- Joined
- Aug 23, 2002
- Messages
- 1,398
A little history - This project started out after a previous post of mine in which Gib of CactusForge liked one of my pieces real well and I mentioned to him that I liked to collaborate. Any way we got together on the QT and things started to mesh.
The blades are by Gib - forged, shaped, and fileworked out of 5160 with his rustic finish which I then etched/aged.
The warclub is the first thing that got started. The bone section came from a batch of dawg bones I got when we bought a side of beef from my neighbor who raises Texas Longhorns. When I saw that bone bells went off in my head - WARCLUB QUIRT! WARCLUB QUIRT! they rang. So I went into the shop and added the mule deer grip and tacks and fringe and cones and bead work. Now during the process one of those strange little "good" things happened. I drilled a hole for the quirt lash and didn't like where it was so I drilled another hole. Now I had to "cover up" the first hole so I glued in a wooden dowel and then covered up the ends with brass tacks. Left for a bathroom break and when I came back I realized that serendipitously the tacks made "eyes' in the hawk head shaped end! Had never noticed the shape until then. What do you think?
In the meantime Gib had forged a blade for it based on the original dag blades sold by the Hudson's Bay Co way back when. Now it was complete or so I thought.....
Still not satisfied I decided to add the drop, which is beaded using 19th century repro pony beads. In true Mtn Man/Indian fashion it is also decorated with cones, hawk bells, and copper beads.
Welllllll.....seems as Gib had also sent me four other blades to add grips to and make sheaths for. When I saw this graceful blade with the Spanish notch it rang some more chimes
and I decided to grip it and sheath it to "match" the warclub.
Now the first thing I needed was a piece of bone for the grip. Ding a ling a ling! Gave Ray Richards a shout and made a trade for piece of deer leg bone that turned out perfect for what I wanted. But then came a little bugaboo - I decided that a standard metal crossguard just wasn't what I wanted to do. Went to bed that night and around two AM I woke up with more bells going off! I remembered seeing this piece of deer antler that makes up the "bolster" in my box full of odds and ends and decided to go for it. Didn't want to use a standard spacer between the grip and bolster either so after getting everything together I grabbed a piece of rawhide and braided this knot. Got to looking at the whole thing and it needed that little bit more so I added the brass tacks so it matched the Warclub/Quirt.
Then came the sheath, which seemed to take forever (the whole project was done in my "spare" time LOL! I finally finished it up last night. It, like the warclub, is decorated with repro beads, cones, hawk bells, bone beads, and copper beads!
The whole thing was a labor of love and the best part was collaborating with Gib. This ain't the last from us either that's for sure.
The blades are by Gib - forged, shaped, and fileworked out of 5160 with his rustic finish which I then etched/aged.
The warclub is the first thing that got started. The bone section came from a batch of dawg bones I got when we bought a side of beef from my neighbor who raises Texas Longhorns. When I saw that bone bells went off in my head - WARCLUB QUIRT! WARCLUB QUIRT! they rang. So I went into the shop and added the mule deer grip and tacks and fringe and cones and bead work. Now during the process one of those strange little "good" things happened. I drilled a hole for the quirt lash and didn't like where it was so I drilled another hole. Now I had to "cover up" the first hole so I glued in a wooden dowel and then covered up the ends with brass tacks. Left for a bathroom break and when I came back I realized that serendipitously the tacks made "eyes' in the hawk head shaped end! Had never noticed the shape until then. What do you think?
In the meantime Gib had forged a blade for it based on the original dag blades sold by the Hudson's Bay Co way back when. Now it was complete or so I thought.....
Still not satisfied I decided to add the drop, which is beaded using 19th century repro pony beads. In true Mtn Man/Indian fashion it is also decorated with cones, hawk bells, and copper beads.
Welllllll.....seems as Gib had also sent me four other blades to add grips to and make sheaths for. When I saw this graceful blade with the Spanish notch it rang some more chimes
and I decided to grip it and sheath it to "match" the warclub. Now the first thing I needed was a piece of bone for the grip. Ding a ling a ling! Gave Ray Richards a shout and made a trade for piece of deer leg bone that turned out perfect for what I wanted. But then came a little bugaboo - I decided that a standard metal crossguard just wasn't what I wanted to do. Went to bed that night and around two AM I woke up with more bells going off! I remembered seeing this piece of deer antler that makes up the "bolster" in my box full of odds and ends and decided to go for it. Didn't want to use a standard spacer between the grip and bolster either so after getting everything together I grabbed a piece of rawhide and braided this knot. Got to looking at the whole thing and it needed that little bit more so I added the brass tacks so it matched the Warclub/Quirt.
Then came the sheath, which seemed to take forever (the whole project was done in my "spare" time LOL
! I finally finished it up last night. It, like the warclub, is decorated with repro beads, cones, hawk bells, bone beads, and copper beads!
The whole thing was a labor of love and the best part was collaborating with Gib. This ain't the last from us either that's for sure.
