Actually you bond to the weapon itself, not the base, but I know you both know that.
You can actually bond to a weapon without using it. All you have to be doing is holding the weapon in your hand when you kill a critter and you get credit or it. So, you could hold the bastard sword in one hand and use UAC to kill, and your weapon would get credit towards bonding. I did this years ago when I was hunting plane 5 of the rift but wanted to bond to a non-blessed weapon (undead only on plane 5). It was not easy, but I managed it.
