Scramasax. Pattern welded blade with ornamented handle WIP

[Kris Lipinski 135]

Hi All!

Haven't been here for some time... I've been learning, and improving skills

Here there is a scramasax forged out of 5 bars: 3 x twisted rods (45/68/45 layers) + spine and cutting edge of 80CrV2. The handle is made with bronze spacers, deer antler, pear wood and black leather spacer. The "eye" on the butt is brass riveted and soldered from beneath.

Overall len.: 515mm/20,27"

Blade len.: 323mm/12,71"

Handle len.: 184mm/7,24"

Width: at handle: 33,5mm/1,32", at widst point: 35mm/1,38"

Thickness: 5,5mm/0,22"

Weight: 483g/17oz

Let's save the words, pictures show some stages of work

Edited May 24, 2018 by Kris Lipinski

[Byron studley 11]

Excellent work, I really like the bronze spacers and the pattern on the blade. could you talk me through your casting process a bit please, it looks like you have a basic setup from the pictures and it's something I'd like to learn but don't want a massive financial outlay right at the start.

Edited May 22, 2018 by Byron studley

[Alveprins 149]

Absolutely insane!  I love it!

[Kris Lipinski 135]

Byron, I'll answer later - I'm a beginner with bronze casting, but I'll try to help. Btw, I used to live for 7 years in Plymouth in south west UK

[Zeb Camper 753]

Amazing! The central twist bar has such a nice contrast to the other 2, and that dragon carving is awesome! The cast bronze hardware is also very cool! 

[Brian Dougherty 898]

That is great!

[Pieter-Paul Derks 179]

Awesome work, ticks all the boxes for me!

is that bronze cast using beeswax? if so that adds mayor cool points, i too would like a description how its done.

[Kris Lipinski 135]

Byron and Pieter

I used natural beeswax (30%) with some candle wax - the kind of softer one. I also used proffesional jewelerry plaster - Kerr cast 2000 (US made) - it is pretty expensive and over here the smallest ammount you can buy is a bag of 22,67kg (50lb). And there is nicely decribed on the package how to mix it with water, how to count the amount of investment to capacity of the flask etc. But, there is NO explaination how to burn the form after the melting wax. And I failed cople of times. Then my wife, who is a ceramist found general principles about burning jewelerry plasters. And it needs to be slowly (let's say 3-4h) heated to 750*C and kept at that temerature approx 2-4h to a flask of diameter of 100mm (4"). So she burned it for me in her kiln. Then the hot form needs to be poured with bronze. Her kiln musn't be opened at high temperatures, so we waited untill it drops to approx 300*C and then I heated id gently in my forge fire just beside the crucible.

The crucible was welded of thick walled tube (4mm).

I used sipmle bronze recipe: 12% Sn + 88% Cu.

 

Zeb

The middle twist bar is richer in carbon. It can be seen just after etching:

Darker colour means more carbon: cutting edge, spine and middle, as you can see are darker.

 

Edited May 22, 2018 by Kris Lipinski

[Alan Longmire 2,306]

MOST impressive!    

[Joshua States 1,440]

46 minutes ago, Alan Longmire said:

MOST impressive!    

Yeah, I  second that. Kris turns out some incredible Viking inspired pieces. 

Well done sir!

[Will Wilcox 257]

Truly a work of art! This is the kind of piece you could stare at all day and still miss some details. 

Inspiring, to say the least. 

[MikeDT 90]

Amazing work - I love the blade, the bronze, the carvings, the...... heck, the whole thing is gorgeous!

 

[Byron studley 11]

21 hours ago, Kris Lipinski said:

Byron, I'll answer later - I'm a beginner with bronze casting, but I'll try to help. Btw, I used to live for 7 years in Plymouth in south west UK

Excellent thanks, I live near Lyme Regis if you know where that is, Plymouth is nice I visit there from time to time

[Kris Lipinski 135]

Thank you very much What you are saying guys is really encouraging to make more progress

Byron, I hope my explaination helped a bit, but there are some more experienced men here who do bronze casting, there are some videos on YT as well. The only thing that was awkward to find was the "firing curve" or "burning curve" for the plaster.

[Byron studley 11]

Yeah the exploration helped Kris, thanks for that I'm still a way off trying it myself but I'm trying to get an understanding of everything I need and the process. 

[jheinen 41]

By the Beard of Odin Allfather!  Wow! Beautiful work!

[Richard van Dijk 171]

That is a stunner.

Richard

[Kris Lipinski 135]

Thank you guys. Hopefully next week I'll do the sheath, so it will be completed.

[Will Wilcox 257]

Looking forward to it, Kris. 

[Kris Lipinski 135]

Some leatherwork done.

[Joshua States 1,440]

Love that carving Kris.

[Jeremy Blohm 467]

Working towards your fiery beard? Most excellent work sir!

[MatthewBerry 67]

Great piece!  The blade pattern is very nice and the handle components and carving all work together very well.

i do a bit of bronze casting and the burnout schedule can usually be found on the website of the investment plasters maker. Generally the process is melt the wax out and drive out some of the water by heating to about 300 degrees F for 3 hours.  Then you slowly raise the temperature about 200 Degrees F per hour until you’re above 1000 F.  The plaster I use has me take it up to 1350 F and hold it there for 3 hours, but i’ve Seen it done by holding at 1000 F overnight.  Then you let the mold cool down to 900F and pour the bronze.  The main 2 points are 1) heat up slowly to prevent cracking, and 2) get it hot enough long enough to completely vaporize the wax and burn up any ash.  

[Kris Lipinski 135]

Thank you. After converting temperature to Celsius degrees it all can be set up in my wife,s kiln.

[Joshua States 1,440]

16 hours ago, Kris Lipinski said:

Thank you. After converting temperature to Celsius degrees it all can be set up in my wife,s kiln.

Woo Hoo! I see more excellent work coming.