traditional handles for small working seax

[kevin -the professor]

Hello everyone,
I am working on a 6" long, traditional-shaped working-style seax. It has a wrought iron spine (really nasty wrought with a cool pattern - looks like a hada).

the belly of the blade is 9 layers of 15n20 and 1080 with a twist.

Does anyone have any info or suggestions for traditional seax handle. I am going to put some knotwork on it, most likely carved and burned. I am more interested in shape and length.



I am also working on a larger blade (it is not polished or heat-treated yet) that has the same billet used for the spine. On the big one, the cutting edge is two bars of mono 1080 welded together. 11" long, 1" wide, 3 bar construction, the spine is a 9-layer-twist. Big, bold pattern. It is not profiled fully, heat treated, or polished. This pic is just a quick etch for motivation.

The larger one is already spoken for. Still - I have to come up with a traditional style handle and I want to carve it a little.

Please give me any info about handle shapes and carving styles for traditional seaxes. comments and advice are welcomed.

thanks for looking,
Kevin

 

[armstrobe]

I believe the handle is carved in the stylized form of a Black Grouse.
Merchants traveling from Kiev to Constantinople released these birds on an island in the Dnieper where they cusomarly paused midway. These birds were a gift to the gods to express gratitude for a safe passage of a section of a river filled with rapids and nomadic bands of robbers. The handle has two engraved silver bands at the bottom. Unfortunatly I have lost the original link to the pictures.

 

[Kevin R. Cashen]

armstrobe, your images didn't upload or post correctly but I am keenly interested in seeing them. I have studied other bird shaped handles of the period and would really like to compare to get a better idea of what I was seeing in the past. Please, please, please repost... pretty please

 

[12345678910]

I believe the handle is carved in the stylized form of a Black Grouse.
Merchants traveling from Kiev to Constantinople released these birds on an island in the Dnieper where they cusomarly paused midway. These birds were a gift to the gods to express gratitude for a safe passage of a section of a river filled with rapids and nomadic bands of robbers. The handle has two engraved silver bands at the bottom. Unfortunatly I have lost the original link to the pictures.

As a registered user, I think you can't upload a picture directly from your computer to this forum.

If you have a paid account you could.
or
If you put them in a photobucket, Facebook with no privacy settings or another type of web hosing account, then you can link them here

 

[sunshadow]

Nice looking blade, I'm curious about the rise at the tip, I have not seen that documented in a Seax before. Having done period correct wrought/steel composite blades myself I appreciate the work you have put into that piece.

-Page

 

[deloid]

If you e-mail the pics to me I will post them for you.

Dean

 

[Kevin R. Cashen]

Any progress on the possibility of us being able to see those images?:thumbup:

 

[armstrobe]

I have posted a message to DELIOD as he suggested and when I receive an email from him I will be able to send the pictures to him to post.
In the meantime below are links to pictures of a seax I made for my son and notes for seax workshop I have conducted (11meg pdf)

http://nvg.org.au/forum/viewtopic.php?forum=4&showtopic=854

http://handakas.nvg.org.au/staticpages/docs/seax-making.pdf

 

[Kevin R. Cashen]

Armstrobe, thanks for the links, the PDF is a very nice step by step. Perhaps I can get together with Deloid on the other photos, or if you are willing I would be happy to have you e-mail whatever you can. Sorry to be a pest, but I have a seax project that has been on the shelf for a couple of years that involves an original with a bird shaped handle and comparisons to others would be invaluable to me.

 

[armstrobe]

Send me a message I understand I will have access toyour email
if not you may send your email address in a message

 

[deloid]

Here are the images:

 

[armstrobe]

Thank god finaly got the pictures up thanks to deloid.
I have a collection of photos of swords and seaxs taken from museums in Belgium,Germany,Netherlands,Norway-Sweden and UK-Ireland. There are hundreds of photos in this collection it is however a very large zip file (38 Meg) if anybody is interested maybe there is a way of posting it them but I dont myself know how.

 

[deloid]

I don't know if my server can accept mail that size but if you break it up into smaller packs I can post a link after I upload to my web. Sounds like items most would like to see.
Can't you upload the files to a free photo server then just post a link?

 

[deloid]

 

[sunshadow]

Armstrobe, you do not have your profile filled out so I have no indication of what country you live in. If you live in the USA you can do what I do, go to photobucket.com and upload the pictures to photobucket, then I copy the direct link and paste it here

-Page

 

[armstrobe]

since I have just registered I had yet to fill out profile now done

 

[Kevin R. Cashen]

Thank you very much for that, the pictures are more informative than I exptected. I would like to chat some more via PM or e-mail.

 

[kevin -the professor]

Hey guys, thanks - I thought this thread was dead. I finished and sold these two LONG AGO.

Ok - actually I sold the big one and destoyed the little one in testing. I was rightly curious about how solid the juction of the tang and blade were (or were not - I learned at least).

I wish I had the info above before I sent them away, but... I made the handle on the big one to the customer's specs. He specifically asked for a handle that was that diameter in the middle, so that is what he got.

The little one - I carved some but then did not take pics before destructive testing.

Thanks again, though. I will revisit this form very soon.

kc

 

[kevin -the professor]

here it is with the wooden sheath (not the traditional leather, again, I will be learning that with the next one or two). I am quite happy with the information you sent. I do plan to use it in the very near future (I have a dao to finish and then it is back to seaxs).

Thank you, thank you....


kc

ps - the seax that is composite construction that you see above was finished and put in this thread

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=749551