New Project - Sabers

[Legendary_Jarl]

This book might interest you:

https://www.amazon.com/Swords-Briti...76641&sr=8-1-fkmrnull&ref=mp_s_a_1_fkmrnull_1

 

[BladeScout]

I have a Blücher artillery saber .

1796 Light Cavalry Sabre (also called a Blücher)?
I like that sabre a lot. Here are some of mine

 

[horseclover]

Prussian made examples of the general profile are often regarded as Blucher sabres but more properly broken up by all those letters and numbers you see. There is a breakdown somewhere that describes what they were regarded as. By the 1830s, iirc, the cavalry passed them on to the artillery. Then later to transport, trains and police. The spine of the blade will generally give you a date, from the 1830s on. Kaiser initial under a crown and a two digit date.

While not exactly my cup of tea, there have been some tips offered to distinguish between the British p1796 and early 1811 Blucher.

Cheers
GC

 

[horseclover]

Some files of threads re the p1796 at SFI from about 2000 to 2007. There are substantially more added since then at several forums. I also have old threads for the 1796 heavy cavalry and infantry from that old archiving project. The board won't let me upload these directly so here on my cloud drive. These are ms Word documents with hyperlinks.

1796 light cavalry
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Hie8mAHFVWLvRRho7PLGCVs5KTdHbhCrZn3TRWJnooo/edit?usp=sharing

1796 heavy cavalry
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1N8nJOldypNtR-RdckO2fhAgVmP6bDhMdsKeK2-EqPpg/edit?usp=sharing

1796 infantry
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9AOFMA8y3ODOUhuLWNyQXRiSFE/view?usp=sharing

Cheers
GC

 

[BladeScout]

Prussian made examples of the general profile are often regarded as Blucher sabres but more properly broken up by all those letters and numbers you see. There is a breakdown somewhere that describes what they were regarded as. By the 1830s, iirc, the cavalry passed them on to the artillery. Then later to transport, trains and police. The spine of the blade will generally give you a date, from the 1830s on. Kaiser initial under a crown and a two digit date.

While not exactly my cup of tea, there have been some tips offered to distinguish between the British p1796 and early 1811 Blucher.

Cheers
GC

The later improved and slightly heaver than the 1796 Light Cavalry Sabre(also sometimes called Blücher), the 1811 is often labelled the Blücher for obvious reasons. Most of mine are the 1811 pattern with the slightly heavier build and bigger drag on the scabbard.

The later Prussian 1848, which was lighter and replaced the aging 1811 is at times mis-labelled the Blücher.

As for artillery issue: The misunderstanding, as I understand it (not an expert), in regards to artillery comes from the following; the Prussians were depending on the Brits for arms. They were issued the 1796 LCS by the Brits and they later improved the '96 and got the 1811 out of it.
As the 1811 was about to be issued, the cavalry still used the 1796 and had plenty of them hence the 1811 was issued to - amongst others - artillery units.

Here an interesting but lengthy article on the subject.
https://sbg-sword-forum.forums.net/thread/44053/1796-1811-light-cavalry-sabres

 

[horseclover]

Here an interesting but lengthy article on the subject.

Yes, I am somewhat familiar and there is the adjacent pinned topic there on the Prussian markings.

Cheers

GC aka edelweiss@sbg, the perturbed perturbateur

 

[J W Bensinger]

Interesting, Horseclover-I'm use to calling all the Prussian deep-curve sabers "Blüchers". Mine is an 1848, then-which while it is perhaps not the light cavalryman's sword that the '11 and '96 were, is a hell of a general use saber-mine is 2lbs even and a POB 5" in front of the guard. Already wore all the paint off the hilt doing drills with it

 

[horseclover]

Here is a sabre I outlined last summer and included some numbers. I believe I posted of it here in the past.
~~~~~~~~~~~
During a recent purchase, I had revisited The Wolfe and Spies association a bit. Hartzler had added some more paragraphs in his recent vol II. As confused as ever, the AW Spies notes seem to definitely relate two different AW Spies in NY but perhaps not. Is it is possible he married more than once?

At any rate, the topic today relates the recent purchase of a new/old stock British made cavalry sword marked to the Wolfe cousins. As crisp as new overall, only the near 200 years has shown oxidation of the scabbard, hilt and shrinkage of the grip. The blade is remarkably free of any contact.

Brass fittings on this P guard type. Showing the lack of continued distal taper refinement, this product of the 1820s has a very linear distal taper. A blade that is just 7mm at the guard, 5mm at the (8") pob, 4mm at the end of the fuller and 2mm behind the point. You'd think a pob of 8" would be off putting but with a weight of 1lb12oz, really quite handy and typical in its toylike presence overall (compared to a big line cavalry piece). 37mm wide at the guard and 32mm wide at the pop (belly) of the blade.

The original polish hard for me to capture but never sharpened, never scraped. A very few errant scratches from someone trying to remove a couple of spots

The original seated washer is present and the fit to the scabbard perfect.

A 32" blade puts it in the same territory as a British 1796 lc, and in turn handles a lot like my Starr 1818 trooper sword. With brass fittings, likely targeted for the mounted artillery roll. British made (almost without doubt) The Wolfe and Spies firms were deep in trade with British exporters.

This is a third purchase from J&J Militaria, through his ebay sales. An urn pommel sabre from him had been similarly found in unused, pristine condition. The mounted artillery sabre I had bought from him years before that was bought specifically as a mat cutting sword but similar in many ways. The latter German made, I believe and a little longer. Sharp and sound as a bell.

Snippets of the two newer Hartzler titles are viewable on Google books. With e-books quite inexpensive, it is tempting but I'd rather save for the hard books. Lots of (new to me) NYC info and I'm sure much more. The Wolfe and Spies information there as complete and concise as I have seen in one place but there is still the whole chapter of Spies in England that could probably reveal a great deal regarding English export to the USA during the first half if the 19th century.

Thanks for viewing, and as always, more is less as far as I am concerned. Bring out your Wolfe and Spies lore, as well as marked swords. I would have started a Wolfe specific thread but the two families are forever intertwined.

Cheers

GC

~~~~~~~~~~
This was added to an ongoing dump of info for the Wolfe family and A.W.Spies. Two importers of British goods. The urn pommel Harold Peterson #5 sabre all of a 25 1/2" blade and the other one 33", something like that. I've a number of both shorter and longer sabers ranging from a 1750ish era Swede to a cheapo US m1902. Most predate the 1830s but my generic wristbreaker is quite typical in its form and specifications of a Solingen 1822 type.

Cheers
GC

 

[Fiddleback]

This is a pic of me holding blade #1. At this point the distal tapering is done, and the fuller is roughed in. I have a chart of weights as we go step for step, but I don't have the clipboard in front of me. These first blades are straight, similar to a Prussian dress sword by Eickhorn. This is so that I can work out the process and details wrt putting the fuller onto a tapered blade. Then I will switch to a saber. The one I have gotten my hands on is an MLE 1822 by Klingenthal. I won't be trying to reproduce that sword though. Mainly using it as a guide, and also to practice with.

 

[Fiddleback]

OK. I've spent a couple of Saturdays on this first sword. What I have now is a bade that is ready for HT and my first guard pretty far along. The bladework is totaly different than making knives. There is a distal taper and a fuller that are both tricky to do and kinda compound the difficulty of one another. I think I've figured out a method I like and last weekend I roughed in the fuller. Today I cleaned up the fuller and started the blade grinding which is actually quite simple. This first blade is going to get destruction tested and will likely not even keep its handle. This will give me a couple of chances to make tweaks and changes to the handle, which I will need. Once again, a sword handle is totaly different and I've had trouble designing anything that looks halfway decent.

The next part I was having trouble designing was the guard. I've made a first attempt. All of the fittings of the sword are going to be copper. Today I drew up a vague shape to try to produce. I cut a pattern from micarta and a first attempt from copper. Then I hamered the copper guard to shape. I'm pretty pleased. I was able to thicken the stem, which will become the knuckle guard. I even kept it straight. I cut the piece smaller than the finished piece and thinned the guard to the size I wanted. I think I could have gone way farther here, but I got something pleasing and stopped. I have a couple of pics.

In this first pic I'm getting started with the guard. The blade is roughed, and is sitting beside the notebook. The micarta is sitting out ready to be made into a pattern.

Here you can see the pattern being made. You can see a curl of paper I cut off of the guard, planning to expand the copper to the line in the drawing.

This next pic shows the copper cutout and the micarta pattern. And a coupe of experiments for the pommel.

This pic shows the blade fitted to a slot in the copper blank.

This was after the first heat of hammering. The goal here was to thicken the thinner profile of the copper and keep it straight and squarish.

This was a few heats later. The damn forge is in storage so I was using the torch.

This is where I am at the end of the day. The knuckleguard has not been bent around yet, but is ready to go. The guard is thinned and has the profile to fit the drawing and then given a bit of contour. This will likely be re-worked a few times before the 3rd blade is ready, and the guard has a permanent home (I hope).

 

[CaptainLog]

Quick Question : What made you pick saber? Epee, in practice, is closer to a duel.

Sabers are absolutely amazing, though. I know Cold Steel deserves a healthy eye roll, but Good God their 1917 patterned saber is fun.

 

[J W Bensinger]

There's a looong history of dueling with the heavy saber-Poland, Hungary, the caucasus-not to mention Napoleonic era Prussia and France (watch "The Duellists" with Harvey Keitel...lost of good saber duels)

 

[CaptainLog]

Oh, I'm well aware. I'm just thinking of the differences between competitive saber and epee. I used to coach fencing at a university.

 

[J W Bensinger]

In that case Captain, I agree-I used to get in a little trouble for handling a sport saber like a heavy saber
They are different animals indeed.
In some ways foil is closer to smallsword than epee is-the ones I handled (both colichemard construction) were nearly as light as a foil and very lethal little rigs

 

[CaptainLog]

I wanted to compete in sabre, but I just couldn't get into the scoring system. "Who had the attack? Oh, he did? AWESOME!" seemed like every other points.

Anywho, really excited to see this project keep going!

 

[Fiddleback]

I have no experience in fencing so that had nothing to do with this. I have trouble explaining why sabers because they just sort of jumped into my head. I guess I have always dreamed of simply charging into battle behind a saber. Since I was a kid. My knives are all about practicality I guess. This is just about the opposite. Its a release.

I now have a construction drawing for the handle. I'm getting excited.

 

[Fiddleback]

Oooo. Also, this weekend I took a tracing from my Mle1822. This has allowed me to figure out exactly how much steel I need for this and I have ordered three bars of 1075!

 

[horseclover]

Your first guard layout looks quite good to further your explorations.

Cheers
GC

 

[Fiddleback]

Made the pommel today. Ill post pics tom. I need to learn a lot about engraving. This one will be pretty plain.

 

[CaptainLog]

Very excited to see them!