Privateer Armoury, Third Run

Here are the latest swords from PA.
I changed the geometry of the blades (from customer feed back) and now they are a lot stiffer.

The two on the left are commissions and the others are for sale.

Two New Swords from Privateer Armoury

Here are the latest swords:

you can get the specs, on the Privateer Armoury Available Page.

Privateer Armoury: Cutlass Test

Here is a sample of the cutting ability of these swords. The picture is of the cutting stands it was after the second cut. I did not touch anything.

You can see how the sword cut clean through the carton with out displacing the pieces from their place.

Privateer Armoury, Messer

15N20 BLade, oak grips, brass rivets, steel guard.

Contact me if you are interested in this or a similar piece.

Privateer Armoury

I am launching a new line of affordable swords. Fully functional no nonsense swords built for the average blade about town. Featuring 15n20 blades, steel guards, and a variety of grips these sword will fit the bill and your budget.

Boat sale

So here is the situation I find myself in.

I have been looking for a boat to live on part time and restore with my family and someone has offered one to me for free!
BUT
It is over 300 sea miles away and needs some outfitting for the trip and a slip once I get it here both of which take some cash.
SO
I am willing to consider reasonable offers on the pieces on my AVAILABLE PAGE. I can't give the pieces away as that defeats the purpose but I will consider selling them for less than the posted prices. This is a great chance to get a really good deal and help me out at the same time. I have a small window to get this boat so the offer will end on 11-6-2010
Send me an email with your offer and at the end of the time I will let you know how it goes.


Thanks,
Ben

Nijmegen Sax Finished

I finally got the pictures taken (it was raining of and on all week).
Here is a link to the gallery page:

Finished the seax this afternoon (save for a little oiling and the like):

Grip day:


I also oiled the grip pieces (after the picture was taken).
Tomorrow should see this piece finished (Lord willing).

Inlet the grip and bone spacer and shaped and polished the spacer:

Shaped and polished hte hilt fittings today:

I did the inletting on the lower guard and the upper guard/pommel:

Here is what I have been working on the last couple of days:

I still have some cleaning up to do in the blade and then on to the hilt.

Marquenching

I got a question about marquenching and what it means. Basically Marquenching is taking a blade that is heated to above the critical point (somewhere around 1500f depending on the steel where it is converted from pearlite in to austite) and quickly cooling it (in either a low temp salt pot or in hot oil) to below the "nose" (a term comming from heat treating time/temerature charts) or to below approximately 900f in less than about 2 seconds. then holding it at around 400-500f until the entire blade is the same temperature. when the blade is removed from the hot oil it is very plastic and can be bent almost as easily as if it was 1500f. This allows the smith to straighten out any minor warps that occurred in the quench. As the blade cools the crystal structure of the steel changes from austite into martensite (the hardend steel) as the crystaline structure changes it creates a very faint high pitched ringing sound known as "singing". If the blade "sings" it means that the marquench was successful.
Here is a short video of the prosess:

Here is today's and yesterday's progress on the sax. I re-ground the blade, giving it more taper and a slight distal taper as well (it felt to "dead" in the hand before). I HTed it using a marquench and triple hot/cold cycles. Today I polished it out to 800gt.

Tomorrow, Lord willing, I will be finishing the polishing.

Nijmegen sax

I have been commissioned to make a (rough) reproduction of the Nijmegen sax c. 500-600AD.
Here is the original:

And here is my working sketch:


I have the blade forged and rough ground and will (Lord willing) be polishing and HTing on Monday.

Nebojsa's Seax, finished

Finished the Seax. Here is a link (click the image)to the gallery page.

Finished the seax this after noon and will be taking (much better) pictures next week.

Computer trouble

My computer has been having trouble and this morning it tried to commit suicide by drowning itself (a wayward glass of water landed on it). I will see if I can get it running again, but if not then it may be a while be fore I can post.

Thanks for your patience.

Here is where I am on the sheath.
I have it formed, the sheep skin lining glued in and the throat stitched.

I finished the seax this evening. Today I polished the blade and etched in the runes.


(My camera has apparently decided that it needs to distort this piece, in real life the blade looks a bit longer and wider and the grip is slightly narrower)

Finished the carving on the grip and gave it the first coat of oil.

Finished the rough carving.

Shaped the grip and cast on the bolster. Done with the easy part now for some carving.

Nebojsa's Seax

Nebojsa (Ne-boy-sha):fearless Seax (sax):knife
Fearless' Knife
Forged, ground, HT, and polish(long day in 100f+)

Captains Box Knife

Finished!

Now on to the small Saxon seax!

Here is a peek of a piece that (Lord willing) I will be crafting soon.

Gotland style Sax

Sorry for not posting in so long things have been really crazy around here lately and I have had to be working away from the shop for what seems like forever.

But...

I finally made it back and am crafting a gotland style sax.
I won't have time to do much photo documantation on this one But it will be fore sale and I'll posst when it is finished.

Taking a break

I am doing some R&D for a small start-up company so I will not be working on swords and knives for a while. I'll post updates when I make it back to the "forge"

Fenrir's Tooth, Norse Sax

The picture says it all.

Darkened the leather and started riveting the silver fittings on.

Finished the silver work today, all that is left is to make the belt loops, darken the leather and assemble the sheath(and final polishing and oiling).
Here is a picture of the "West Norse hoard":

I'm sorry for not posting pictures of the finished sax here is a quick picture, I'll take better ones when I finish the sheath:



It has been a rough week, with work (things taking WAY longer than I though they would and less time in the shop than I normally have), working nights at the family business(ever try to work all day till you are tired and then "go to work") and other unplanned time sinks.

Another slow day on the silver front, working on the rings.

Had a terrible time on the throat piece but finally got it to where it should be. Here are the mountings so far:

I still have the belt loop fittings, rings, and the edge clips to do.

Sorry for not posting over the weekend,
Here is Friday's progress (well the photogenic part anyway), this is the fitting that goes next to the mouth of the sheath.

Working on the silver sheath mounts (and accidentally deleted the pictures from memory card).

Here is the leather for the sheath after forming and trimming (the projections on the top will be trimmed down to match the silver ring holders):

Finished the grip this morning, re-polished part of the blade that I wasn't happy with(but now am), and formed the leather for the sheath. Now to start building a new website that I need to have finished by April, while the leather dries.

Finished the carving, darkened, and started oiling the grip:
It is hard to capture the effect that this darkening process produces, the wood takes on a translucent quality and the light plays in it different ways depending on the angle, changing it from very dark to lighter shades and highlighting the carving.
I need to give the grip a few more coats of linseed oil, and it will be finished.

On to the sheath.

More carving today, over/under definition, rounding, and started on the accent lines.
The beast on the right has all the lines carved, on the left beast you can see the pencil lines that will be cut in late.

Spent the day carving out the background on the grip.

Shaped, polished, and engraved the bolster today (and drew the carving design on the grip this evening after I took the picture).

Mounted the blade in the grip and casted on the silver alloy bolster.

Shaped the grip this evening and carved fenirir on the butt, the design is from a Manx cross and I added a bit more detail.

Cut out, inlet, and profiled the grip this morning.

Here is a test piece I did of the carving for the grip and of the Norse wood darkening method on the oak.

Tax day

No work got done today because I had do my taxes.

I could rant about how I hate taxes and how they are not fair, BUT I really love living here and as Corrie says, "think of it as the price of sunshine, palm tree, and peace." Well said.

Might make it to the shop later tonight for some materials testing for the grip of this sax.

Polished the blade today, on to the hilt tomorrow.

Sorry for the bad picture, I didn't have time to take a better one, the blade is actually straight on the back not bulged.

Heat treated the blade last night and gave it the final tempering cycle this morning.

Here is the day's progress:


I rough ground, and polished the blade so it is ready for HT tomorrow.

Here is the invocation I put on the shop floor for this piece:


It translates,"silent as night, fierce of bite, only for the cause of right."

And here is the rough forged blade ready for grinding:

Fenrir's Tooth

Started on a new piece today. This one is a Norse style sax.

Here is a rough sketch:


and a sketch of the carving pattern for the grip:

Bad Steel

I lost the last two days' work (billet for pattern welding, composite sax blade, mono steel sax) because the batch of steel I received was contaminated, either the initial pour at the foundry was too hot or there was lead/sulfur in it. I suspect sulfur because of the welding problems.

All that to say I will be using a different steel on this next project.

Privateer Cutlass

Click on the image to go to the gallery page.

Now back to the Viking age, for a Norse Sax.

Finished.

Here is a sneek peek at the finished sword, Lord willing I will take better quality pictures tomorrow:

Here is the grip after carving most of the day:

Carving...

Polished the Pommel today:

Cut, inlet, and started shaping the teak grip. I chose to use a piece of teak from a speargun that has been used in salt water and has the coloring from the salt.