written by Maarten Kamphuis.

 

 

I founded MBlades in 2010 in continuation of my Masters graduation project of Delft University of Technology, faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, where I designed a tournament sword for HEMA which was both safe and realistic (this project actually won me the prizes of Best Graduate of the TU Delft 2009/2010 and the National Sports Innovation Award). It was a time before the feders, where people trained either with steel or wooden swords and most sparring and tournaments were done with shinai. Being a practitioner myself I enjoyed the opportunity to add value to this martial art that is close to my heart. 

I introduced the first SwinG in 2011, and also was part of the Hema Tournament Manager team, with which we ran tournaments (and for example the Swordfish livestream back in the days). 

 

Being a design engineer I love combining technical knowledge with sword related topics, and taught mechanics courses at university (including lectures on the sword), and brought some of this knowledge into the HEMA scene by giving presentations on sword properties from a mechanics point of view, at events such as Fightcamp UK (in Dijon I got the nickname "mad scientist of HEMA"). I think I will create an online presentation about this topic one day soon. 

 

MBlades is a one man company that has been on hold for quite some years, but it has arisen out of the ashes again with a new SwinG! Apart from the doing the design and taking care of sourcing, I am also the one doing the actual production (and now I even made this website with automated shop). 

 

If you tried to reach me through email or Facebook and I did not answer, I apologize for that, it's been an "interesting phase" for me. From now on I am back online and will take care of things! I also want to be transparent about stock etc, as I don't feel comfortable taking orders of which I don't know when I can ship, and did my best to incorporate that in the webshop. 

 

If there's anything, feel free to reach out through the form or at info@mblades.com.