- Joined
- Nov 26, 2001
- Messages
- 1,375
I've recently purchased from a friend a sword, which he bought, together with some others, by a smith in Poland.
The sword is well balanced, 51,6" long and weighs 4,5 #, a bit heavy, but it's almost a two hander, and I guess the weight will be down a little when the sword is completely polished.
Center of balance is 3.7" down the hilt, the primary node is 24,8" up the hilt and the secondary node lays some 5"-6" in the middle of the handle (measured from where the handle meets the crossguard).
One peculiar aspect of this sword is the tang, extremely thick and massive, as you can see in the picture below.
The sword came as it was right out of the forge, still dirty with coal and soot, and covered with scale.
Notice the extremely thick tang, which joins the blade with properly rounded corners.
The crossguard is fitted hot on the blade and hammered to conform to the two short fullers.
Here is the sword after I filed and sanded most of the scale off, and I begun finishing the blade.
I bought a beech sledge hammer handle, cut out a suitable piece, cut it in two and carved a space for the tang.
Since the pommel was already peened and I didn't want to unpeen it, I fitted the handle to the sword joyning the two halves with hot glue (the one you get in sticks for glue guns), after warming up the tang itself a bit with a torch.
The handle is now securely fitted to the tang. Taking it of will be a bit of a pain, but I don't care. The sword is for sparrying and should be sturdy, not nice
I sanded the handle level with the hilt and pommel, dyed it and I'm currently treating it with boiled lineseed oil, to make it sturdier.
Since the steel mittens I use during sparrying would eventually ruin the wood, I plan to wrap the whole handle in twisted iron wire.
I know I have choosen some very unortodox ways to "finish" this sword (especially when it comes to hot glue ) but as said, the sword has to be functional and sturdy for sparrying (and ready for next tuesday), and I don't plan to take it apart.
Now the problem is making up enough twisted wire to cover the 10" long handle
I'll have also to sand down the wood some more to make room for the wire.
I've calculated I'll need about 23 yards of twisted wire to complete the wrapping, so I'll have to wait till I have enough room to make that much wire in a single run, probably next time I'll be in my wife's country house . I'll tie one end of the double wire to a suitable tree and wind it up with a drill from the other end.
Here a pic with ATrim H&H Swede for comparison, so to better get an idea of the size of the sword.
Notice how the blade has still to be finished and the light plays waves on the still irregular surface.
The sword is well balanced, 51,6" long and weighs 4,5 #, a bit heavy, but it's almost a two hander, and I guess the weight will be down a little when the sword is completely polished.
Center of balance is 3.7" down the hilt, the primary node is 24,8" up the hilt and the secondary node lays some 5"-6" in the middle of the handle (measured from where the handle meets the crossguard).
One peculiar aspect of this sword is the tang, extremely thick and massive, as you can see in the picture below.
The sword came as it was right out of the forge, still dirty with coal and soot, and covered with scale.
Notice the extremely thick tang, which joins the blade with properly rounded corners.
The crossguard is fitted hot on the blade and hammered to conform to the two short fullers.
Here is the sword after I filed and sanded most of the scale off, and I begun finishing the blade.
I bought a beech sledge hammer handle, cut out a suitable piece, cut it in two and carved a space for the tang.
Since the pommel was already peened and I didn't want to unpeen it, I fitted the handle to the sword joyning the two halves with hot glue (the one you get in sticks for glue guns), after warming up the tang itself a bit with a torch.
The handle is now securely fitted to the tang. Taking it of will be a bit of a pain, but I don't care. The sword is for sparrying and should be sturdy, not nice
I sanded the handle level with the hilt and pommel, dyed it and I'm currently treating it with boiled lineseed oil, to make it sturdier.
Since the steel mittens I use during sparrying would eventually ruin the wood, I plan to wrap the whole handle in twisted iron wire.
I know I have choosen some very unortodox ways to "finish" this sword (especially when it comes to hot glue ) but as said, the sword has to be functional and sturdy for sparrying (and ready for next tuesday), and I don't plan to take it apart.
Now the problem is making up enough twisted wire to cover the 10" long handle
I'll have also to sand down the wood some more to make room for the wire.
I've calculated I'll need about 23 yards of twisted wire to complete the wrapping, so I'll have to wait till I have enough room to make that much wire in a single run, probably next time I'll be in my wife's country house . I'll tie one end of the double wire to a suitable tree and wind it up with a drill from the other end.
Here a pic with ATrim H&H Swede for comparison, so to better get an idea of the size of the sword.
Notice how the blade has still to be finished and the light plays waves on the still irregular surface.
