Search the Community

Here is one of my latest 1st Century Roman Centurion Gladii of the Fulham Style. Made to historical measurements and materials. Some is Historically Accurate and portions of it are made / customized to the customization desires of my client. Everything is created by hand right here in my shop. 1075 High Carbon Steel Fully tanged and peened hilt. Inset Brass Guard Plate and Pommel Finial. The guard grip and pommel are hand carved in African Blackwood Ebony. The Grip is hand carved from Italian Olive Wood. The Augustus Capricorn Denarii Coin i created as a replica of a real coin. The Coin and the brass rings in the guard are hand cast in my shop with the lost wax process. This client is a Roman Reenactor who portrays a Centurion. His character is 3rd Generation Roman Legionary whose family has a Celtic background. The story behind the sword is that it was an "Award Sword" that was Awarded to his Grandfather from Caesar Augustus for "Valor on the Battlefield." Thus the inset Augustus Capricorn Coin. The Guard and pommel are hand carved in the style of pieces that are found in the Vindonissa Museum with the "Added" embellishments of the Celtic knots. (Not historically accurate, but customized and personalized for the client). The inset Guard Plate is also engraved for personalization for the client with his Characters Legion Number.

It's been awhile since I've been able to add much here, but i finally got a forge up and running at my shop! A little 2 burner propane for now, but I'm sure it will expand soon. Anyways, I've had it up for a few weeks and everything I have worked on has barely gotten any pictures taken. I figured this project would be a good one to start on. I've wanted to make a sgian dubh for quite sometime, so I got a quick sketch up and went to town shaping a big scrap piece of 5160 from my work. More than enough steel to make something sizable when I started out. I hadn't tried anything on this scale yet, and was chomping at the bit to get it into shape. That was my downfall from the start. Lots of testing and figuring out what methods were working for me. I was able to procure a decent variety of hammers thankfully. now to get some decent tongs....The form had emerge much larger than I anticipated. I was very pleased with the shape. I had rushed over to our belt sander to get the bevels on and get that nice crisp spine. The shape had come out nicely, but the first signs of critical failure had shown up in the process. What to do but modify to fit? After getting a nice chunk taken out around the crack, I proceeded to get it warmed up for heat treat. Definitely should have followed guidelines for quenching 5160. I pretty sure a water quench was the last straw.It had come out with a nasty curve. i normalized and straightened it out, and tried again. This second time was more successful, although futile. my quick grind afterwords showed tons of gnarly cracks. I was just hoping itd stay together long enough for me to practice finish work. Alas, it was not to be. in the straightening during temper, the cracks gave way and I had a broken blade. I'll put a bit more work into it, and maybe turn it into something useful someday, buit for now its quittin' time till tomorrow.

Hello, I heard the fiery beards have a bit of a knack for the Celtic culture and their sharp pointy things. I've been trying to find examples of swords around the finnian cycle of Irish folk lore. I have been guessing that cycle took place around the 4th century A.D. yes? More specifically I am looking into Diarmuid Ua'Duibhne's weapons, Beagalltach, Moralltach, gae buidhe, and gae dearg(spelling may be off) 2 swords and 2 spears. I know there isn't much to go buy in descriptions. I do want to find out what some key features of swords from that area and time looked like, and what styles there were. Might be asking a lot, but any input is greatly appreciated. Once I've gotten competent enough to pattern weld some I want to tackle all 4 weapons.

Hey guys this is one thats been on the bench for a while now, been slowly working on it when the feeling was right... blade started out here http://www.bladesmithsforum.com/index.php?showtopic=28534&hl= and I ran outta steam on it and my feelings about the swords greatly changed... made it to Scotts place last year and it went into a deep sleep for many months! But after many hours looking at old sword scabbards and la Tene art it had to be awakened! and it was about time I finsihed something

some initial designs inspired by history and mythology!

Hey all So this is The Dryad King, and i have only just started making him Uploaded with ImageShack.us This is my first Damascus blade. I have started welding the first weld on the billet with a custom hydraulic press I made. Jee, it is much harder than i thought but I totally love it. Here in this forum I will be posting my progress and my questions since I am a newbie and you guys are total nerd-heads! So, here you go, first photos: 17 layers to begin with: And now for the Problems 1) Alright the first thing is that the two outer layers after the first welding process, are nearly gone! (you can observe that on the last photo, these two (top and bottom) where heated much more quickly than the rest of the billet, they were already red hot when the rest of the steel was still black. Despite the fact that i fluxed regularly, for some reason the heat ate them up. those to were 1095 steel btw. 2) the second problem so far is that, as I observed, the middle layers of the billet don;t get squished much when I press them, I checked their width, and it is about the same as the original pieces of steel. It seems to me that only the outer layers of the billet get squished.Any idea why ? Guys any recommendations on those two problems or anything else you observed from the photos will be a big help for me . I hope you are all well and happy! Labros

Hi all! I have recently made these design drawings. They consist of swords inspired by found celtic artifacts and I then gave it my own twist. The left sword is inspired by a Celtic shortsword and is historically correct except for the decoration on it that I designed myself. The sword on the right is a crossing between swords from two completely different times. The model of the sword is a 12th century crusaders sword, while the decoration on it is mostly La Tène Celtic. The throat of the scabbard is also Celtic, but I added the Futhark (Runes). The decoration on the pommel is a horse. These two pictures contain the same sword. The first picture was my original concept that I've drawn on scale 1 : 1, the whole thing is my own design and isn't inspired on any originals, except for the pommel and the scabbard decoration, which are inspired on a celtic originals. It's a two handed sword with a total length of 140 cm's or 55". In the second picture I designed a different grip for it, inspired on viking decoration. I also designed a wider double grooved blade. The sword is designed for myself, one that I won't sell once I bring it to steel. Here you can see the original I used for inspiration on the pommel. In my design I turned around the way to pommel should be fit on the tang. Above you see a picture of a similar pommel to mine but then fitted the way it was used originally. I didn't use this picture in my design, it's just to clear it up A little overview, and some of the materials I've used for designing. I hope you like it! I greatly appreciate comments and critiques. And ooh, there's one thing I am curious about, which of the two designs of the two handed sword would you choose? Have a creative day! Jasper

Hello everyone! Since this is a category in which you can post whatever project. I thought i'd show one of my past projects. A few months ago I made a pipe out of a block of oak. It was quite a hard thing to do because had to drill the shaft at an angle to end in the tobacco chamber. It was a lot of sawing and filing to get the result. Afterwards I sanded it to 600 grid, carved some decoration into it and waxed it with turpentine wax. I also filled the carvings with gold paint to give it more fantasy style. The pipe is fully functional. I figure that I could definitely use these crafts in making scabbards and sword grips. Jasper

Hi everyone, Today i have made these sketches of two celtic daggers. I have inspired them on several excavated artifacts from the La Tène period. I haven't been busy with sword designing for long, because i am quite young still, so i would really like to learn and improve. So if anyone has tips or critics, i'd be happy to recieve them! Have a lovely day! Jasper