Type XIIa Bastard Sword
Mar 12, 2024 21:31:37 GMT
Post by davidoa on Mar 12, 2024 21:31:37 GMT
Here's a project I've been working on for a little while! Last June I met up with Sonny and Zach from Valiant Armoury at Blade Show Atlanta, and purchased a type XIIa-ish blade blank (along with a snazzy hat, lol).
It started as a 43in long profiled hunk of 5160. Sonny offered to do the hardening+tempering in Texas (for a very reasonable fee) if I sent him the blade once it was beveled+shaped.
I've made a handful of knives and re-hilted a number of swords, but never thought I'd be able to make an entire sword as I lacked a large enough forge (for hardening) and oven (for tempering). Knowing I'd be able to send it off to a professional for the heat treat was what finally convinced me, "I might actually be able to do this", haha.
In any case, I followed BrotherBanzai's outstanding tutorial pinned in this forum, using an angle grinder, 1x30in bench sander, and files for shaping. It was arduous, but pretty zen work. If I ever upgrade to a larger sander I could work a lot quicker, but since this was my first stock removal sword I was in no hurry. I was able to add a (admittedly somewhat thin) fuller along 2/3rds of the blade using round files and a drum sander dremel attachment.
I sent the blade to Valiant Armoury around late Sept, and despite a small warp from the quench (which Sonny very kindly ground out for me), it was was back in my hands by November, perfectly tempered.
For the hilt, I repurposed an old crossguard from a Ronin Katana single-edge longsword by heating it up in my forge, reshaping it, and hot-fitting it to the blade. The pommel was another new adventure for me- I've never machined anything from mild steel stock before, but I was able to turn a 3x3x1in rectangle into a pretty comfortable fishtail after drilling a hole for the tang. I also forged a divider ring for the grip from some old .5in rebar.
After they were sanded and given some small filework accents, I heated them up and scrubbed the hilt components with a bronze wire brush to give an antiqued brass finish. The grip is hardwood with cord wrap, baseball-stitched dyed leather, and double X-shaped risers.
The final weight ended up slightly heavier than I wanted (I blame the fact that I didn't have a way to get a deeper, more consistent fuller), but I also kept the width on the wider end of historical examples as I wanted to prioritize cutting for this project. I also was able to get the balance just about perfect for the size, and if I eliminated any additional weight on the blade I may have mucked up the feel in-hand.
Here are the stats:
Overall Length: 43in
Blade Length: 33in
Weight: 3lb 2oz
Width: 2in
Thickness: 6mm tapered to about 2mm
Point of Balance: about 3 3/4in from the crossguard
Center of Percussion: about 24in down the blade near the end of the fuller.
5160 Steel
Lenticular cross-section
Lenticular cross-section
My goals for this project were:
A) finish my first stock removal sword,
B) try as many new techniques as I could,
C) Have fun! and end up with a decently performing backyard cutter
All in all I'd say it was a success! I still have to put a final edge along the entire blade, but I did sharpen just the sweet spot for a little test cut and the results are promising so far:
I'm currently in the middle of putting together a scabbard for it, so I'll update the thread with some more pics (and test cutting?) when it's ready.
Thanks for looking!