The Armour Archive

Has anyone experimented with different guard/hilt materials? I'd like to make a pair of 18" rondel daggers for use at the barrier.

Thanks.

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Deus Suos Cognoscet
Company of Saint Olaf

Arland has one that is leather disks. it seems to work fine....

Good Samuel,

How did he attach the disks to the dagger? I wondered whether to leave one side attached on the hole I cut out for the rattan, and perhaps a lag bolt in the hilt.

from what I recall.

he mad a handle from leather as well and sewed the disks to it. the upper portion having a hole and the lower not. Im fairly sure its held on with rubber cement AKA DUCO cement.

ive used this stuff myself and it holds well to rattan.
basically make a leather tube and sew disks top and bottom cutting a hole in the top...

BTW i think it will look better with some nive sole leather disks and 7 oz handle leather. dyed ensuite.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Thorgrim:
<B>Good Samuel,

How did he attach the disks to the dagger? I wondered whether to leave one side attached on the hole I cut out for the rattan, and perhaps a lag bolt in the hilt. </B><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

What I've done with Daggers, using black pickle barrel in very small amounts (Hey... it's the only pickle barrel on any of my stuff) is a step program. You gotta start with rattan over 1 1/4"

find where I want the top of my grip and go a 1/4 inch up the blade. use a saw to cut into the rattan an equal depth on each side until you have 1 1/4" in between the 2 cuts.

Plane the rattat from the tip of the blade down to the 2 cuts. Make sure to keep it really even. I do this by hand with my hunting knife.

Take your leather or pickle barrel and form it into the shape that you want(i.e. roundel). Put the planed end of the stick onto the roundel and take a marker and draw around it.

drill through it with a bit that is bigger than the blade of whatever saw you are using. I use a coping saw that I take the blade off of, put it through, and reattach to the handles. And then cut out the inside of the marks.

push the roundel down the blade (hopefully this will be a TIGHT fit) until it hit's the shoulders that were left by the 2 cuts in the rattan that you planed down to.

wrap some tape right above it to keep it from coming back up and then shape your handle. I recommend leaving a 1/4" from your shaped handle to the shoulders though. For added strength.

I have used this style for a while and the first dagger that I made with it is still in use and gets a dozen or so kills in the middle of the warfield a year.. so it is getting used and works fine

Fritz the peasant.

Thorgrim,
the guard on mine is made from a hockey puck. I used a forsner bit to drill the hole, then jammed the puck on the rattan. Of course this was essentially a field expedient solution (oh god the dagger tourney is tomorrow what do I do...) so it is covered with duct tape. But if one where to patiently stich leather around the hockey puck it would look truly cool. The puck also gives it a certain amount of authority. I have used it at the barriers, which was loads of fun, kinda like staring a quisenart in the business bits.

I built a rondell dagger hilt out of some steel plate and 3/8" round rod stock. I had 2 disks drilled out of 1/4" plate at about 3-1/2" in diameter, and in one disk I had a 1-1/2" diameter drilled out of the center to allow the rattan to pass through the opening. (A friend of mine works in a machine shop and used a drilling machine that looked like a hole-saw for cutting large diameter hiles in wood.)I then drilled two holes in each disk to allow the rod to pass through the disks (along side of the rattan)and tack welded them in place. I bent the rod into a U-shape long enough to leave a 1" tab beyond the front disk (for attachment), and a 1" 'loop' behind the pommel disk (so I could chain my dagger to my breast plate). I painted the whole thing with some gold radiator paint and taped it to my rattan. The two pieces of rod along the handle create an oval cross-section that is very easy to grip with gauntlets. There is a picture of it on my archive armour shot on Krag's site. I'll try to post a photo tomorrow.

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"Pecunia non potest emere elegentium"

I have seen that photo many times and wondered how the hell Konrad made that bad ass dagger...
-V