Seax almost made - pics

H

hawkwind

Joined
Oct 26, 2004
Messages
298
Hi folks, this is that seax I have forged while ago. Its again that "mine" steel. The handle is bone with basketwork "borre" style carving. No metal fittings which is right. The blade is diferentially heat treated with clay, the quench line is nice, but I expected it to be more curvy and more of blade hardened, hovever with this first attempt lesson is learned. The "unhardened" zone is actually also quite hard, the blade feels like glas under fingers.
The blade got quick and dirty 120 grit sandpaper handfinish and then I have thrown it to bucket of hot watter wit some vinegar and salt, which I like most for etching. This took about 15 minutes.
Its not especially shinny, but thats how I suppose it should be.
The carved handle is of most common viking style and it fantastic to hold and handle - suposse it will not become slipery by either watter nor blood.

http://sweb.cz/hawkwind/overallseax.JPG
http://sweb.cz/hawkwind/diagonalseax.JPG
http://sweb.cz/hawkwind/handleseax.JPG

This is how it looked just fogred and cleaned:
http://sweb.cz/hawkwind/forgedseax.JPG

Things to do :
Fit handle to blade (with pieces of wood of halfmoon shape)
Make a "cork" for buttcap out of horn
Make a sheat with proper fittings


Enjoy!


Jaroslav
 
Beautifully done.

Are you a professionally trained carver? The artistry is lovely.

Thank you.
 
Very nice job of black smithing! Beautiful knife (sword) you should be proud to have such talents. :)
th_you_rock10.gif
 
No I just trying to carve something here and there.I m kind of Jack of all trades. I m going to gunsmith school at the end of the month too...

This is bone belt buckle and endstrap in viking style for a friends wife:

http://sweb.cz/hawkwind/buckle.JPG

These are comonly used for belts made with tablet weaving technique.

Thanks for praise. :)

Jaroslav
 
There's nothing wrong with a straight hamon. Swords made for war were made with thinner, straight hamon than the later peacetime swords.
A wavy hamon is an artistic act, and adds no combat usefulness to a weapon.
In fact, the bigger the hamon, the more likely the weapon is to break.
It was a balancing act, but for a knife like yours, a wide hamon is fine and it doesn't need waviness.
 
That explains alot Danny, thanks.
So the warswords were made with less of fully hardened blade area, because they have to outlive more strain - to avoid breaking?
 
thats right, but also they just didnt need to spend the extra time and money on artistic refinements to an army-issued weapon, basically.
have you ever seen a soldier carrying and M16 with checkered teak stocks and hunting scenes engraved and inlaid with gold on the receiver?
 
Also, from what I've read about ancient arms - by the time the weapon had been sharpened beyond it's hardened zone, the handle was usually crap anyway, so the blade could just be retempered and used again.

They may do this with khukuris in Nepal too.
 
Makes sense indeed.

Daniel - when I heat treated it I just whacked a handful of clay few minutes before heating on the blade.
It was formed into waves, but it cooled bigger part of the blade than I liked. I suppose I have to give it only on spine and make "spikes" of it to get more interesting hamon effect.

Jaroslav
 
hawkwind - not sure if I've shown this pic, but they say a hamon should be about 1/3 of the blade width.


palmgyutou.jpg



You could get away with much less than what I've done here. This was intended for kitchen use, so it's nicer to have it harder. But it was a camp knife, or khukuri, I'd want to see only about 1/2"-3/4" of it fully hardened.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top