Leaderboard

This is lhe latest colaberation knife made by myself and Petr Florianek. Inspired by saxon swords the 11" blade and handle are made by me and the carving and Sterling silver handle ornamentation is by Petr. going for the bling bling! Hope you like it.

I see it! And I like the subtlety of the carving in that big grain.

Latest two brut blades. Think I'm just about satisfied with this and ready to move on to something else.

All you guys in the southern hemisphere have some great words... ... I'm so working stonking into my vocabulary.

Inlet of action and bottom metal finished. I took an old barrel to be slightly re-shaped to conform to the pattern Sean sent and will pick it up next week so it will be back to some knives till then .

The bedding went really well. No cleanup to speak of and a very tight fit. I stole a little time yesterday and today to create the rough finial. I thought I'd share the process. The tang is threaded for 10/24. So I take a 10/24 hex coupling, put it on a short piece of rod with a small nut, tighten them against each other, and chuck it in a drill. Then I turn it round against either the flat platen or the disc grinder. I put a short taper on it and measure the fat end with calipers to get it just a few thousandths under 5/16" I have a chunk of nickel-silver that I cast from all my scrap. I cut a piece off and sanded/milled it so all faces are flat, square and parallel. I then marked off a square section, and the center of it. This gets a 5/16" hole drilled just deep enough to create about 1/32" straight sides. I flux the hole and the fat end of the hex nut and tap it into the hole. Eyeballing it for straight & square. Drop a chunk of silver solder down the tube. Then I steal off to Liz's workbench and solder that puppy in place. Cut off the excess (save the piece for later) and I have the rough made finial.

Just finished an overhaul on this hammer today, and I think its too pretty not to share! Ram weight is about 600lbs in american measuring (5 cwt)- a bit to 'full fat' for most bladesmithing duties but still a nice 'smaller' sized hammer. I would love a hammer this size installed for myself (I have a 2 cwt) - but im in a rented building, and planting one in the ground is an expensive and time consuming affair. Ive not looked up the age of this one yet, but at a guess she is 80+ years old. The only thing im sure of is I will be dead long before this hammer! shes good for another 80 years now, and these beautiful old machines are appreciated so much more now I think they are safe from the scrappers.

Anything in the melt, including sand, has the potential to end up in the final casting. It is always best to use clean starting materials and clean melt practices. If you wire brush castings (including pigs/ingots), monitor your slag, and pour carefully, then you should be just fine.

Forging the Blade The raw material for this blade spent most of the last century on a former homestead. A large portion of the steel was used for another blade, this was the piece cut from half of the left side. Slowly drying the clay for yaki-ire over the embers in the charcoal forge. After yaki-ire, an #80 grit Sun Tiger stone reveals the approximate hamon as the geometry is set. Habaki Habaki forged to shape in preparation for silver soldering in the charcoal forge. The habaki is textured with files and patinated using a blend of copper salts similar to rokusho. Ireko Saya A two part black buffalo horn (ura) and blond cow horn (omote) lock keeps the two halves aligned when joined. The omote half contains the edge entirely and has an oil collecting reservoir at the tip. The ura half does not contain the edge, keeping it entirely in the omote half. Kataki Tsuka & Saya The hardwood block is split and carved out to fit the ireko saya and the tang and then rejoined using sokui (rice paste glue). This wood is very hard on tools and they require frequent sharpening. Nori-urushi, a mixture of natural urushi lacquer and sokui is used to reinforce certain areas, particularly the koiguchi where the wood is thinner. Mixing the urushi and sokui along with a bit of extra water to help it cure inside the joint. It can take at least a month to fully cure nori-urushi inside a wood joint, more time is better for strength. After the nori-urushi is fully cured the tsuka and saya are shaped with kanna and smoothed with fine rasps and the horn mekugi peg is fitted. An antler crown and tip are used to form a very organic kurikata (栗形, a cord loop) and obidome (帯留, “belt stop”), usually called kaerizuno (返角, “turn-back horn”). The antler kurikata is fit to the saya using a carved sliding dovetail, with no room to spare! The kurikata slides in from one side and then tightens as it reaches the final position. The obidome has a tenon that fits into a mortise carved in the saya, again carved right to the ireko saya. The obidome/kaerizuno will be attached with sokui after the saya is lacquered. In preparation for lacquering, the open grain is cleared of dust using a stiff brush. Ready for fukiurushi, the thin layer of wiped on urushi will preserve the interesting surface texture of the wood. After the lacquer has cured the surface has become a rich, glossy dark chocolate colour. Polishing Once all the parts are made and fitted the blade can be taken through the final polishing stages using Japanese waterstones. The natural #700 used to remove the last of the arato/kongo-do stone scratches. Several stones later, hazuya and jizuya fingerstones made from flakes of uchigumori-do and narutaki-do koppa attached to washi paper with natural urushi are used to even the surface and add depth. This stage is very time consuming as is the uchigumori-do before it. The fine surface grain of the steel brought out by the uchigumori stone throws multiple colours in sunlight. Final Assembly A look at all the koshirae parts before assembly Antler kurikata and obidome attached using sokui and tapped into place with a small mallet. Inserting the ireko saya into the koshirae. Completed aikuchi koshirae. Furusato tanto forged from reclaimed antique steel. View of the spine with peaked iori mune. Macro detail of the interesting texture of the Tshikalakala wood pores.