SIGI adds rainguards to Swordbuilder as shipping costs shift

A small fitting is now doing bigger work inside SIGI’s Swordbuilder. Customers choosing a leather grip for a feder can add a rainguard, a hardened-leather cover or cap over the crossguard, while cord grips are still left out for now.

That restriction matters because the piece is doing more than dressing up the hilt. SIGI says the rainguard is not currently compatible with cord grips, though it may look for an aesthetic solution later, and the company is treating the update as part of a broader push toward finer personalization. In the same post, SIGI launched a Shipping Quoter app, giving buyers a clearer read on country-specific costs before they commit to a build.

Rainguards have deep roots in the weapons the HEMA community studies. Historical discussion calls the feature a chappe, cover-guard or cross-guard chape, and the part may have served as both a shield for the scabbard entrance and extra protection for the hand when blades crossed. One HEMA source places the earliest depiction it knows at Freiburg Cathedral between 1280 and 1290, while a swordmaking source says the leather guard appears in historical material around 1220 to 1230 and reaches its peak in the 14th and 15th centuries. The forms vary too, from semicircular and triangular versions to rectangular and tubular ones.

SIGI is clearly leaning into that period logic. It says rainguards show up often enough in medieval and Renaissance imagery to suggest they were widespread, which makes the option feel less like a decorative afterthought and more like a detail rooted in the visual language of late medieval swords. Crossguards were already developed in medieval Europe to protect the wielder’s hand and fingers, and rain-guards were later added to many swords as an extra layer of protection and period character.

The same update also reflects the less romantic pressure of modern shipping. SIGI says it shifted some overseas shipments from FedEx to UPS after a merger changed FedEx-linked processes and pushed prices up sharply, with some destinations nearly doubling and most others rising by about 20 percent. UPS shipping is now available to more than 50 countries, and SIGI says shipping to the United States is about 40€ cheaper than with FedEx.

For practitioners who care about what a feder feels like in the hand and how it looks in a bag or on a rack, the change is bigger than the part itself. SIGI is signaling that HEMA buyers want swords tailored not just for performance, but for period appearance, protective detail and the personal build choices that make one weapon feel distinct from the next.