OT: Fifty cent Scramaseax

Sylvrfalcn

Sylvrfalcn

Joined
Jun 4, 2002
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A trip to the flea market last weekend yielded an old, old, Nicholson Black Diamond file for the princely sum of fifty cents. When I put that rascal on the grinder, the spark pattern and spark colors produced were amazing, incredible old hunk of high carbon steel.:eek:

Y'all can blame Dan (Pendentive) for what I did with it. All his preparations for the Ren Fest inspired me to put together some new medieval gear for my own outfit. It's a "belt knife" sized Norse/Saxon scramaseax with a simple handle of Axis deer antler. Fully convex ground, and tempered down to around 60RC, not a bad little roast slicer and bandit repeller for half a buck.;)

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Sarge
 

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Oh sure, the knife is cheap enough, but the hand tooled Celtic knotwork scabbard that goes with it'll run around 125 bucks.:p :p

Actually, this one's going in my medieval war chest like I said. Next project is to carve a new longbow, and make a new quiver for my arrows, and a new belt pouch, and some new feast gear, and danged if I don't need to make a new winter weight cloak with a hood, oh, and I really want to make a Viking "A" frame tent while I'm at it.:rolleyes: :D ;)

Sarge, er, Lord Robert of Yorkshire, of Clan Middle Thunder, of House Rolling Thunder, Twenty Third King's Archer of Ansteorra (hee:D )
 
Sarge, several recent mentions of osage orange wood piqued my curiosity about the stuff, and I wound up at OsageOrange.com, which has some interesting links about using it to make longbows. There are a lot of links about bows/longbows in general.

Tried to interest them in selling me some small pieces to make knife scales/handles, but it was too labor intensive for them, with too little payback. Can't blame them. There's always ebay.
 
Aardvark, Osage is a great bow wood, one of the very best, problem is a properly cut and seasoned bow stave of Osage will set a fellow back to the tune of around 60 to 80 bucks. I can make a longbow out of red oak from Lowe's hardware for an initial investment of eight bucks. The last such longbow I made, now in the possession of a friend who shoots it regularly, has two full archery seasons and by now over a thousand shots on it, and it's still fresh as a daisy and shooting as consistently as the day I made it. Bows from lumberyard staves? There's a whole chapter on the subject in Volume Two of "The Traditional Bowyer's Bible".

Sarge
 
Originally posted by Sylvrfalcn
Y'all can blame Dan (Pendentive) for what I did with it.
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This is the kind of blame I readily accept. :D

Although, the same could be said for you, Greg!:eek:

Glad to see a convex edge snuck it's way in there too.:D

Even at just $20, Sarge, you'd be making a 4000% profit.
 
Good lookin' Seax Sarge!!!! The pic is great, the convex edge is great, but dammit you could've posted the specs.:rolleyes: :p ;) :D
 
Just for you Yvsa, Specs;
- Blade; 7" long, 1 1/8" wide, 7/32" thick, tang tempered dead soft, ricasso area tempered to 55 RC, remainder of blade tempered to 60 RC. Grind profile is flat taper from spine for about one third of blade width, remaining two thirds is full convex to the edge. That seax style point is sharp as a dadgummed needle:eek: Blade finish is a combination of lemon juice rub and mustard.

- Handle; Axis deer antler, 4 1/4" long (sounds short, but it's quite comfortable in the hand, that and I left the blade edge unsharpened for about 3/4 inch from the blade/handle juncture so you can "choke up on it"). I used a hand drill (non-electric)and some needle files to fit the blade tang to the handle, two-ton epoxy was used as the bonding agent.

- Overall length; 11 1/4"

- Weight; Not a clue. It ain't heavy, but has a very solid "heft" to it

It'll make me a good medieval camp knife since we tend to use knives primarily for cutting, and leave chopping chores to the ubiquitious camp axe.;)

Sarge
 
Originally posted by Sylvrfalcn
Just for you Yvsa, Specs;
- Blade; 7" long,

It'll make me a good medieval camp knife since we tend to use knives primarily for cutting, and leave chopping chores to the ubiquitious camp axe.;)

Sarge
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Wado Sarge.:D
 
50 cent eh? LIES!!!1

I don't see a single engraved line of lyrics or of any chronic leaves on that blade!!

:cool: :cool: :footinmou
 
Thanks to the influences of numerous forumites I started my first knife project today. The steel was an old rusty Simonds file I found in the lake when the water was low last year. Here's where I'm at after one day:

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I baked the file to straw yellow, cut it in half, drew some lines and started grinding. After I got the basic shape, I heated the tang to purple/blue with a torch and cut some slots in it with a grinder. Then I sanded the blade using paper and a wooden block.

All of the information to perform the above steps was gleaned from what you folks here have shared on the topic.

Still needs the edge finished and sharpened. I haven't decided on the handle yet, gotta start scrounging for materials.

Thanks for the inspiration, guys.
 
Sarge?

The examples of your work that I have seen are marvelous. Now, you have Raghorn doing well, and we've all seen Pen's work.

I tried, once. The International Order of Abandoned and Rusty Files got a "cease and desist" order entered against me.:(

Just as well, I guess.

Keep up the good work, folks. Your various works are a pleasure to see.
 
Good stuff Raggy! That's the way to do it. Kis, have patience, all things come to those who perservere. Had a nice retirement ceremony and cookout for a friend of mine yesterday. The boys did a great job barbecueing some beef briskets, but when it came time to serve it, realized to their dismay they had nothing to carve it with. I calmly reached under my shirt and produced my latest file knife project, a 7" bladed Scottish style dirk with a 4 1/2" long handle of elk antler. The wide eyed looks grew even wider as that razor sharp, convex ground, blade glided through huge hunks of beef like a surgical laser. One young feller very astutely remarked, "Sarge, I will never, ever, ever, piss you off, I'd rather French kiss a mountain lion". That boy's a quick study ;-)

Sarge
 
Here's what it looks like as of today. 8-3/4" OAL, 5" blade (4" cutting edge). I used a leftover piece of oak stair material from the garage, which still needs sanding and sealing. Convex edge a la Dan's video, chopped a 2x4 to bits with no loss of sharpness. :)
 
Here's the final pic with finished handle, next to JKM-1 for size comparison. I learned an awful lot doing this.
 
Nice looking knife, and the handle looks good too.

When you heated it to straw yellow, did you use a kitchen oven? Presumably it was heated to make it easier to grind, but how did you harden it back up again? Also, why was it necessary to heat the tang to blue prior to cutting the slots?

Sorry for all the questions, but I have two files in line to be ground, and I was just planning to grind them to shape without heating them. If this won't work, please advise.

BTW, I think Oak is a great handle material and don't understand why it isn't used more often.
 
Bruise - Yes. It says Simonds Nucut USA Flat 2nd. When I did a Google search to learn more about the file, I got a bunch of links to porn sites. I probably destroyed a perfectly good antique. :rolleyes:

Cliff - I heated the blade at 450 in the kitchen oven for about an hour and then let it air cool. This was the temperature range recommended in the Jim Hrisoulas book for chopping/general duty blades. The book actually recommends this step after rough grinding and before the final grinding.

I heated the tang to blue to remove brittleness in the shoulder area, then I cut the slots. I didn't heat it as a prerequisite to cutting, it just sort of happened in that order.

I like the oak, too. I have a big enough chunk left over for about two more handles. It originated at a Home Depot as part of a building project. This piece is very porous and responds well to light coats of stain. It still needs a bit of woodchucking to make it look really nice, but it's finished for practical purposes.

Thanks for the feedback guys, this was a fun project. The other half of this file is turning into a Wharncliffe, hopefully with fewer mistakes along the way.
 
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