No matter how much care is taken with this kind of sword construction, the area where the blade and handle are joined is always weak.

This almost always assures that the handle will fail before the blade does. This is not always a bad thing, as it is much easier to repair a handle than a blade. However under normal use, (against flesh and bone), a sword blade should NEVER break.

After much use, the typical construction weakness almost guarantees that the handle will fail, which is NOT acceptable.

My redesign of the modern battle sword will NOT break, unless stressed far beyond normal use.

The typical single hand sword is designed with a blade length of greater than 35". This made sense when a man was likely to be facing another man or men with similar weapons. Swords were carried openly and proudly displayed. To be honest the reason typical sword lengths did not increase much beyond 40" was the hassle of packing around blades longer than that length. Also, the longer a blade, the easier it was to break or bend.

My sword design calls for a blade length of about 19 inches. With a total length of about 26 inches. This length allows easy concealed carry under a long jacket. My current carry blade is about 30 inches long and is about 4 inches too long for comfortable concealed carry from a shoulder harness. My previous carry blade was about 19 inches total, and was just too light and short of a weapon for my intended usage.

 Why do I even think I need a "modern battle sword" in the first place?
What sort of intended use do I have in mind?

 First, I'll address my intended use, which explains why I want to carry a sword in passing.

 My sword is primarily a survival tool, if we think of it as a large camp knife, instead of a sword it is easier to understand why I would carry it, and why I designed it the way I did.

 As a survival tool, it should be a multifunction device, the illustration shows that I have incorporated a saw into the blade. I have seen cheap blades with so called "saw teeth" cut into the back of the blade, however I have only seen a few that the maker "set" the teeth to actually allow the teeth to cut anything. My design has the teeth "set" correctly. One of the qualities of a saw that makes it useful for a particular purpose is the number of teeth per inch, generally speaking the more teeth per inch a saw has, it will cleanly cut harder materials. For instance a hacksaw blade will have something like 18 teeth per inch or more, and a good crosscut softwood saw will have something like 6 or 8 teeth per inch. My blade has only 2 teeth per inch. This configuration is better suited to cutting through meat than wood or metal. Keep in mind that a hacksaw or crosscut saw blade is very thin, usually less than 1/32" and often supported in a frame of some sort. This allows the teeth to be short and stout, while still being "set" correctly. My blade is a hair under 5/16" at it's thickest, which means that to be "set" correctly the teeth have to be much larger, and that means there must be less of them. It's a compromise, but even at 2 teeth per inch, with a good tooth design the saw will cut hardwoods and soft metals.

 What the illustration does not show, is that the blade is designed with different edge geometries from front to back, AND hilts to tip. Each edge geometry is better suited to a different type of cutting task.

 Beginning at the hilt, on the back of the blade, (the saw is on the back), the edge is flat, and dull, with crosscut hatch for use with the thumb to control fine slicing. Next moving towards the tip is the saw blade, which is about 10 inches long. The next blade section is interesting because it changes continually towards the tip along the blade back. The edge begins with a profile similar to a sharp axe, and gradually becomes less acute, until the edge meets the tip, where the profile is no longer sharp, but still an edge of sorts. (As shown below)

 The acute angle nearest the saw is probably the closest to a typical sword edge that this blade has, and is designed for general purpose slash and hack type of cutting and chopping tasks.

 As the edge becomes less acute closer to the tip, it also becomes much less capable of being chipped or damaged, when used for any sort of digging tasks, so that the tool can be used as a shovel, for a short term if needed. Also at this area, the edge can be safely used to parry and damage another blade if needed, in addition this area can be used to deliver a smashing blow to an opponent if desired to disable without dismembering.
(Note that in an urban setting, it may well be desirable to not leave an opponent with wounds obviously caused by a cutting/slicing weapon, OR to leave wounds of multiple types indicating several attackers/weapon types to confuse an investigation, facilitating an avoidance of suspicion of a single person.)

 The obtuse angle near the tip supports the edge on the tip on the front of the blade which is slightly hollow ground and designed for puncturing soft metal, heavy hide/leather.
(Note that in the case of needing to rescue an individual who is perhaps not conscious, from a locked or otherwise inaccesible vehicle or similar situation, being able to pucture a car roof or trunk and get the saw teeth into position to cut an opening may allow a safe rescue in circumstances that cannot wait for standard rescue efforts, such as fire, or flood.)

 The ability to puncture through a heavy garment could be critical in a winter environment. In a wilderness encounter, against a black bear or cougar, again being able to quickly get through coarse hair and heavy hide could be critical in an emergency. A scenario that is more likely to occur in a wilderness setting is when out hunting, and a careless individual approaches a wounded animal that is down, but is not dead. Whitetail deer injure more people each year this way than are injured by every other animal combined! If this type of encounter is not ended quickly, the human is often killed. Needless to say levelling off a 30.06 and firing a few rounds into this type of attack can be more fatal to the human than the deer.

 From the tip angle for about 14 inches towards the hilt the edge is a wicked hollow grind that can be easily honed to razor sharpness for slicing and hacking against lightly clothed/armored opponents. This is the main working area of the blade for those times when it is necessary to quickly and decisively overcome an opponent by massive trauma or dismemberment. This edge geometry is the most vulnerable to damage from contact against anything harder than a softwood, but is easier to quickly hone back to service.

 The next area of blade is simply a serrated portion of the same hollow grind as above. This portion of blade is for quickly slicing any type of cord, rope or electrical type of wire. There is no insulation against electrical current, as such this tool is not suitable for any work around any sort of live electric circuit.
(Note that in an extreme situation when it may be possible to get a full controlled swing against a downed copper electrical cable I'd be tempted to try cutting a live circuit, ONLY AFTER EXHAUSTING ANY OTHER OPTIONS! Unless there is a certainty of immediate death of a victim if the circuit is not cut, there are ALWAYS other options.)

 The design of this blade makes it a sensible tool to carry in a variety of circumstances that one would not normally think a sword would be of any value. For instance, note that in a vehicle collision, being able to quickly bust out a windsheild, or side window with the pommel of this blade could allow a safe rescue when other means of reaching a victim could take too long or be inadequate. Once a victim of such a collision can be reached, the blade could be inserted with the flat against the body, and a seat belt sliced fairly safely at TWO areas of the blade, near the tip, where the back side is nearly flat, and again near the hilt at the serrations, where the back side is an uncomfortable, but safe saw face, unless the blade is forced against the body AND pushed forward! Drawing the blade back on the saw face would cleanly slice a webbing harness on the serrations, but only bruise and scratch flesh and bone on the back side.

 Because of the design, the area near the tip on the backside could be used as a hammer if needed. A typical sword design would certainly torque and twist the blade out of true if it were used as a hammer this way. The pommel shown in the illustration does not appear to be suited as a hammer, but could still be used if needed. A typical sword abused in this fashion would experience premature pommel failure. Because of the construction, if the pommel failed, the entire handle/hilt assembly simply falls away from the blade, possibly causing death or injury to a bystander if failure occurs during a full force strike. My design allows ANY single hilt component to fail, without substantial danger of any other component failure. Further, the ENTIRE hilt assembly can be removed, and the tool can still be serviceable if needed.

 I think I have adequately described what sort of intended use I have in mind for my sword design, and in passing explained that I want to carry this blade for different reasons under different circumstances. I'll be back to why with some details after I touch on some other design considerations.

 Essentially the entire design paradigm is based on modified pyramidal shapes. Looking at the typical sword designs, they are based on a single purpose useage, that of killing/dismembering other humans. Period. As such, the designs have seen slight modifications over the millenia, mostly in consideration of improvement to two main areas of concern, defense against another sword, and penetrating against armor and defensive improvements.

 Eventually, swordmaking became an excersise in artistry rather than functionality. Knifemaking on the other hand became an endeavor in improving functionality. Modern battle designs for knives rarely use anything except a full tang with a solidly attached crossguard, slab handle, and solid pommel. More often than not knifemakers build a battle blade entirely from a single chunk of steel that has NO component that can fail without total failure of the entire blade. Even the most most expensive "battle ready" swords still employ the doomed to failure designs, because they insist on retaining an "authentic, historically accurate" craftsmanship.

 Let's look at that construction again.

 There was a time, not too long ago, when the only way of shaping a blade from metal was forging it. Once the blade was hammered out, it was heat treated, and a finish grinding. After that the hilts were attached, removed and then the blade was polished, and the hilts were again attached and finally the edge was sharpened and it was ready. I missed some steps, and some makers did things different, but essentially that is the process. The reason most blades were built like this was because of the forging process they used, after the blade is hammered out, they are left with this ugly chunk of mess that they were using to hang on to while they hammered the blade.
Understanding that forging steel does a lot more to its molecular structure than change its shape is the key to seeing why swordmakers ended up choosing to shaping the hilt end into a rattail rod, then threading the pommel onto the end. Before the advent of having a tap/die set to do the threading, swordmakers merely fitted the rattail through the pommel as close as they could then peened the end of the rattail over the end as best they could.

 I'm not going to try to explain why the metal at the rattail is different than the metal in the blade, mostly because I don't understand it well enough to try, but I do know that it is different because of the forging and heat treating, and the tempering.
I also know that swordmakers learned how to make swords from swordmakers who did it this way and "by the gods, do it this way or else"!
This may seem redundant to mention, but it's true also that swordmakers who did not "do it right", literally lost their paying customers to untimely deaths. Once word got out that a swordmaker made bad swords, they were often victimized by their competitors products.

 A sword that was made correctly, and used properly very often outlasted the swordmaker before they failed. Some swords never did fail, but very few swords have a history that can be traced back to the maker that actually saw any battle use. Generally swords that have survived intact are more decorative than ready for battle, or have been repaired at least once. In my mind, I don't have to have any great genius to look at the typical construction and predict where a sword like this is likely to fail.

 OK, enough antique bashing, let's move onwards. With the advances in metallurgy, and machine tooling in todays world, swordmakers can build blades that WON'T break except under repeated and totally artificial abnormal stress conditions. The metals that allow makers to create these blades also require specialized machine tools to work with them, once they are ready to have handles fitted. Previous craftsmen could occasionally make blades like these, but could not fit handles to them, EXCEPT, by the methods they already used.

 Again, my design is based on using modified pyramidal shapes, and the modern machine tooling/metallurgy available today.

The main improvements of my design are at the tang/hilts and the blade geometry.

 The tang/hilts do not use any sharp cuts across the length of the blade which can promote stress cracks from forming at the joining of the crossguard.
The tang never decreases in width below 1 1/4", even if every hilt component fails, the width and thickness of the tang allows continued service under duress.
The press fit of the crossguard strengthens this critical area, the addition of the pinning shoulder bolts ensures that the crossguard can survive failure of any other hilt assembly components.
The handle slabs do not rely on the pommel or crossguard to remain fixed to the tang, recall that the typical sword handle relies upon the pommel staying firmly fixed to the rattail, if the rattail, or pommel fail, the entire hilt assembly fails immediately.
The pommel is attached to the tang with a machine slip fit, (which is actually pretty damned tight to begin with), and pinned with machine grade bolts. This configuration should withstand hammering blows that would shatter a typical wood handle on a carpenters hammer.

 The blade geometry is a different topic than the edge geometry I discussed earlier, the blade geometry is designed to withstand the types of uses that the edge geometries are designed for.
Recall that the typical sword is designed for use on humans exclusively. As such the blade is normally weighted to have a "sweet spot" somewhere nearer the tip than the hilts, generally from 2/3 to 3/4 of the blade length from the hilts and about 6-8 inches long, depending on the length of the blade. This sweet spot is awesome against meat wrapped around bone, however if you smack that blade against something solid, like a 4x4" fence post or telephone pole at that sweet spot, you'll notice a few oddities, first the handle is likley to break, if the handle does not break, the entire sword is likely to be ripped from your hand as the blade torques and twists violently to absorb that shock it was never meant to withstand, and next, even if you do manage to keep a grip on the handle, the blade is probably bent or twisted. Maybe you won't be able to see the twist or bend, then again you may notice a definite bend, twist, or worst of all, the dreaded stress crack. If you ended up with a really cheap blade you are probably looking at a broken blade, with a bent and loose hilt. Go ahead and order up one of those exotic $2000 folded steel Katanas from a master swordsmith in the asian pacific, then explain to him that you intend to chop down a telephone pole with it. Yeah right.

 My sword design has 4 sweet spots, on the front, just above the serrations is about perfect for that dismemberment chop against flesh/bone. Again on the front, about 6-8" below tip angle up to the tip itself, is great for any slicing action, where the blade is drawn across the target, as opposed to a mere chop. On the back side against solid objects, chopping at an angle against softwoods, like a fencepost, use the area just above the saw. (Of course if you really need to cut up that fence post, why not just use that saw?) Lastly if you really need to welt up on that low-life biker scum that has been sniffing around your 16 year old daughter, the last 4-6 inches of blunt on the back side of the blade, against his right thigh should make him wish he'd got that electric start button fixed on his Snortster.

 (Now don't go getting your panties bunched up your backside, I can say that about bikers if I wanna, being a long time "old school" biker type myself, and having worked as a bar bouncer and as a biker party event security dog, AND having sniffed on a few 16 year old daughters myself, I do know what kind of people we can be. Most of the security problems at biker type events are actually caused by uptight citizens who NEVER should have showed up to begin with, especially not with their hormone challenged 16 year old daughters!)

 The sword tip is a pyramid shape, thickness tapering from 1/8" to 3/16" along the "flat" at 1 1/2 inches.
This pyramid shape is modified however by the hollow grind specified previously on the front edge, and the obtuse chisel grind on the back edge.

The facing taper, at the tip 0" to 1 1/2" at 1 1/2 " unmodified. From 1 1/2 inches the facing taper increases to 2 inches at 17" unmodified.

The thickness tapers from 3/16" at center to 5/16 at 17" at fuller edges, along both front and back edge the edge is 1/8 thick, modified as previously specified with the hollow grind on front, and chisel grind on back, except where the saw teeth are cut, and facing is left at 1/8" and hollow ground on edge, then set to clear the 5/16" max thickness at the fuller.

The fuller thickness is 3/16" full length, width tapers to create 5/16" max thickness at fuller edge.

From 17" the facing taper decreases from 2" to 1 1/4" at 21 inches.

The facing has no more taper from 21" to 26", creating the full tang of 1 1/4" width.

The thickness taper decreases from fuller edge of 5/16" to 1/4" at 21".
The thickness has no more taper from 21" to 26", creating the full tang of 1/4" thickness, modified by the continuation of the fuller which runs full length of the blade at a constant 3/16" thickness.
The fuller width from 21" to 26" is 3/4". Decreasing from 17" to 21" to 3/4".

By Crom, that was considerably more difficult to describe than I thought it would be.
C'est La Vie!

Now for the furniture, beginning with the crossguard, basically as illustrated, in steel, press fit to tang taper, then bored through tang and slip fitted with grade 8 allen head shoulder bolts of at least 1/8" shank.

Handle slabs fitted with similar hardware as needed, depending on material used. I'd prefer something not exotically expensive and difficult to replace if needed. I don't insist on slabs, but a bored or wraparound must still be pinned to tang.

The pommel can be similar to illustration, or more/less decorative, adjusted to balance, but must be at least slip fit to tang, and a minimum of 2 grade 8 shoulder bolts.

Not shown in illustrations, a 1/4" through tang bore at 25 1/2" to allow cordage wrap in case of hilt assembly failure, requiring field repair.

Appearance of blade: Note that this design is for concealed carry/covert ops. As much as possible, the blade/furnishings should be darkened/unpolished and unlikely to polish through normal carry or usage. Pre-oxidation and/or corrosion resistance treatment that leaves components with dull mottled appearance is preferred.

Scabbard/carry method: scabbard should be of padded ballistic nylon type with interior of throat and along edges reinforced with Teflon bearing surfaces. Index bearings of sprung Teflon should allow quiet deployment and retirement, while assisting with retainment of weapon when primary retainment system is disengaged.

Retainment system is a single strap over crossguard with thumb break quiet-snap. Carry method is dual mode, off shoulder under arm covert carry or hip belt tactical readiness mode.

Oh yeah, I was supposed to mention some good reasons why I would want to carry the 45 battle sword.

OK, did I mention that I'm a biker type? Now I don't belong to a biker gang, (sorry Bro's I mean "motorcycle club"), which means that I do a lot of my riding alone.
These days I have noticed that bikers don't seem to command the same sort of healthy fear/respect from bad cops, drunken urban cowboys and whacked out crankster junkies that we used to.

Which means that in town, pulling into a coffee shop parking spot at 11 PM for eggs and sausage and watching some carload of wild eyed boy toys playing some sorta Boom-Boom music that probably takes a gallon of gas per song to play that loud, spill outta the back seat, walking towards me instead of the diner doors puts my back up against it and reaching for something solid to hang onto.

Yeah, they probably just want to ooh and ahh over my 1942 chopper, and likely one of them, yeah the smaller one with the blood on his shirt and fresh stitches on his forearm, had an uncle that was an M/C member and gave him a ride once on his chopper.

But ya know, one time I stood there and the punks told me that they were gonna kick my ass for what I did to his sister. I was real happy that they'd run outta whatever happy dust they had gotten into because they were taking their sweet time getting themselves worked up into whatever state of adrenaline high they were gonna need to start swinging, and the noise they were making attracted the notice of the local good cop/bad cop team on duty.
The nice boys that had been discussing how they should go about getting my dead carcass out of the parking lot decided that they should go find some more beer and/or happy dust, and the nice cop wrote me a ticket for not wearing a motorcycle helmet.
Oh yeah, the bad cop? He was busy trying to round up your 16 year old daughter and some happy dust, so he never bothered me.

Did that really happen? No of course not, I make up stories like that to justify wanting to have some sane way of defending myself against multiple attackers in a crowded urban environment where popping off caps is likely to ruin your evening by lobbing a ricochet offa some numbskull through your back window and into your 16 year old daughter!
What a typical citizen you people can be, so dense. You watch the news and read the papers and tut-tut about how the criminals are taking over the streets, overloading our courts and generally being a menace to your serenity.
Then someone like me comes along, who merely because I REFUSE to be terrorized by a bunch of amateurs, am often in places and at times where criminals like to display their skills, and you think I am a dangerous kook who should not have anything more lethal than a plastic spoon.

Yes, that really happened. What is really gonna blow your mind though, is that the whole truth is that it actually has happened TWICE, once each way.

Something else happened also, I was riding up in the mountains one night and got lost. Some weather moved in and the wind was blowing and the rain was dripping sorta sideways and I ended up pulling over and dropped some fuel on the ground and threw some wood I found over it, and lit up that pile, then I took my blade and chopped up some saplings and made a quick lean-to and spent the night there along some backwoods dirt road tossing deadwood on my fire and adding more leafy roof to my shelter. By about 3 AM most of the wind had died down and the rain was mostly a drizzle, by 4:30 AM the rain had stopped and I was almost dry again. When the sky got lightened up some over there, I could see that I needed to go somewhere over thataways to get back to a main road. That's where I went, and I got unlost and that ride turned out just fine. I didn't need a battle sword, and I probably didn't really need to build the lean-to either. I would have been a lot more wet when I got home if I hadn't. The point is that I had the tool to do it with at hand, and being able to spend the time to actually succeed at doing it made the night go by a lot quicker, and by the time I left my home in the Rockies, I was ready to leave. Without the shelter I may have dropped into hypothermia getting home and ended up ruining your drive to church on Sunday morning, by blowing through that stop sign, and smacking my ugly mug right into your rear passenger window, and yeah, scaring the hell outta your 16 year old daughter.

OK, it's now 4:23 AM Sunday morning and I am still typing this drivel and you have GOT to be wondering why the hell I keep bringing up the topic of your 16 year old daughter, maybe you are starting to wonder if I really know your daughter, and maybe I'm really someone you should be concerned about.

Well, I'll tell you, my ex-ole lady left me about 3 weeks ago, and I have not found a house mouse to invite over since she left. She pretty much left because she was ready to go, and of course she was not real happy with the wolf being in the house with her when she was alone, then the cats had kittens and it pretty much got to be too much for her, so she left.

Sooo, back to your daughter, is she pretty? What's her name? Does she lack adventure and excitement? Does she like kittens and wolves and the steady throb of a motorcycle? Would she like to learn how to cook a solid 3 course meal for two, using nothing that I can't dig outta the dumpster and scrape offa the road?

Would you be interested in purchasing a solidly built "45 Battle Sword/Survival tool"?

LOL.