The difference between wall-hangers

This guide will teach you how to tell the difference between a wall-hangerand a functional sword. There is nothing wrong with owning awall-hanger if all you intend to do is display it (except that it'd beuseless if you were to use it against a home intruder!). However, if youare anything like me and admire swords, a fully functional sword isjust much more satisfying to own and display, as well as giving you morebragging rights when guests come over! Unless you persuadethe seller using Jedi mind tricks, conducting a few tests to determineits durability is out of the question.Quite often, a sword will belabeled as "battle ready" and then continue to list stainless steel asits type of metal. I will show you why this is undesirable and otherthings to look out for.Fancy Schmancy DesignsIfyour sword is based on a movie, or has fancy decorations such as dragonhilts/guards, or has more colours than the rainbow, chances are, it isintended for display only. This is not always the case of course (butmore often than not, it usually is).The TangAchain is only as strong as its weakest link and the same applies to asword. The part of the blade that is hidden in the hilt is called thetang. The part where the blade joins the tang is usually the weakestpart of the sword.The tang on a decorative piece is usually a"rat tail tang" which means the tang is only a thin metal rod or a"stub tang" which has a short piece of metal under the hilt. Look forswords with a "full tang". What this means is that the hilt is shapedaround the tang making it much more solid (plus it won't turn yoursword into some kind of rocket launcher when you swing it).The Type of SteelStainlesssteel is great if all you want is an ornamental show piece as they donot require much maintenance (I wish my girlfriend didn't require somuch maintenance...maybe I shouldn't have said that...). Stainlesssteel is fine for knives but past a certain length, they start becomingbrittle.A much better choice is carbon steel. Look for carbonsteel that has been tempered and heat treated and has a carbon steel rating of 1045or better. This rating shows you how much carbon is in the metal. Thedownside of carbon steel is that it will require a lot of tender lovingcare by its owner. A thin coat of oil should be applied to the blade atall times or it will rust quite easily. Inshort, look for keywords such as high carbon steel, tempered, handforged (as opposed to mass produced machine made) and full tang.Ifyou found this guide useful, please send me a donation as I am apoor university student and this hobby is quite draining on my poorwallet. Haha I am only joking (did I trick you?), if you really did findthis guide useful and you know of someone that would benefit from thisguide, please send him/her the location of this guide. A positiverating (click below) wouldn't hurt either!Thanks for reading!