Viking sword completed project

Richard338

Richard338

Gold Member
Joined
May 3, 2005
Messages
7,377
I just finished my Viking sword project and love how it turned out and the photo by COOP.

The complete details of the build are in a thread in shoptalk: https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/viking-sword-design-wip-finished-coop-photo-added.1621567/

Sorry if I get too enthusiastic and post it in too many places.

KrpA4xw.jpg
 
Awww man, that looks like a fun sword! Nice work!
 
So it is a little hard to tell from the pictures is that wire inlay in the cross? Also, is the pommel all one piece? How are the letters applied to the blade?
 
Triton said:
So it is a little hard to tell from the pictures is that wire inlay in the cross? Also, is the pommel all one piece? How are the letters applied to the blade?
Click to expand...
The wire inlay is in the guard on both sides. The pommel was hand filed from a single block.
The thread linked in my first post above gives all the gory details of a long process with a lot of lessons learned along the way.
 
Sorry, I managed to overlook the link when I went straight to the pictures. If I understand you correctly this is a first effort in this genre? In the other thread there were a couple of points that I did not see although I might have overlooked them. Could you relate how much the sword weighs? Also, after heat treat what is the hardness? Finally, where is the balance point?

Do you have any thoughts on what area you wish to focus on? In the other thread I noted that you had also made a katana and you mentioned hunting knives. That's a fairly wide variety of items! All of those items require some fairly serious specialized skills. This one is very nice, far nicer than many of the production pieces currently available on the market. If it's your intent to build other viking swords (maybe even for customers?) I might suggest purchasing a copy of Ian Pierce's Swords in the Viking Age?
 
Triton said:
Sorry, I managed to overlook the link when I went straight to the pictures. If I understand you correctly this is a first effort in this genre? In the other thread there were a couple of points that I did not see although I might have overlooked them. Could you relate how much the sword weighs? Also, after heat treat what is the hardness? Finally, where is the balance point?

Do you have any thoughts on what area you wish to focus on? In the other thread I noted that you had also made a katana and you mentioned hunting knives. That's a fairly wide variety of items! All of those items require some fairly serious specialized skills. This one is very nice, far nicer than many of the production pieces currently available on the market. If it's your intent to build other viking swords (maybe even for customers?) I might suggest purchasing a copy of Ian Pierce's Swords in the Viking Age?
Click to expand...

Yes, this is my second sword overall, the other being a katana: https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/katana-project-putting-it-all-together.1619155/
I'm not certain about some of the parameters as it is still getting shipped back from COOP's photos.
It started as 36" x 2" x 0.25" CPM 3V. It tapers in width and also distal taper. It was heat treated at Peters' and came out at 60 RHC.
The pommel is quite solid, putting the balance point maybe 4" in front of the guard (again I don't have it with me at the moment, but I did handle it quite a bit)

Thanks for the book suggestion. I don't sell any of my knives. I make whatever comes to mind purely for my own amusement and at my own pace.
I have gone from chopper to cheese knife, to push dagger, to katana etc.
Every project is a struggle where I learn a lot from mistakes and just try not to mess up too bad. Then it's on to something else...
 
Richard338 said:
Yes, this is my second sword overall, the other being a katana: https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/katana-project-putting-it-all-together.1619155/
I'm not certain about some of the parameters as it is still getting shipped back from COOP's photos.
It started as 36" x 2" x 0.25" CPM 3V. It tapers in width and also distal taper. It was heat treated at Peters' and came out at 60 RHC.
The pommel is quite solid, putting the balance point maybe 4" in front of the guard (again I don't have it with me at the moment, but I did handle it quite a bit)

Thanks for the book suggestion. I don't sell any of my knives. I make whatever comes to mind purely for my own amusement and at my own pace.
I have gone from chopper to cheese knife, to push dagger, to katana etc.
Every project is a struggle where I learn a lot from mistakes and just try not to mess up too bad. Then it's on to something else...
Click to expand...

Good for you, it is a pretty impressive hobby skill set you are building. I guess I might suggest continuing trying out new things until you find a genre that you are particularly interested in and then really learn how to be a master in that area. You seem to have the raw talent to do so. I suggested the book because there are a lot of the finer details and even construction methods to be learned there. However if it is unlikely that you will build another Viking style sword you may want to skip it. One I would suggest would be The Complete Bladesmith by Jim Hrisoulas. It talks about metal selection heat treat numbers etc. and may be helpful.
 
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