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.

Finished refining the pommel, and brought it up to 120gt.
Praying to have this piece finished next week.

The cutlass is not a commission, so it will be available for sale when it is finished.

Working on the pommel, refining the shape and polishing it.

Started work on the pommel and got it up through rough shaping:

"New" Grinder

I spent part of the day repairing my new (to me) grinder. It had major tracking problems. I had to take it apart and reassemble it 4-5 times and make a new part and modify some of the old ones.
I REALLY wish I had fixed it sooner as it saved me almost a day's worth of work in the 1/2 hour I used it this evening. What a difference from the 4"x36" grinder.

Here it is:

It is a 1hp "Square Wheel" 2"x72" belt grinder and the latest of my "electric apprentices".

Finished the guard today, "only" the pommel and grip left.

Here is the shell guard with all the brass rivets in and polished:

Spent the day putting some of the brass rivets in the shell a VERY time consuming and "fiddly" business.

Finally finished polishing the guard:

Didn't make ot to the shop today.
I ended up cleaning up storm damage and HTML programing.
Lord willing I'll be back in the shop on Monday.

Shabbat shalom.

Worked on polishing the guard again today as well as rebuilding my website, I will be changing web hosts in early spring and want to roll out a new site.

Found my card reader so here is a picture from a couple of days ago of the thumb-ring welded to the knuckle-bow:


And here is today's progress, with the guard complete and ready for polishing:

Welded on the shell-guard.
Still no card-reader.

Welded on the thumb ring yesterday.
And lost my memory card reader so I can't post pictures till I find it.