Safety Tips: Phase 1 Project Results

In October 2024, thanks to the generous support of 41 backers, were able to conduct an experiment to answer an apparently simple question: what’s the best approach to tipping your sword? We looked at both how different options affect the risk of a thrust pushing on a mask, and the change of puncturing a target.

We tested a Rapier with a rounded tip, both untipped and with three common styles of tip – rubber, plastic and a bullet case. We also compared 4 different untipped longswords to each other (Regenyei Strong, Aureus Alexander III, Sigi Light, Sigi Maestro).

What’s the conclusion?

We found that the Rubber tip increased the likelihood of the sword pushing on the mask, raising the mean force transferred by 70% compared to the other three conditions. Unsurprisingly, the untipped rapier was wildly unsafe from a puncture risk perspective, with all three tips reducing the risk of puncture, but to a much greater degree with the larger Rubber and Plastic tips. The Plastic tip we tested outperformed the Rubber tip for this risk as well, and we couldn’t puncture our targets at all with the plastic tip we used. The longsword tests didn’t provide any conclusive results, but the results for tipping methods is very clear.

We are recommending that the HEMA community stop using rubber tips as they provide no safety benefit compared to similarly sized hard plastic tips, but exacerbate the risk of injury from a mask, including concussions.

Need more detail before you agree? The project report provides full details on our approach, equipment and results and is freely available.

What’s Next?

We’ve still got more to do to wrap up this project, and we’re already considering what to look at next for Phase 2 of this work. Our remaining project deliverables are:

• Additional open access materials covering:
  • Video version of the report, summarising the project and results
  • Background research assessing the injury risks we investigated
  • Deep dive of our equipment, what we based it on and how it can be used
  • Survey of Tipping Approaches in use in the UK & Internationally
  • Lessons learnt & guidance for future projects
• Additional backer rewards, still in progress.
  • Behind the Scenes Video
  • Equipment Designs & Build Guidance
  • “Meme Pack”: fun content created based

There’s a lot of work still to do and we’ve gone over-budget – if you’d like to say thanks or to support the remaining activities you can contribute below. For any tips that match the value of a backer reward, we will also supply the backer rewards.

Switching to Thermoplastic?

If you are currently using rubber tips and need to make a change, the good news is that the thermoplastic we used is cheap, easily available and simple to apply to any type of sword. In the UK at least the most readily available brand is called “Whitemorph”, but it comes under other names like “Thermoplast”, “Polymorph” or many other names.

This is already the recommended tipping method for tournaments in the UK. Our project lead produced the below video for the Wessex League events which shows how to make it.