Takouba with 4 fullers

[blue lander]

That makes perfect sense, thank you. I do appreciate that you guys are world class experts and come here to discuss exemplar blades, yet are willing to take time to educate us newbies on more mundane examples such as mine.

Two final questions on this sword: it's very flexible, like a machete. Not surprising if this was made from spring steel, but I expected a fighting sword to be a little more rigid. Are older ones this flexible, or just modern ones like mine?

Lastly, I've been going through takouba.org and I can't find any other takoubas that have a different number of fullers on each side like mine (3 on one side 4 on the other). Is this uncommon?

[Iain]

Originally Posted by blue lander

That makes perfect sense, thank you. I do appreciate that you guys are world class experts and come here to discuss exemplar blades, yet are willing to take time to educate us newbies on more mundane examples such as mine.

Two final questions on this sword: it's very flexible, like a machete. Not surprising if this was made from spring steel, but I expected a fighting sword to be a little more rigid. Are older ones this flexible, or just modern ones like mine?

Lastly, I've been going through takouba.org and I can't find any other takoubas that have a different number of fullers on each side like mine (3 on one side 4 on the other). Is this uncommon?

First of all I'm glad the takouba site is useful! I always appreciate hearing that someone's made use of it. Sword 88 in the catalog has a single fuller on one side. But otherwise I can't recall any examples off the top of my head.

About the flexibility, yes, newer pieces do often have more flex. However... That said one of my oldest pieces (81) has an extremely flexible European blade. That's perhaps more of an exception though, most older blades are fairly stiff, as are some older native blades I've had/handled.

Still, I think the attribute of flexibility is something that was desired and simply easier to acquire with modern steels.