Bling'd up Practical Viking
Sept 26, 2007 8:52:41 GMT
Post by Brendan Olszowy on Sept 26, 2007 8:52:41 GMT
Yes, there’s heaps of pictures, but it’s my thread and I’ll do as I please. Ha Ha.
I’ve been modifying my Hanwei Practical Viking over the last week, and am very proud of the end product. I think its gone from a very boring ‘also ran’ in the Viking sword market, to a serious bling contender for the Windlass Sticklestead or the Gen 2 River Witham Viking swords. That’s what this proud ‘dad’ reckons anyway. Check it and tell me what ya reckon.
Whats Been Done:
Pommel:
Put it on a diet and reduced the thickness severely. It used to really foul on one’s palm, now it is really good to grip and has far better blade control. (Bear in mind this is sharpened).
Also swept it away from the guard by 2-3mm to allow more forgiveness of a hammer grip. Edges have been cut back and rounded allowing it to slip across the palm more easily.
Brass Insets added – inspired by the Witham Viking, this is really easy to do provided you get the right size drill bit for your dowel, and drill carefully (centre punch it).
During the Grinding Process the pommel got extremely hot as you can imagine. It smelt like something was burning in there. Then I noticed it moving around a fair bit. Upon inspection I realised I could just pull the pommel straight off, and that it was infact not peened on at all. The visible peen marks these come with are clearly to put you off the scent. Glue is infact THE ONLY THING holding this sword together.
GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER HANWEI PEOPLE! This pommel thing is serious!
Anywho I filled the pommel with a ton of epoxy, centre punched it to spread the metal and belted the crap out of the peen. It ain’t going nowhere now!
(side note – I’ve since filled those holes in the peening with Devcon metal putty.)
Guard:
I found this too fat and round too, so I ground 2.5mm off each side, and swept the tops away from the guard by another 2.5mm.
More Brass dowel insets finish it off.
Grip:
I removed my old cord wrap which I damaged in the grinding and sanding processes. I always wanted a wire wrap so it was time to bite the bullet and do it.
I bought gold and silver beading wire (22 guage). I attached the spools to two nails in the bench, and made a Y shape loom thingy for my cordless drill. I stretched out 9 meters of wire. I tied them off to the nails, making sure they were even lengths. Slowly I started twisting, keeping constant tension on the wires.
After 10 minutes of slow twisting I had the required wave in the wire. Being aware to constantly keep the wire under tension, I wrapped my new yummy grip wire onto the handle of a hammer, to await transfer to the grip at completion of the process.
Note – my 9 meters of wrap only left me 0.5m at the end of wrapping (phew!) this 4” grip.
The wrap was the usual story of epoxy and wrapping tightly. I love 5 minute epoxy for these jobs.
The Scabbard:
The metal fitting are quite dull and antiquey as standard, which is nice, but for the bling factor I buffed them up to a mirror polish on the calico wheel.
The scabbard was way too loose and did not grip the sword at all, so a bit of epoxy in the throat fixed that, which was then progressively ground back with the Dremel til the fit was just right.
Etching:
This was done by acid. I used Nordic Runes from the Elder Futhark to spell a secret message. Now I have a dremel I thing in future I’ll use that. Acid is such a slow process.
I finished the whole thing off with some serious time on the Calico polishing wheel. I couldn’t get all the grinding marks out but I did get a nice reflective surface which I’m happy with.
I have another job I’m working on people, watch this space for my next unveiling. It’s something for the Clansmen out there.
References:
To view the thread for info on acid etching:
/index.cgi?board=swordcustom&action=display&thread=1181964757&page=1
To View my review on this sword:
/index.cgi?board=swordreviews&action=display&thread=1183463660&page=1
Here's a pic from Collini showing the original sword for you.
I’ve been modifying my Hanwei Practical Viking over the last week, and am very proud of the end product. I think its gone from a very boring ‘also ran’ in the Viking sword market, to a serious bling contender for the Windlass Sticklestead or the Gen 2 River Witham Viking swords. That’s what this proud ‘dad’ reckons anyway. Check it and tell me what ya reckon.
Whats Been Done:
Pommel:
Put it on a diet and reduced the thickness severely. It used to really foul on one’s palm, now it is really good to grip and has far better blade control. (Bear in mind this is sharpened).
Also swept it away from the guard by 2-3mm to allow more forgiveness of a hammer grip. Edges have been cut back and rounded allowing it to slip across the palm more easily.
Brass Insets added – inspired by the Witham Viking, this is really easy to do provided you get the right size drill bit for your dowel, and drill carefully (centre punch it).
During the Grinding Process the pommel got extremely hot as you can imagine. It smelt like something was burning in there. Then I noticed it moving around a fair bit. Upon inspection I realised I could just pull the pommel straight off, and that it was infact not peened on at all. The visible peen marks these come with are clearly to put you off the scent. Glue is infact THE ONLY THING holding this sword together.
GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER HANWEI PEOPLE! This pommel thing is serious!
Anywho I filled the pommel with a ton of epoxy, centre punched it to spread the metal and belted the crap out of the peen. It ain’t going nowhere now!
(side note – I’ve since filled those holes in the peening with Devcon metal putty.)
Guard:
I found this too fat and round too, so I ground 2.5mm off each side, and swept the tops away from the guard by another 2.5mm.
More Brass dowel insets finish it off.
Grip:
I removed my old cord wrap which I damaged in the grinding and sanding processes. I always wanted a wire wrap so it was time to bite the bullet and do it.
I bought gold and silver beading wire (22 guage). I attached the spools to two nails in the bench, and made a Y shape loom thingy for my cordless drill. I stretched out 9 meters of wire. I tied them off to the nails, making sure they were even lengths. Slowly I started twisting, keeping constant tension on the wires.
After 10 minutes of slow twisting I had the required wave in the wire. Being aware to constantly keep the wire under tension, I wrapped my new yummy grip wire onto the handle of a hammer, to await transfer to the grip at completion of the process.
Note – my 9 meters of wrap only left me 0.5m at the end of wrapping (phew!) this 4” grip.
The wrap was the usual story of epoxy and wrapping tightly. I love 5 minute epoxy for these jobs.
The Scabbard:
The metal fitting are quite dull and antiquey as standard, which is nice, but for the bling factor I buffed them up to a mirror polish on the calico wheel.
The scabbard was way too loose and did not grip the sword at all, so a bit of epoxy in the throat fixed that, which was then progressively ground back with the Dremel til the fit was just right.
Etching:
This was done by acid. I used Nordic Runes from the Elder Futhark to spell a secret message. Now I have a dremel I thing in future I’ll use that. Acid is such a slow process.
I finished the whole thing off with some serious time on the Calico polishing wheel. I couldn’t get all the grinding marks out but I did get a nice reflective surface which I’m happy with.
I have another job I’m working on people, watch this space for my next unveiling. It’s something for the Clansmen out there.
References:
To view the thread for info on acid etching:
/index.cgi?board=swordcustom&action=display&thread=1181964757&page=1
To View my review on this sword:
/index.cgi?board=swordreviews&action=display&thread=1183463660&page=1
Here's a pic from Collini showing the original sword for you.