The Armour Archive

Something a bit different than my usual carved swords.

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Those quillions are awesome. Who made them?

The quillons were actually made by Zweihammer. Erich made them as gifts for the west kingdom royalty about 5 years ago now, and I'm finally able to get these on a piece of rattan worthy of them. They are actually titanium, welded to a stainless steel core.

whoa

Zweihammer's crossguard did get a little treatment with a dremel tool: the original had a long strait tube on the blade side of the quillions.

Yowsa.

Holy smokes! It arrived in the mail today and it is a think of beauty. Thomas was right that I will need to add some weight to the pommel to help counter weight the massive amount of rattan in this thing, but its stunning looking.

I hope to get some photos of it up soon for you all to see, especially after I get the handle treatment finished.

So happy with the way this came out.

I can't wait to see what happens with the Crusader and Viking blades that I just sent off to have scabbards made for with Vitus!

I'm glad you like the sword. I'd love to see a picture with a person in it so people can get a sense of scale.

I'm fairly certain it would have balanced better if the pommel you had sent had been solid instead of hollow. If you can safely melt lead, you might be able to improve the balance (by partially filling the cavity through one of the screw holes) without changing the outside appearance at all.

nevermind ...

ditto.

Thomas MacFinn wrote:I'm glad you like the sword. I'd love to see a picture with a person in it so people can get a sense of scale.

Has anybody gotten a picture of Eyvandr holding the taped and completed sword? He has had it for several months now.

Very nice

I've totally lagged on finishing it up. I actually played with it a little today. Need to finish deciding what I want to do with the handle.

But I will put photos up when it's done.

Also, if you could post a review on how it handles. I've been reluctant to try the carved swords on the assumption that they're all just going to snap off at the tang the first time I land a solid shot on someone's torso. I really hope I'm wrong about this, but I'd like to hear back from people who've actually used them before I buy into this trend.

Some carved swords do snap off the first time they are used. There is definately an art to making them. Baron Eirik has a carved sword that he has used for a very long time that has held up to everything he has put it through. On the other hand, he recently got a very pretty sword (not made by me) that snapped the first time he used it.

He showed me the broken sword. It had a small tang, a sharp 90 degree angle between the blade and the tang and had steel langets between the crossguard and pommel (which may have reduced flex within the tang).

So far (cross fingers), I haven't heard any reports of any of the blades I have carved snapping, but my early wasters all have uber-thick handles and my later wasters have a visible bevel between blade and tang. If that bevel creates a problem fitting the blade into a crossguard, I encourage people to consider taking a file to the crossguard before the weakening the blade by trying to create a sharp 90 degree angle.

The carving I did on the crossguard above was as much to add strength as it was to improve the sword's appearance. The original design had a long round tube. If I could have designed the crossguard from scratch, it would have been wide enough to not bite into the wood at all.

A lot of it is common sense. Everyone would agree which of the two blades below is more likely to snap off at the hilt. Just remember that our blades are made of rattan instead of folded steel and you will do fine.