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This is my first attempt at a frame handle knife, and it has taught me many things The blade was made from some Randy Haas stainless steel damascus, and is friction fit into a channel in the frame and is pulled tight to the guard by a bolt. The handle is made from horn I stabilized, wrought iron, and copper. The handle is held together with 9 pins and epoxy.

Recently I finished a saber for sport usage. Forged out of new spring steel (50HF). Blade lenght is 790mm, PoB 175mm weight 900g Dedicated for a left handed swordsman. Such models were common in second half of the 17th century in Poland and often used by Hussars. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75zmIj_4LFQ

That's one of the reasons I need to put in a Hardy post/stand. Not remembering what it's called, but Mark Aspery shows the building of a portable one in his books. The purpose in the books, is to have a place to forge top and bottom tools, but it would work great to have next to my anvil as a substation for tooling. That big chunk of steel looks sweet :-)

There were certain border Scots families known for being predominately left-handed. The spiral stairs in their castles went clockwise, giving them an advantage over right-handers trying to come up the stairs. These were narrow stone spirals with a central solid pillar, treads about three feet wide. A lefty on top had free use of his blade, while the righties below couldn't get in a good swing.

In KDF (Kunst Des Fechten, German Longsword and such) sources there are references to left handed fighters. I am not so well versed in them that I know where exactly, but we have a few lefties in my club, so it comes up every now and then. Check out Wiktenauer.com for more info on historical treatises.

Hmmmm I guess I never really pay much attention to flame color much any more bit I know when its all heated up the whole thing glows and orange-ish white color. I no longer have the original concept so I can't do any testing but I will throw another together and check it out. The regulator has plenty of psi. I'm sorry to anyone who has been waiting for me to do the welding tests. The only reason I don't have it is because I sold an anvil to a guy and I gave him the forge and some wool to get him started. But I have all the parts to build another and I will start that tomorrow and document the whole build. And I am going to build it using my cheap harbor freight welder and basic tools I'm going to do it that way because I wanna do it in a beginners prospective. This forge is going to be more like a real forge with no fire brick. The only thing I have to do is order the itc-100 to seal the wool. I need to clear that with my financial advisor (the wife).

I have been out of this for a bit, but now that my affairs are in order, I think ill give it a go. Now to come up with a storyline to go with a blade.

I just mailed off an interesting project: The biggest carcass splitter I've built to date. It was the widest and heaviest blade I've made (though not the longest), and I really want to make more. Probably will have one on my table at the Blade Show in June. carcassplitterfinal by James Helm, on Flickr The blade is 18" long by 3 1/2" wide, with an overall length of 40 1/2". Its size made it difficult to take a picture that really showed the size and proportions correctly, but I got a few, and shot a video comparing it with an antique carcass splitter I was given by a customer. Here's the starting blank, cut from 1/4" x 3" 5160. carcasssplitter02 by James Helm, on Flickr After forging out, the blade was about 4" at its widest, though after trimming the end to be aesthetically pleasing, it was 3 1/2". carcasssplitter04 by James Helm, on Flickr Comparison with the antique carcass splitter. carcasssplitter08 by James Helm, on Flickr Ready to heat treat. To give an idea of size, my anvil is 148 lbs, and the face is about 4" x 15". carcasssplitter08c by James Helm, on Flickr It was so large, I couldn't fit the whole thing into my kiln that I use to draw temper. I ended up holding the kiln lid open with firebricks, then filling in the gap with various bits of broken fire brick. If you look closely, the end of the tang is poking out between two bricks just under the little angled tab on the lid. carcasssplitter09 by James Helm, on Flickr Ready for mischief! carcasssplitter13 by James Helm, on Flickr There is a better look at both carcass splitters, more details, more construction pics, wildly irresponsible swinging about of an 18" long razor-like blade, and general silliness in this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nasLRvEhrRU&feature=youtu.be

My latest... I tried a lot of new stuff on it, which mostly worked out. I tried hard to minimize struggling edges... 15" dagger, midrib blade in Zanjir multibar pattern weld with turkish cores and explosion edges. Ball guard and wheel pommel in low layer pattern weld. Grip in "cage of bars" style with twisted pattern bars over leather wrapped walnut core, based an ancient hand and a half sword of Oakshotte XV typology. Through-tang peened construction with two-piece ferrules and peen block of parkerized iron. 21.5" overall, 1 lb. 8 oz. in weight. Pics and a vid... hope you like!

We were visited by a Kingspor salesman in the shop this week. We told him the price of our zirconium grinding pads, and he told us his ceramic pads would cut faster and last longer at 5 cents cheaper. He gave us a 24 grit pad. We quickly set up a piece of scrap caprail on channel, and clamped it to the table. I marked off two 5" spaces; my boss set his stopwatch on his phone. I ground with Kingspor first and at 45 seconds I had almost ground all the way through the caprail. We compared it to our current supplier's 24 grit pad and it wasn't even close. It just knocked the top 1/4" off. I ground with the Kingspor pad almost for the rest of the day. I was VERY impressed. I use fiber grinding discs on an angle grinder to get millscale off, and rough shape to save time on my knives. I plan to buy some pads and look into their belts when I need more.