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Message: <blockquote data-quote="barsoomcore" data-source="post: 1685354" data-attributes="member: 812">Well, yeah, I guess, kinda tame, but frankly, there's been a lot of vitiriol in general in this thread. It's a little surprising.I mean, most people's posts in this thread have been pretty much correct -- if occasionally tangential to what the discussion was about. There appear to have been some misunderstandings as to what the point of a particular post was, but I haven't seen people earning the sorts of cutting remarks that have been directed at them.Stainless steel will certainly corrode to some degree. But it sure resists rusting under general use. I bet different tests reveal different results."Real" swords, however, are not made of stainless steel. I'm not 100% sure why, but I'm sure somebody on this thread does. If someone expresses a lack of concern regarding rust and their sword, it's probably a good sign that either A) the sword isn't real (see above regarding real swords and stainless steel), B) they don't know anything about their sword or C) they're perfectly happy to clean their sword once you're done touching it.My katanas balance about five to six inches from the guard. I remember comparing a French cavalry sabre with a British officer's sword (sorry I can't identify them more clearly) and noting very distinctly how the sabre's point of balance (and thus, its point of percussion) was much further out from the point where I was gripping it than the officer's sword. The manner in which a sword is meant to be used of course has a great deal to do with it's point of balance.Or perhaps more accurately, a sword's point of balance determines how it can best be used.Most grips I've experimented with have a certain flexibility and resilience in common. Japanese styles tend to emphasize gripping with the "pinky" finger and using the larger, stronger fingers for direction and control, presumably to avoid over-use of strength (which leads to having your sword taken away from you on a line that your strength isn't directed against). My limited fencing experience indicated that the same was true in those sorts of grips as well.I sure love swords. I sure love talking about swords. But it's definitely a topic about which people seem to often feel a need to denigrate others' knowledge (or lack thereof) -- I suspect it's because, like UNIX geeks, sword geeks tend to derive a lot of personal worth out of their knowledge ("I am cool because I know more than other people about swords"), and so need to attack people whose knowledge is different than theirs. It's very disappointing.</blockquote>

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