Remind me in a few days Tom when I have time I'll see if I have a piece of Amber bid enough for you. Not sure that I do any more but I had some fairly chunky bits once
Ye Olde Englishe Machette
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Thanks DuckyD!
Red, that's very kind of you. It just needs to be big enough to wrap a say 1/4 inch tape around behind it a few times. No hurry at all.
ATB
Tom
Red, that's very kind of you. It just needs to be big enough to wrap a say 1/4 inch tape around behind it a few times. No hurry at all.
ATB
Tom
Ill get herself to nag me to nag you, my brains like mush as well, spent all day clearing out the storage room/parlour, my arms feel like they want to fall off but Its all done now less taking a vast amount of cardboard and general rubbish to the tip. It's freed up a lot of space, the window sills are clear now to take lots of those propagator tray thingies for the seedlings.
ATB
Tom
ATB
Tom
One last picture now I've fixed on the sword stone ( lovely piece of amber from Red ) and tied/shrunk on the peace cord ( natural dyed hand walked linen from Toddy) which I kept just long enough to tie the handle on.
So it's finished to my satisfaction.
thanks to all who helped!
ATB
Tom
So it's finished to my satisfaction.
thanks to all who helped!
ATB
Tom
Well, having wanted one for a while, saved my pennies got a blade, finished it and so on until I finally had a decent seax what does the wife come home from work with yesterday? Yes a seax
One of her work colleagues who had heard about the lads interests had dug it out of their cellar where it had been rusting away since they had stopped reenacting way back when. I was going to just clean it up and make a basic sheath for if the lad ever took up being wacked by blunt swords when he was of age for such.
However the wife then mentioned it was made of EN45 which is a good spring steel suitable for actual using as a chopper. So I thought I'm not wasting a 14 inch blade and after applying the wire wheel then a soak in boiling citic acid solution to get the rust off I set to work.
I stripped off the furniture, just ground down the heads of the pins where they were mushroomed and knocked them through with a steel drift.
Cooling very often to make sure I didnt mess up the temper etc (I'm talking every few seconds and it never got too hot to hold with bare hands right next to the part being worked) I dropped the back of the a bit and raised the front to get rid of the safety point and then ground the pointy end to the correct profile on the wheel.
After that I dug out the belt sander and again cooling often thinned out the shape and changed the profile to match those of excavated examples. This took a fair bit of time as I wanted to get rid of the deepest pitting. The spines still 5mm and even without actually trying to the cutting edge is pleasingly sharp. When its done I'll put on a secondary bevel with the axe stone. Heres how far I've got.
I need to file and saw the tang down to a proper period stick tang and by happy chance someone on the forum has generously given me a nice big block of boxwood which will make a great handle for it.
I won't bore you with any more pics until its finished. At 14 inches this ones a big knife rather than a short sword.
One thing, on this one I'd like to give it a good shiny finish. At the moment I'm rubbing it down with some old school emery cloth but its taking a age to get rid of the scratches and pits. Any advice on getting it tarty and silky smooth? I've a good 2 inch cloth wheel to go in place of the wire wheel on the bench grinder.
ATB
Tom
One of her work colleagues who had heard about the lads interests had dug it out of their cellar where it had been rusting away since they had stopped reenacting way back when. I was going to just clean it up and make a basic sheath for if the lad ever took up being wacked by blunt swords when he was of age for such.
However the wife then mentioned it was made of EN45 which is a good spring steel suitable for actual using as a chopper. So I thought I'm not wasting a 14 inch blade and after applying the wire wheel then a soak in boiling citic acid solution to get the rust off I set to work.
I stripped off the furniture, just ground down the heads of the pins where they were mushroomed and knocked them through with a steel drift.
Cooling very often to make sure I didnt mess up the temper etc (I'm talking every few seconds and it never got too hot to hold with bare hands right next to the part being worked) I dropped the back of the a bit and raised the front to get rid of the safety point and then ground the pointy end to the correct profile on the wheel.
After that I dug out the belt sander and again cooling often thinned out the shape and changed the profile to match those of excavated examples. This took a fair bit of time as I wanted to get rid of the deepest pitting. The spines still 5mm and even without actually trying to the cutting edge is pleasingly sharp. When its done I'll put on a secondary bevel with the axe stone. Heres how far I've got.
I need to file and saw the tang down to a proper period stick tang and by happy chance someone on the forum has generously given me a nice big block of boxwood which will make a great handle for it.
I won't bore you with any more pics until its finished. At 14 inches this ones a big knife rather than a short sword.
One thing, on this one I'd like to give it a good shiny finish. At the moment I'm rubbing it down with some old school emery cloth but its taking a age to get rid of the scratches and pits. Any advice on getting it tarty and silky smooth? I've a good 2 inch cloth wheel to go in place of the wire wheel on the bench grinder.
ATB
Tom
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cheers in the end thats what I did, worked through 5 or 6 grades of grit and then put it on the buffing wheel.
It soon became clear there was no point in going for the chrome look as the pitting after the citric acid had removed the rust was too deep to get rid of without removing at least a mill from the thickness of the blade.
Still it looks OK, for a freebie!
yeah I lied about not doing more pics before its finished, sorry!
ATB
Tom
It soon became clear there was no point in going for the chrome look as the pitting after the citric acid had removed the rust was too deep to get rid of without removing at least a mill from the thickness of the blade.
Still it looks OK, for a freebie!
yeah I lied about not doing more pics before its finished, sorry!
ATB
Tom
Great thread, and great work!
just like me with cars- all the fun is in the project; once it's done, I get board and move on to the next!
Once again. Fine work
just like me with cars- all the fun is in the project; once it's done, I get board and move on to the next!
Once again. Fine work
Cheers!
i'm having a devil of a job making a long enough slot for the tang. I can just about drill a long enough 5mm hole true but I can't expand it side ways without chavelling the mouth. For this one I want to have a all wood single piece grip but I'm foxed how to do it.
atb
tom
i'm having a devil of a job making a long enough slot for the tang. I can just about drill a long enough 5mm hole true but I can't expand it side ways without chavelling the mouth. For this one I want to have a all wood single piece grip but I'm foxed how to do it.
atb
tom
How wide does the slot have to be? and I'm assuming it needs to end up 5mm across the short dimension.
The tangs 1/2 a inch wide, more than many period seax but this one has holes where the scales were pinned on so I'm loathe to thin it down more and make it weak. Measuring it accurately the tangs 5.5mm wide.
Aye yew makes a lovely handle, I did the middle sons small seax with some but from the reading I've done, box seams to be the most common handle material on the few seax tht have survived with traces of the non metal components. But thanks very much for the offer! I did think of doing the handle with the hawthorn I did my small seax and longseax with, with black horn space/guard.
ATB
Tom
Aye yew makes a lovely handle, I did the middle sons small seax with some but from the reading I've done, box seams to be the most common handle material on the few seax tht have survived with traces of the non metal components. But thanks very much for the offer! I did think of doing the handle with the hawthorn I did my small seax and longseax with, with black horn space/guard.
ATB
Tom
One piece handle - in two pieces!
Take the block of wood you want to use and rough cut it out but leaving it extra thick.
Saw in half.
Rebate one side to take the tang - you could also blind pin it now or drill the pin holes in one side.
Glue the handle to the tang matching the grain as closely as possible. allow the glue to set. Drill through the holes in the handle and tang. Pin. Polish.
The glue line should be next to invisible and the handle appear of one solid piece.
I don't know what set up you're using to drill (pillar/power/hand etc.) but if you don't want to do it in two halves, the only things I can think of is to drill a parallel hole and break out/file out the material in between, there shouldn't be too much as the tang is only 1/2 inch. Or use a small gouge and pear away at it.
But a craftsman of your saliva would have probably thought of these. that is very deep though eh. May sound daft but if you haven't shaped the stock already you could try splitting it, then chisel out the tang recess to fit the tang, then glue it; that'd make sure the grain matches perfectly. May sound stupid; splitting the wood was just a brain fart!
I think in olden times they'd probably patiently use a chisel, now I guess they'd use some kind of mortising machine. Not completely sure who I'm referring to when I say "they" mind
Best of luck
But a craftsman of your saliva would have probably thought of these. that is very deep though eh. May sound daft but if you haven't shaped the stock already you could try splitting it, then chisel out the tang recess to fit the tang, then glue it; that'd make sure the grain matches perfectly. May sound stupid; splitting the wood was just a brain fart!
I think in olden times they'd probably patiently use a chisel, now I guess they'd use some kind of mortising machine. Not completely sure who I'm referring to when I say "they" mind
Best of luck
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