I'd be up for it, obviously I am fairly south too, but if I had the time off I could make the trip and combine it with a walk around the armoury maybe.
Motley, I will give you my feelings, and let me say that beforehand, this is totally honest, theres no point in holding anything back. I did discuss all this with Dave's organised discussion group, so none of it is exactly secret, these are prototypes, so the whole point is to give input, this is what I thought.
Firstly, on initial sight, they looked extremely nice, though too bulky, in that respect I mean that the grips were too wide and guards too thick also, both needed slimming down, both for the overall look as well as most importantly, comfort.. Overall finished was great and they look professional, which is the key to this as much as them handling well.
In terms of handling, they had seven different longsword models, I seem to remember most being weighted too far towards the hilt, something that can be remedied with thicker nylon at the forte/strong of the blade, and/or a slightly lighter pommel. It is likely that the vibration problems of impacts travelling through the arms will be reduced when this is done.
The last concern was the flex, there wasn't quite enough and specifically the flex was spread across the blade, as opposed to in the last part, as you would like.
This is totally constructive critizism, they were openly compared with Pentti's nylon models, and the best of both taken in order to make something great in the next models, from what I can see. In terms of what the Knight shop are providing, they are excellent looking products at a great price, the only flaws in those ones I saw was purely in fine tuning the design. When I left the discussion, Dave seemed to have got a good way to a concensus on what needed to be changed, pretty much as I said up above, including thinning the last part of the blade, giving the flex where its needed.
The Knight shop guys were excellent about it and really let everyone have an exhaustive play with the prototypes. I think they are definately on track to providing what we as their audience are after and have every faith that we will be, as intended, buying a load of them. I only hope the messer comes along soon and is good, we are desperately in need of a high contact sparring messer, please please, give it to me
