality drinking water! Just the amount of plastic waste that would disappear because of it would be worth it. But I guess putting billions in the military takes priority... every year.
Cheap and enviromentally friendly is definitley one way to go, but another possible avenue to explore is reusable. Ballistics gel comes to mind, but from what I heard it's not the best for cutting tests, probably since it's kind of sticky and grabs blades. But then I got to thinking, what about wax, there are a ton of waxes out there that you could easilly melt and cast to whatever shape you need, andd once you cut it up you could just pick up the pieces and re-melt and cast them agian.
One thought would be to use sugar cane, its sold rather cheap even in long stalks here in central/southern texas. Biodegradable, and not as hard as bamboo or other grasses.
I would not give up on paper just yet. As it can absorb water quite nicely, it can be hardened with bonding agents that are water soluble. PVA glue would probably give you the most efficient results, but if you care about it being bio-degradable, you can use natural bonding agents like rice paste, corn starch or potato starch. My methodology to prep the papers would be to create a solution of water and bonding agent, then let the paper soak in it page by page for a bit (not too long, as you don't want it to melt), then wrap it around a pipe tightly, like you would make a cast on it. As it dries out, you should rotate it from time to time, to let the cast dry out more evenly (especially in case you are creating thicker casts). Although it is a bit time consuming, the cut pieces can be reused (just soak them in water for a bit to get the layers to separate, then reapply them in your new cast), and you can also control the thickness and hardness of the material you are going to cut. Also, it has the benefit of being able to make cast around different shapes, like water balloons for example. You could also increase the strength of the cast by creating a pressing mold: create the cast as described previously, cut a wider diameter pipe in half (with the inner diameter of the intended result), then use F-style clamps to press the two parts together. The whole method's biggest disadvantage I see is trying to figure out the best ratio for the biding solution will be really time consuming, as the samples need a relatively long time to dry out and will vary for different thicknesses. Also, uneven drying could result in flaking or separation of the layers, but I don't know how much that would figure into the intended use.
A friend of mine has taken to using pool noodles that have been slightly augmented; they have a crafting dowel glued into the middle of them. Diameter of the dowel varies depending on the rigidity of the noodle. Not entirely a full fix but it works enough for first and second passes on edge alignment.
The pool noodles can be glued back together easily, as they are a closed cell foam. Then you can reuse them multiple times. You can pack the centres with bamboo garden stakes to firm them up as well or with reeds.
Bamboo is easy to grow, fairly easy to control, and depending on what type will give you food, building materials, or both. It will give you a consistent material for testing cuts while providing food for you, fodder for your animals (not particularly high quality though) materials for projects.
Those pool noodles have holes in the middle, so you could put something like a wooden STICK inside, for both rigidity, and bone-analog. I have only seen solid pool noodles around here (Finland).
Dollar store bathroom rugs would likely be a great option to roll up and use (the ones that are like stitched together fabric mini rolls, almost island raft style) Or, you can make similar stuff out of old ratty clothes like tshirts with holes in them. You can also take fibrous materials like that post-cut and blend them into fluff, then basically papermache them back together for a decent cutting target
A Chinese region used to make armour out of layers of paper due to it's cut and piercing resistance to smaller edged weapons. It is lighter than metal, so useful in faster, more close quater combat. Sounds awesome. Sounds like an episode 😉
Well, if you want a better human analog cutting target than tatami, I suppose you could could form ballistic gel in a cylindrical mold with green bamboo in the center to represent bone). That wouldn’t be particularly inexpensive either though.
How about some -) clothes -) clothes surrounding feathers or different kind of stuffings -) bed sheets -) leaves or mown grass in a net/string -) bound reed/hay(better high grown grass/bushes) -) candles -) waxed clothes/strings/.... -) hawser/rope -) bow taunt strings?
For the pool tubes try wrapping them in one thin layer of glued paper and/or rags, and put a tree branch down the center, then its a decent analogue for arm construction
I use large cardboard boxes as cutting stands. Metal plate whatever empty plastic bottles I have filled with water on them and that's what I do. So my blind but gets the satisfaction of cutting through gallon milk jugs and water bottles and detergent containers and you name it. It's a lot of fun and then at the box underneath that is a nice thing it's too wet I can destroy that with whatever weapon I choose. Recycling the fun way.
Dried and woven straw into tubes with a think branch in the centre would probably be fun to cut and you can teach the kids to do it on a shadlands video!
roll long grass while its still wet very tightly, tie with twine, let it dry for storage. When you go to use it, soak it quick, can throw a couple very thin sticks in there for structural support when rolling
Great video! My local library also got shadow of the conqueror so I can finally read it! I'm loving the book so far and look forward to seeing both more episodes and more of the novel!
I work in shipping and cardboard is actually really durable. We use large 4'x4'x4' cardboard boxes to ship items in bulk. With our equipment were limited to loading them at 1000 pounds each and stacking them 4 boxes high but they could bear much heavier loads.
Shad had a lot of land now surely theres some kind of grass or reeds you could bundle.. thatching grass ... Or even plant for the purposes of cutting... Grow crops for authenticity and then use stalks for chopping...
Question: What did people in Europe do to test swords? Did they have something specific? Was something more popular in some regions or some centuries? Did that change? They must've tested swords somehow, and obviously they had to practice edge alignment as well. What did they use?
I wonder if you laid straw out on a piece of rough canvas fabric (like a potato sack) and made sure the straw were all in the same direction, then maybe you could roll the fabric up and have the straw on the inside, then tie it off with some string. Would that work as an analog?
something that may work as a replacement to tatami mats could be a yoga mat. they can be fairly cheap and easy to cut but durable so might be a halfway point between the pool noodle and tatami
The ABS (American Bladesmith Society) uses 3 feet of free hanging 1 inch (2.5cm for the nerds) manila rope as part of their official cutting test when someone is trying to advance in rank (journeyman, adept, master smith). Or, if you don't mind a bit of seasonal labor, corn stalk is a heck of a cutting medium that takes practice to chop, both fresh green stalk, or dried. Plus you get corn at harvest time!
"Tatami - 20 dollars plus 40 for shipping" - painful australian moment
$40 in freedom dollars, for those interested
@@TechnoMinarchist What's a "freedom dollar"? It sounds ironic
@@TechnoMinarchist wow
😂🙈😅 It's not cheap to have fun 😭
@@tommeakin1732 US stuff is usually called "freedom stuff". So that's US dollars. Another thing is "freedom units" aka Imperial measurements (inches/oz/whatever) used in the US.
Someone, somewhere, somewhen: "Cut the crap!"
Shadiversity: "Challenge accepted!"
And if you are silent enough - you can hear the echo of dismembered cans (and bottles)
Huh. That one got stuck.. on the sword.
I'm solely here for the thumbnail LMAO
This needs to be pinned.
Someone, somewhere, somewhen: "Cuth WITH crap!"
Peter Freuchen: "I already did that!"
"This is disgusting"... takes another sip 🤣
Hey, when you're thirsty and desperate, any water will do. 😉
It's his dedication to drinking the blood of his fallen enemies.
Any day is a good day to cut random crap with massive swords honestly
💯 agree - it's so much fun 😁👍
Have you thought about using wax rods? ...Depending on the type of wax you can make them of different levels of hardness and once you have done cutting them you can simply retrieve the pieces and melt them into new rods, making them essentially endlessly recyclable!
I think balistic gel is reusable also. But you would need something to give it structure. Water botles maybe?
A blend of Freeman Premium Injection Wax, Paraffin and Beeswax (ratio 10-30-60) should for instance give you pleasantly firm rod to cut wile also being malleable enough as to not shatter on impact, I tried the recipe a year or so ago (found it on YT) for carving and felt extremely good to cut with a small knife, I imagine that the same would apply with swords...
@@odiogoponto That could also work but using water bottles would kinda defeat the recyclability aspect... Maybe conbining the two ideas? ballistic for flesh and wax for bones? ...Though to properly cast it you would have to use two molds and a wax with an higher melting point of ballistic gel, first you would cast the "bone" and then place it in the middle of the mold were you would cast the gel.
Also, wax could be used to add rigidity to other materials, say waxed paper or waxed textiles. May have advantages and disadvantages compared to pure wax.
@@Tennouseijin dip pool noodles in wax?
a cheap alternative to tatami are beach mats, the straw ones, we use them in iaido practice definitivly suggested you prepare them in the same way of tatami mats
As a method of recycling your pool noodles, you might be able to use the chunks as stuffing for something like an archery pad or maybe a dummy
I was about to say the same thing. Since the plastic foam can't biodegrade or be recycled, it can at least be reused; ground-up pieces of it could still be useful for a long time. I think it would especially work as stuffing for things that will be struck with blunt force.
@@LamanKnight some types of foam can be shredded and made into pellets. I work at a plastic recycling plant.
@@LamanKnight plastic can't be recycled? Wut...
@@lunarkomet Not all forms of plastic are the same, and some are easier to recycle than others. And depending on where you live, the nearest recycling plant might not accept certain kinds of plastic waste, even if it is technically recyclable. (If you're curious, try searching for an article about the 7 types of consumer plastics. They'll usually lay out which ones get recycled and which ones don't.)
Pool noodles are generally made out of polyethylene foam, which most facilities don't recycle. So, that's why we're suggesting ways to reuse the stuff as many times as possible.
I really like this, like stick and compress them into a thick pad somehow? Or even like compress them in a cardboard box until they stick together and stay together
Not sure if heat or some liquid glue poured in would help with that? You might just have to shredded them small enough to make it work
Shad will probably like this suggestion. I hear emus are GREAT for testing the cutting capacity of swords, plus, it’ll help prepare for the second great emu war.
Tasty too, I hear.
Even suggesting such transgressions could escalate the tension to a full blown nuclear war. I'd be careful if I were you, the emus have spies everywhere
@@liamrobinson2084loser
Seeing you guys so happy cutting stuff makes me happy.
Sellsword Arts has a vid on how he prepares cardboard for cutting. Seems to work when he does it.
He wets them before rolling, rolls them tightly whilst wet, dries them for 3 days, then when he cuts with them, he dips them in water with detergent for 60 seconds.
Any idea on the title of it?
@@Umlee-Kerymansrivarrwael "Practice sword cutting for FREE"
I don’t know why you’re cutting but I’ll watch
I saw Shad, I click
I know but im still watching of course XD
I'm a simple person, I see shiny swords cutting things that's not humans or other living things, I click & hit the like button.
True. I see an opportunity to live vicariously through someone cutting random things with awesome swords I can't afford, I take full advantage of that opportunity. Really good "bad day" therapy too.
I feel like no matter the method, if something is getting destroyed, people are going to like it. Later analysis is just the cherry on top.
I think the ancient Japanese Samurai found the best analogue for testing the cutting power of swords.
Convicted criminals.
depending on the time period and region they also used random people at crossroads at night
or possibly streamers.... too soon?
@@Cassandra112 guh ? context ?
But then, according to some sources, said convicted criminals found a way to get their revenge by swallowing stones prior to execution, so the swords would get blunted when cutting through said criminal.
Live quenching?
Since Shad and them wanted suggestions for cutting stuff that helps with sword testing here are my picks:
Fruits are a good medium(coconuts and pineapples for hard targets, watermelon and honey dew for soft targets) but can be on the expensive side of things depending on where you buy it.
Straps and other material similar to it can be used just stretch it tight and cut and you can get multiple cuts, but again expensive.
Rolled up banana leaves may be a good option, idk about price.
Finally, small tree branches less than 50 mm or 2 inches in diameter would be a solid target to test both for sharpness and angle the best part is price it is free once you get done trimming the trees and stuff.
As an addition to the tree branch thought. Neighbors are a good source of wood in the summer as they may be able to offer what they have pruned. Local park maintenance groups and woodland management groups are also an option. I say the latter as I've worked with a group that did the maintenance for a local nature reserve and would take requests by folk on occasion if they asked nicely.
Ear of corn or a baguette would probably be good. They should still be good to eat after getting chopped as long as they don't land in the dirt.
Candles/wax. If you make a mold you can even melt down the chopped bits for re-use.
Roll of cheap crafting leather. Might be a bit on the pricey side, but I bet it would be satisfying to cut. At least the guys could probably find it locally unlike tatami.
Scarecrow. Make an old-fashioned scarecrow with burlap sacks, sticks and straw. Would be cheap and easy to repair, unlike their poor test dummy.
Paper machete is also probably pretty good although it takes work lol
what about a bundle of cattails or reeds freshly harvested from the lake in the shadlands? because that is essentially what tatami mats are made from.
it will take some figuring out for the proper binding technique but the material should be free (as i said, shad litterally has a property with a lake on it where they should grow like weeds)
Tyranth's constant switching haircut was fun to see.
The cutting was also fun.
Tyranth's katana cut looked really cool
“We’re gonna be testing, all the different things you cut “SWORDS” with” 0:21
I’m still waiting to see them cut a sword with a pool noodle 😂😂😂
Old Shad's videos now feel a bit incomplete when you see Shad alone. :D
You two are great additions.
Finally! 😁
The long awaited sequel to *_"Why am I floating in a barrel?"_*
I never knew Auzzie tap water was so bad.
I've heard bamboo was used back in the day a lot.
If you want to roll cardboard tighter, wet it slightly, not to much just enough for it to be more malleable, roll it and them dry it. There might be some warp introduced if it's drying at the different relate in different spots. You can also separate layers of cardboard to make it more "flexible"or whatever correct terminology is right, then wet it, roll and dry
Shad was like a kid playing with that pool noodle
Yeah, disappointing.
@@jackson102881 disappointing… It’s bloody hilarious 😆
@razzo086 sure if you like grown men acting like children. It was a little too on the nose for me. But then again I'm not the type to fart in the bath and laugh about it.
@@jackson102881 mate you sound like a tight arse
@@jackson102881 Something to consider. If you don't find farts funny, you will have just as many farts in your life, but less humour.
I am not sure if anyone has mentioned it, but you can get pipe isolation material at hardware stores that is essentially a pool noodle in varying thicknesses and diameters.
Also I got a package with some starch packing peanuts. It is extruded starch foam, if one could make them bigger, I bet they would be great for cutting. And when they get wet, they melt away.
Pro tip: for anyone getting into cutting and wants to use pool noodles, buy them in the Fall when stores are trying to get rid of them. I would say Winter but they're usually trashed by then
Shad does a great job showing how even a blunt, unsharpened sword can do a lot of damage. His sword didn't cut through the mat but if that was a human they would be toast.
Remember Skal saying that water bottles are really good practice for edge alignment cuz really only proper edge alignment allows you to cut them cleanly without knocking them over so you have quick feedback on that
I think you could stiffen the pool noodle by putting gardening bamboo tutors in them, in my local gardening shop they are pretty cheap and could be a good core (the problem with them lies in their hardness so having between 2/4 should be plenty bc else it could start to be really rough on the blade)
I came down here to comment about using wooden dowels in the pool noodles. Your alternative is probably cheaper. On the other hand there are many choices for the wood used in the dowels. This would allow choice in the hardness/resistance.
I heard that in acent turkey, worriors would train their edge allainment as well as the power of the cut with clay blocks so that's a interesting one, but hanging paper also works well for simple edge alignment training
That's one I've seen before, just a bit roll of paper suspended. You just pull more down and slice away
Love the energy from Shad, enjoy England!
Suggestions to try:
- Freezing.1) Lightly dampened, then rolled, then frozen cardboard. 2) Frozen pool noodle.
- Sunflower stalks, as fresh as you can get. See if there are any florists/farmers that could help you. A bundle of those could be pretty good. Other long stemmed flowers/plants might work too. Something with the right level of firmness and suppleness without being overly fibrous like corn stalks.
- Stale baguettes.
I came here for the cutting fun. However, at 16:00, when you guys are talking about the pool noodles. That part of the conversation is a perfect example of of explaining what you feel vs explaining the characteristics of the object. A little context to why I found this AMAZINGLY INTERESTING :
I'm a musician that works with music technology. So basically my world is walking on the fence between engineering and art. This means I have to balance subjective vs objective methods quite frequently. And teaching this often times to musicians, whom are very profecient in the subjective matter, but not the objective, and the most important, being objective with the subjective description.
As the case of the video! The gentleman on the left (sorry I don't know your names, please someone let me know for future comments, I'd like to pay the due respects to all the mad lads at shadiversity) was explaining his feeling of what the experience was like to cut the noodles. Where as the gentleman on the right explained the physical aspect of the noodles as to why it was strange. When saying "foamy" I can't understand what that is like, because for me I was starting to think "like foam in the soap?" and when the other gentleman said "floppy" I fully understood. Both descriptions have their place, but one actually explains to others that didn't partake in the experience much better than the other description given.
As always, great content to you all.
Peace from Brazil!
The gentleman on the left goes by the name Nate and the gentleman on the right is named Tyranth
And the most handsome lad is named Igor.
@@tomatopotato1136 What hump?
there are different kinds of "foam" they all describe a lattice made of thin material surrounding cells of air/gas
there is open celled foam, which is used for filters and artificial sponges.
then there is closed celled foam which is usually created by mixing a self curing plastic material with a foaming agent that produces a gas (poly urethane foam for construction, styrofoam) or by introducing air under pressure before extruding it.(pool noodles & packing peanuts)
if the material surrounding the bubbles does not cure into a solid the foam will dissolve eventually (egg foam, whipped cream, soap foam)
Nate is the bald guy, and Tyranth is the bearded one in the red.
And of course, there is Shad, supernerd and big boss.
**Shad drinks water bottle**
Shad: (disgust) *“Ugh! What is this?!”*
**Shad takes another sip**
You can soak pool noodles.
It takes like, a freaking week, but they become completely waterlogged.
If they don't soak anything up first try leave them in the sun for a week then try again.
Leave in the sun for a week? We're lucky to get a day of sunshine let alone a full week in the UK!!!
*Get a pool noddle and surround it with cardboard, that may give them a bit of stifness!!*
That’s actually a good idea. They could also experiment with soaking the noodles and/or cardboard for various densities.
How about hay/straw bundles? If a sickle can cut it I think a sword can. Reeds maybe or similar perhaps, whatever is local.
In general any green plant growth would work well.
You could also try cucumbers and similar veg.
It is really abrasive, it would scratch swords and be harder on the edge. You can use straw to polish wood ffs.
I regularly mow hay with a scythe. You have to put a new edge on the blade every few minutes because of the sheer abrasiveness of grass.
@@nathanc939 Some posts above someone suggested coconuts sooo....
Since tatami itselve is the straw leftovers of riceplants I'm not shure wether your argument is realy appliable.
@@nathanc939 you can use cardboard to polish steel. Tatami mats are really abrasive too, but I think you're both underestimating swords.
@@leoncaruthers its the same with tatami mats. Swords are generally a higher quality steel so hold their edge better and the volume is far less. You could cut a hundred tatami mat cuts worth in a few minutes with a scythe on grass.
When I was in the dojo, we came across the same problem with Tatami mats....What we found worked as a "close enough" analog was beach matts.......they are dirt cheap like the pool noodles and we had a side by side comparison. Yes tatami is better, but the straw beach mats worked out close enough. Specially the straw kind, you might get some made of plastic strands which could also be interesting. And Someone get Shad balistic gel body to hack up!
"Amakakeru ryu no hirameki" is certainly not random speaking Shad, but rather cultured quoting! 😆
I had to replay it a few times but I actually did hear that in there lol, whether that was intentional or not.
Some cheap wax, soap, bad colored cheap art clay, or other such material can be formed into test blanks (possibly with support material) and also be recycled by just resetting it back to the blank block form.
The short answer to the title, is because SWORDS!!!
Things like wicker, reed and several other natural origin types are easily available as materials for fences or decoration in hardware stores, in rolls, with different finishes and different measurements. I'm sure one could find something analogous to tatami somewhere in there... something not containing metal links and with as little finish as possible should be the the better option... safe for testing purposes, at least! Cool video, as always, thanks for all your work, guys!
Only the Director can say "Cut!"
"We are gonna be testing all the different things you cut swords with!"
As someone who's been called a weeb, I laughed when Shad called Tyranth "The Weeb." It's a word that started as a derogatory term, but it's just hilarious how it's become an embraced identifier.
It's okay. If you accept the term, we don't care. It's still an insult and the sentiment is what matters; not whether or not you like the word.
The term "nerd," used to be the same way.
@@agsilverradio2225yes?
I love how shad is just slowly slowly becoming a background gag in every shot, this isn’t even sarcastic it’s genuinely hilarious to have tyranth genuinely discussing blades and then shad shouting in the background cuz his fingers trapped in a pool noodle
looking at your pfp I'd rather label you FURRRYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
Im in the middle of watching this, but ThegnThrand does soaked newspapers, and its where I got the idea from and they work fine. You give it like a 5-10 minute soak, and since its all rolled up it holds together fairly well as a mass.
what you might be able to do to get better use from the pool noodle is sliding a thin cardboard tube inside of it, like a paper-towel roll to help stiffen it up a bit more or something similar that isn't too large. Or maybe even wrapping paper tubes by themselves, those might work.
Wood is also very much fun to cut, my brother, parents and I often go to the woods and set a campfire up cutting the wood ourselves and so on, the only “sword” that i own is a machete with a blade kind of similar to a wakizashi and i love cutting wood with it, i know that axes are better suited for cutting wood but its actually really good for edge alignment and testing the importance of velocity and the amount of force used.
Its just great.
very good pronunciation of kriegsmesser there.
Hmmm. There is a hole in the middle of a pool noodle. How about filling it with different stuff. Like wood, news paper card board, tatami shreds, ...
Since you live out a ways, one thing that you might consider is growing a Bamboo Grove. It will take a few years to get them fully self sustaining, but Bamboo may also be a good eco friendly cutting target. And if you create your own Grove, it can be very affordable and it grows very quickly.
I watched a couple videos about a guy that grew his own bamboo grove and had several different kinds. It had tips on what to do if you wanted to grow your own.
Because it's fun? Like, not as fun as cutting tannerite, but sufficiently fun?
I LOVE using newspaper...
I'm an archer & used 6" of NP with cardboard on the out-side.
I was using a 55 lbs. compound bow @ 15 yards.
After a reasonable amount of hits, it would blow out in a cloud of confetti!!! Very satisfying!
I was good - 6 arrows in 6" dia. consistently @ that distance.
It always surprises me when countries don't have drinkable tap water. I mean, I get it if your a very poor country but so many very wealthy country don't have drinkable tap water. How can you spend billions if not trillions of dollars in government budget and at no point go: Maybe we should ensure everyone has good quality drinking water! Just the amount of plastic waste that would disappear because of it would be worth it. But I guess putting billions in the military takes priority... every year.
Cheap and enviromentally friendly is definitley one way to go, but another possible avenue to explore is reusable. Ballistics gel comes to mind, but from what I heard it's not the best for cutting tests, probably since it's kind of sticky and grabs blades. But then I got to thinking, what about wax, there are a ton of waxes out there that you could easilly melt and cast to whatever shape you need, andd once you cut it up you could just pick up the pieces and re-melt and cast them agian.
That thumbnail is hilarious lol
One thought would be to use sugar cane, its sold rather cheap even in long stalks here in central/southern texas. Biodegradable, and not as hard as bamboo or other grasses.
I love this channel!
Rolled up dollery-doos.
I hear those REALLY encourage good edge alignment.
I like your swords
I would not give up on paper just yet. As it can absorb water quite nicely, it can be hardened with bonding agents that are water soluble. PVA glue would probably give you the most efficient results, but if you care about it being bio-degradable, you can use natural bonding agents like rice paste, corn starch or potato starch.
My methodology to prep the papers would be to create a solution of water and bonding agent, then let the paper soak in it page by page for a bit (not too long, as you don't want it to melt), then wrap it around a pipe tightly, like you would make a cast on it. As it dries out, you should rotate it from time to time, to let the cast dry out more evenly (especially in case you are creating thicker casts).
Although it is a bit time consuming, the cut pieces can be reused (just soak them in water for a bit to get the layers to separate, then reapply them in your new cast), and you can also control the thickness and hardness of the material you are going to cut. Also, it has the benefit of being able to make cast around different shapes, like water balloons for example.
You could also increase the strength of the cast by creating a pressing mold: create the cast as described previously, cut a wider diameter pipe in half (with the inner diameter of the intended result), then use F-style clamps to press the two parts together.
The whole method's biggest disadvantage I see is trying to figure out the best ratio for the biding solution will be really time consuming, as the samples need a relatively long time to dry out and will vary for different thicknesses. Also, uneven drying could result in flaking or separation of the layers, but I don't know how much that would figure into the intended use.
I think the topic is cutting
A friend of mine has taken to using pool noodles that have been slightly augmented; they have a crafting dowel glued into the middle of them. Diameter of the dowel varies depending on the rigidity of the noodle. Not entirely a full fix but it works enough for first and second passes on edge alignment.
Welp that title made me click
The pool noodles can be glued back together easily, as they are a closed cell foam. Then you can reuse them multiple times. You can pack the centres with bamboo garden stakes to firm them up as well or with reeds.
Why u cutting stuff? ….. because I can
Through countless (thought) experiments, I found that putting a rigid stick into a soft object makes it not bend.
Based video. I love swords.
Thank you for your videos.
MMMMESSERRRRRRR!!!! Never thought I'd be so enthused by a singled edged weapon but I love messers.
Bamboo is easy to grow, fairly easy to control, and depending on what type will give you food, building materials, or both.
It will give you a consistent material for testing cuts while providing food for you, fodder for your animals (not particularly high quality though) materials for projects.
A popular medium for cut tests is 1 to 2 inch thick manila rope. Also old firehose is excellent if you can find any of that.
Those pool noodles have holes in the middle, so you could put something like a wooden STICK inside, for both rigidity, and bone-analog.
I have only seen solid pool noodles around here (Finland).
Dollar store bathroom rugs would likely be a great option to roll up and use (the ones that are like stitched together fabric mini rolls, almost island raft style)
Or, you can make similar stuff out of old ratty clothes like tshirts with holes in them.
You can also take fibrous materials like that post-cut and blend them into fluff, then basically papermache them back together for a decent cutting target
I wonder if you could pour something into the central hole of pool noodle to make it more rigid but still would work well for cutting
Pool noodles are a speedrun of getting microplastics into your bloodstream.
It's a poor swordsman who blames his noodle.
What about a core of fresh bamboo down the centre of the pool noodles? It'd stiffen it up and add a sort of bone analog.
A Chinese region used to make armour out of layers of paper due to it's cut and piercing resistance to smaller edged weapons. It is lighter than metal, so useful in faster, more close quater combat.
Sounds awesome.
Sounds like an episode 😉
In the US, for a time, train carriages hauling passengers had wheels made out of paper.
Well, if you want a better human analog cutting target than tatami, I suppose you could could form ballistic gel in a cylindrical mold with green bamboo in the center to represent bone). That wouldn’t be particularly inexpensive either though.
Skal has used newspaper. He rolled them together to about tatami thickness and soaked them. Might be a way to make paper cutting analogues better
Banana trees (freshly felled trunks) are excellent for cutting-- heavy, wet and fibrous.
How about some
-) clothes
-) clothes surrounding feathers or different kind of stuffings
-) bed sheets
-) leaves or mown grass in a net/string
-) bound reed/hay(better high grown grass/bushes)
-) candles
-) waxed clothes/strings/....
-) hawser/rope
-) bow taunt strings?
Cardboard boxes can be obtained from the nearest supermarket. You can ask the staff to give you used packaging, which they will throw away anyway.
For the pool tubes try wrapping them in one thin layer of glued paper and/or rags, and put a tree branch down the center, then its a decent analogue for arm construction
I use large cardboard boxes as cutting stands. Metal plate whatever empty plastic bottles I have filled with water on them and that's what I do. So my blind but gets the satisfaction of cutting through gallon milk jugs and water bottles and detergent containers and you name it. It's a lot of fun and then at the box underneath that is a nice thing it's too wet I can destroy that with whatever weapon I choose. Recycling the fun way.
Dried and woven straw into tubes with a think branch in the centre would probably be fun to cut and you can teach the kids to do it on a shadlands video!
For the noodle, maybe a rod in the middle? A form material that can be like a bone or something. Maybe the newspaper in fact!
roll long grass while its still wet very tightly, tie with twine, let it dry for storage. When you go to use it, soak it quick, can throw a couple very thin sticks in there for structural support when rolling
Great video!
My local library also got shadow of the conqueror so I can finally read it! I'm loving the book so far and look forward to seeing both more episodes and more of the novel!
One material you forgot is bamboo. That is also relatively cheap, but requires soaking for a day or two.
Politicians maybe? 🤔
Shad is one of few content creators I subscribe to who I can pre like his videos before watching it
I work in shipping and cardboard is actually really durable. We use large 4'x4'x4' cardboard boxes to ship items in bulk. With our equipment were limited to loading them at 1000 pounds each and stacking them 4 boxes high but they could bear much heavier loads.
Shad had a lot of land now surely theres some kind of grass or reeds you could bundle.. thatching grass ... Or even plant for the purposes of cutting... Grow crops for authenticity and then use stalks for chopping...
13:21 Nate looks really cool with that jacket. He could really pull an AC4 cosplay.
Question: What did people in Europe do to test swords? Did they have something specific? Was something more popular in some regions or some centuries? Did that change?
They must've tested swords somehow, and obviously they had to practice edge alignment as well. What did they use?
I wonder if you laid straw out on a piece of rough canvas fabric (like a potato sack) and made sure the straw were all in the same direction, then maybe you could roll the fabric up and have the straw on the inside, then tie it off with some string. Would that work as an analog?
peasants
Cutting hanging paper is a good test for edge alignment. Very cheap and you can cut indoors while it's raining. 😁
something that may work as a replacement to tatami mats could be a yoga mat. they can be fairly cheap and easy to cut but durable so might be a halfway point between the pool noodle and tatami
10:32 awesome scene transition! the movement hides the harshness of the jump cut. This is often seen in animations.
The ABS (American Bladesmith Society) uses 3 feet of free hanging 1 inch (2.5cm for the nerds) manila rope as part of their official cutting test when someone is trying to advance in rank (journeyman, adept, master smith).
Or, if you don't mind a bit of seasonal labor, corn stalk is a heck of a cutting medium that takes practice to chop, both fresh green stalk, or dried.
Plus you get corn at harvest time!
In the US, we have a tree called cottonwood. The branches are perfect for cutting