Sword fighting in Northern NJ - Pell Design I find useful

To the serious sword fighter a "Pell" is a useful and tool for training. Historically pells were usually conveniently dead trees, or trees that became dead after repeated strikes with swords real or practice ones. A pell is literally something that you will practice your strikes on. Modern pells are logs, posts, lumber or (my personal favorite) rail road ties. Pells can be fixed (anchored to one spot) or moveable/portable for you fighters who require such things. My pell is moveable. It's construction is simple. A Six by Six Railroad tie bored out to accept the shaft of a base which is affixed to a weighted moveable/portable base. The base is the rear half axle of a truck bolted to a wheel with tire attached. The shaft of the Pell is a Six by Six railroad tie, which besides being bored out to accept the axle shaft is padded to reduce the damage to rattan swords we use in the SCA. I padded my pell with 3/4" polypropelene rope. I've marked striking areas with different colored (comes in handy for calling out colors when training other fighters). When wrapping the rope for padding I affixed a handle made of 2 inch nylon strapping, which collapses when hit. It breaks down into the two major components (shaft and base) for ease of movement.