Swords and Historical Handcrafts, with Bill Grandy

Episode 45

For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to https://swordschool.com/podcast/swords-and-historical-handcrafts-episode45/ 

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Bill Grandy is a long time professional historical martial arts instructor at the Virginia Academy of Fencing (VAF) in the United States, and also a historical handcrafter making beautiful scabbards and shields and things. Check out his website at www.historicalhandcrafts.com.

In this episode we talk about lots of different aspects of being a sword person, including teaching professionally and as an amateur; getting to play with antique swords and the work of the Oakeshott Institute; and owning Michael Chidester’s wonderful facsimiles of medieval manuscripts. We also talk about getting books written and published (or not), and how a sport fencing background influences your teaching of historical martial arts. There’s even more too - this episode really does cover a lot!

Useful links:

Bill’s websites: www.historicalhandcrafts.com for his leather and woodwork, and for the full details and pictures of the Schiavona and Dussack we talk about in the episode: www.thehemaists.com

Bill’s Styrian Dussack

For more on the Oakeshott Institute and antique swords, here’s my conversation with Craig Johnson: https://guywindsor.net/2021/02/how-to-make-swords-episode33/

For more about Wiktenauer and Michael Chidester, my conversation with Michael is here: https://guywindsor.net/2020/11/wiktenauer-episode21/ and Michael’s Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/michaelchidester

The Virginia Academy of Fencing: www.vafinc.com

And finally, for woodworkers, this is the YouTube channel by Rex Krueger we talk about: Rex Krueger: Making Woodwork Fun. Here’s a photo of my dovetail joint, as promised: