Swordmaking - Distal Taper

Richard338 said:
Yes, when I said a gap is common I didn't mean to imply that it is wrong. Most examples I could find have a gap there.
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oh, cause i was going down the "Now I have to figure out how to fill that!!!?????" train of thought lol PHEW.

BTW Richard, how thick is your guard and pommel and could you elaborate on finding the right weight? That's something I cant grab any info on and all the weight balancing thing is very complex I find.
 
Dave Hamilton said:
oh, cause i was going down the "Now I have to figure out how to fill that!!!?????" train of thought lol PHEW.

BTW Richard, how thick is your guard and pommel and could you elaborate on finding the right weight? That's something I cant grab any info on and all the weight balancing thing is very complex I find.
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I don't have the sword here with me, so I was looking through the old WIP for details, but I don't see those dimensions. I think the guard was about 3/4" where it meets the blade, and the pommel more like 1-1/8". My biggest mistake was making the handle too long. I would prefer a more snug feeling in hand.
 
A.McPherson A.McPherson I built the geometric construction described in the video. If you make the 7 primary circles 5" in diameter, then for a guard of 0.5" thickness, the space for your hand is almost exactly 3.5", and the sword would have a total length of 35".
Scaling up to snugly accomodate my hand brings the total length to 40", providing 4" for my hand.
SwordCode.png
 
Dave Hamilton said:
Final dimensions: hilt 5.93mm, 5.23mm, 4.39mm, 3.88mm, 3.91mm. To anyone, how's these specs sound?

The last 3rd doesn't taper as much, more straight but for my bevel skillset I'd rather have more. Never did a double edge before, let's see how I do there.
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Sounds pretty good to me! Since it should naturally trim up a bit more as the bevels are made and it's finished out, especially if it's not hardened and tempered yet.
 
This wasn't mentioned in the video, but r.e. handle size weren't the Vikings & middle-age people smaller on average than modern folks?
 
Interesting video.
(now we can claim that any asymmetries are intentional performance features)
 
Got the fullers sanded to 80 grit. 15 minutes here, 20 minutes there over the last week. I was able to straighten out almost fully the peaks of the fuller running the full length. Given the warm weather past this weekend we are about to have in NJ, I'm itching to grind the bevels and take advantage, but on this blade would it be more prudent to send out to heat treat first? I would assume yes to keep the blade straight during the process, but I am impatient on testing my beveling skills.

2022-12-31_06-20-46 by Dave Hamilton, on Flickr
 
Mecha said:
Sounds pretty good to me! Since it should naturally trim up a bit more as the bevels are made and it's finished out, especially if it's not hardened and tempered yet.
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I figured it was better to be safer on this one, first double edge to date. Would you recommend heat treating now or grinding most of it away beforehand?
 
Dave Hamilton said:
I figured it was better to be safer on this one, first double edge to date. Would you recommend heat treating now or grinding most of it away beforehand?
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Mine have to be pretty close to finished before heat treatment, because they're made of somewhat of a shallow-hardening alloys. This complicates things during the quench due to warpage, lack of thermal mass, extra care to avoid overheating on thin sections, less extra material to grind out ripples, etc.

Good symmetry of the bevels helps a lot in this regard. I wish mine could be HT'd while the billets are thicker, to be honest. Quenching a three-foot long blade gets weird, because a minor warp can cause a lot of deviation between the tip and tang.

I wouldn't take off too much more than you have to before HT, as long as the post-HT grinding methods will be nice and cool. Others here probably have better insight about it with regards to the blade material you're using.
 
Mecha said:
Mine have to be pretty close to finished before heat treatment, because they're made of somewhat of a shallow-hardening alloys. This complicates things during the quench due to warpage, lack of thermal mass, extra care to avoid overheating on thin sections, less extra material to grind out ripples, etc.

Good symmetry of the bevels helps a lot in this regard. I wish mine could be HT'd while the billets are thicker, to be honest. Quenching a three-foot long blade gets weird, because a minor warp can cause a lot of deviation between the tip and tang.

I wouldn't take off too much more than you have to before HT, as long as the post-HT grinding methods will be nice and cool. Others here probably have better insight about it with regards to the blade material you're using.
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Good insight thanks. BTW, your avatar was an inspiration for a Halloween costume years ago. Just noticed yours!
 
On the topic of distal, fullers and Viking, I started a seax which i wasn't too thrilled about doing, but felt i needed too, so I did. I'm wondering one thing though and hope I'm in the "clear", it measures .26" thick. I cut it at 15" edge, 1.5" high, the bottom of the fuller is almost center of the stock. Does that make sense, thick to height? I do not plan on any distal taper, but its not out of the wheelhouse, but at .26" and about 3/4"-1" flat grind, does that seem stupid? I really don't want to deal with that fuller anymore...

2023-01-11_05-29-25 by Dave Hamilton, on Flickr
 
Richard338 said:
A.McPherson A.McPherson I built the geometric construction described in the video. If you make the 7 primary circles 5" in diameter, then for a guard of 0.5" thickness, the space for your hand is almost exactly 3.5", and the sword would have a total length of 35".
Scaling up to snugly accomodate my hand brings the total length to 40", providing 4" for my hand.
View attachment 2029738
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I'll have to dive in to this, missed these replies in the thread. Any input on my seax good sir?
 
A.McPherson said:
Here's an interesting video on sword design in the middle ages...

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Thank you for this, missed the reply earlier. As I asked Sir Richard, could you provide some insight into the seax I posted about. I'm ready to just grind on Sunday at the thickness, but would love to hear thoughts.
 
I hesitate to suggest how to grind yours. I did a seax earlier this year. I matched the profile of one in a British museum. The blade was only 9" and that was one of the bigger ones. The broken back on mine was closer to the middle. The grind is simple but interesting. You do a full flat holding the edge level. The spine ends up thickest where the break in the spine is, so you get a taper in both directions, towards the tip and towards the handle. I'm not sure about the fuller as mine didn't have one. One way would be to grind in the fuller, then ignore it and do the grind I described (full flat to the spine). That's if you don't want a shorter more abrupt bevel.
 
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