MLenaghan

Thanks guys, I do believe my beard been alite twice before but good to know it's still burning bright haha! Alan, since this blades gonna stay with me, my family chest has a latin saying of "Patriae Infeliei Fidelis" which means Faithful to a unhappy country...

Well I'm happy to say the lake sword is complete! Been a long project well over a year and many attempts in the making, and the biggest thing I'm taking away from this is really taking the time and extra effort seems to go a long way. Another huge thanks to David DelaGradelle for letting me base this sword off of his design! Now I find myself is a strange place with out a big project on the go, need to get back to the forge

Dave that little guys awesome! If you dont mind sharing, how did you get such clean little lines on your fittings... I find it really difficult keeping things small and straight on odd shapes but love the look

Always love seeing you work Lukas!

WOW thanks a lot you guys for the positive responses! Haven't been on the forum as much but this reminds me why it's the best place on the internet!!! hi Zeb Camper, I don't have a formula for hearth steel, and to be honest learnt everything from the bottons and bloomers thread here and hanging out at Scott Roush place.. honestly I get the hearth running till there's a couple good "drops" in the charcoal , then I stick a long thin rod or nail into the center of it, wait a few minutes and pull it out. if the tips melted off and sparkling I know it's ready. After that it's a small handful of nails or little bolts ever "drop" or 2nd drop. I'll throw small amounts of beach sand in randomly for a little slag. I'll run it till it doesnt wanna take any more and then pull it. this is normally 3-4 beers in... goodluck! Hi Peter Fontenla, the blades a little different, it's like a large bronze age leaf blade, hollow ground with a shallow double fuller. The center rib is rather thick but tapers very fast to the edge. blades 730 grams, 71.5 cm length 88cm overall 53mm wide at the base and 6mm thick tapering to 3mm about 10 cm from the tip

Well have some work to show as of now, I weld and polish a lot of stainless steel for my day job so lack the motivation to come home and polishing a sword but it's at a point that's showing off the blade construction and the hearth steel so I'm happy! Also been carving the handle and getting all the pieces to fit which is time consuming work. Without rushing it the goals to finish before the new year, and maybe spend another 6 months making a sheath hahah

Thanks a lot everyone!!! Current state is just polishing everything up and refining the handle to a point of carving. Also plans for making a disc style pommel means I need more metal then what I have so the plans to make a bronze/silver alloy but having broke my last crucible last night and waiting for 2 new ones to dry out before firing them. Hi Joshua, it's a sword heat treating kiln I had a local pottery place make for me years ago. No different then any other electric kiln except it's 6" x 6" x 48" and has a digital controller that holds within +/- 5 degrees at 1500f and doubles as a tempering oven once it cools down. it would have been nice to be able to hang blades rather then lay them down to prevent some warpage but been able to work out a system that seems to work for me! The antler is nice piece of elk and 95% solid, I think the pictures are showing really rough grinding marks... also I have a sword with the entire grips antler and it's held up really well even after grinding pretty thin, then again with my luck it will fall over and break in half As for the why? haha not sure I can really answer that! my wife says I cant sit still or relax... and bladesmithing has always been a great creative outlet for me... and I've always kept it a hobby and tried to avoid selling blades as it adds stress to something that I use to fight my stress! Also means I can have complete control of my project without having to worry about other input, unless it's wanted of course. As to why blades like this well I love historical swords, and making copies of some have taught me a great deal about the design, construction and overall feel of a sword it's still more or less following a blueprint. My day jobs is a custom TIG welder but most days I'm still following someone else design... a sword like this one is a open idea in the sense If Dave used this design, I'm sure the sword would look very different! If 10 smiths made this sword you'd have 10 different blades. but honestly I suck with words for this stuff, if we ever meet in person it's something I'd love to discuss around a camp fire and some cold dark beer!

well this is the handle and currently where I'm at in the project, there will be a mix of antler, black walnut and bronze used. As excited as I am at this point there is a need to slow down and make sure the rest of the design is well thought out as the carving is going to be challenging!

Up to the point of the forged blade was 20 hours at the forge, now onto the boring part of grinding a polishing... it would be so nice to hand this off to another craftsmen at this point! But the sword has really come alive, what started at 11 lbs is now less then 2 and is a joy to swing around! Also Daves awesome Design has me really excited to get to work on it!

Now once the scale was off I had to take a look to see if there would be a pattern and was shocked at the amount of contrast from steel that I thought would almost be the same! But the high carbon edge bars came out nice and dark, and the little bits added to the core show a slow twist! and this was only at 60 grit Now the part we all dread was the quench... I really want sure what to do or expect with the steel or like my last try and not harden at all so I went with hot oil at first it worked and with only minor warpage too (got in trouble from the wife with the fire ball but totally worth it)

Now for some reason I never got any pictures of the edge steel getting welded on, but the bars flared out with a larger amount of material around the core so that once it was welded together and drawn out the core steel would have some distance from the tip of the sword. Also at the point some of you will notice I'm not going for the classic viking or migration sword profile! I wanted a 6 bar sword(my favorite!) orishigane steel(favorite next to real bloom steel) and a bronze age leaf blade(my favorite) and some how make them all work together and fit the profile of Dave's design! !

Now it's been a couple years since I've made a multi bar sword, and never done of with hearth steel so this was a rather interesting attempt! bars were drawn out into 4 core bars, one bloom in the center with a very slow twist as the material didnt want to go much tighter without shearing off, most likely needed a couple more folds. The out side of the core was little tighter twist with a couple intrupted sections The bars ended up only about 3/8th square and rather rough I wasnt going to weld everything at once and did the blade in several stages. At this point I had about 4 lbs of steel and started off with about 11 there was a ton of scale and slag all over the shop!

So once I got home the forge was fired up and the slow process of folding and refining the hearth steel started! the 3 different blooms all behaved differently, a lower carbon one was really solid after only 4 folds, the edge bar which is really high carbon took over 7 folds and adding bits of the other pieces to it before it wanted to be agreeable. This is not a very exciting part but found it very relaxing the drawing out and folding of the bars.

Didn't get much done for most the summer at this point but the wife and I where lucky enough to get to go to Ireland later this summer and in the National Museum of Ireland there was inspiration!

Well this is a here we go again kinda thing! Last summer I started a project for a blade rooted in history but also very much hidden in myth at the same time. Dave from Cedarlore is letting me use one of his iron age sword designs which is something that I did not want to take lightly or waste such a chance, which is why you'll see this is my third try at the blade. The first attempt although is a nicely shaped iron age blade is mostly wrought iron, was too slender and spent the winter in a snowbank... it can be found here The second try the blade profile just didn't fit and was made from modern steel also dint seem to work with what the goal seemed to be and so here we are! This started at my parents cabin out in the Canadian wilderness, on the shores of a lake with a small hearth furnace melting down old rusty nails and bolts into 3 rather solid higher carbon blooms that each ran about 3.5 pounds