The Light Saber: An Odyssey
Jun 18, 2011 15:14:07 GMT
Post by Kilted Cossack on Jun 18, 2011 15:14:07 GMT
OK, updates, thoughts, reflections, musings, and fears.
First off: I am sorry to blather on here. I'm really not just trying to pad my post count! I'm just a guy with about half an idea, and limited skills, trying to express my knowledge in plastic form. (In the old sense of the word plastic.) I guess I'm using this as a substitute for a blog post, and I'm just trying to document my progress. I think that it's also helpful to me to be documenting this, as I go along. In a sense, I've promised that I'll "git'r done" and so I'm less likely to say, you know what, I'm just tired of spending time on this, I'll go watch TV or something.
Anyway.
Ever since I said "benchmark" I've been forced to re-evaluate my progress and my goals. If I'm going to make it a benchmark, where, exactly, does the point come when you can say "OK I'm there"? It seemed so simple, to start with. I was going to strip it down to a bare blade, reshape the tang, and make a new wood grip for it. Honestly, I figured it would be one solid afternoon's work.
Well, so much for my predictive powers.
If we believed in the Marxist labor theory of value, this would be a Jake Powning level sword. If I end up writing a NYTimes best-selling book about this experience, the subtitle will be "How I spent $75 on sandpaper and ten thousand hours to turn a $110 sword into an $80 sword."
Anyway, again.
I rounded off the back edge of the blade, down about 3/8 of the blade. My initial idea had been to have a sharp break delineating the rounded back edge, sharp front edge, from the squared back edge and blunted front edge. I suppose I was thinking of old black powder single shot rifles, where the barrel would sometimes transition from octagonal to round.
This was NOT a purely cosmetic change. Rounding and thinning the back edge restored the infamous "Windlass whippiness" that, in this case, I really wanted. Now when I hold the blade horizontally, I can see the faintest trace of droop to the blade. I don't think it's anything I could even measure. Call it a smidgeon or a tad, just a bit.
At the same time as I rounded the back edge, I was shallowing out the angle of the cutting edge. Using a succession of finer files, and then a succession of finer sandpapers, I worked down the ridge running along the fuller, this, too, on the forward 3/8 of the blade. I still need to go back and clean it up again, probably going back to a fairly fine file. Despite the fancy polish I put on it, I've still got a few scratches that didn't get cleaned up. Oh well, learn and grow!
I don't think I'm happy with the esthetics of the transition from rounded to squared on the back edge. It's too abrupt. I think I'll go ahead and blend it down another couple of inches, smoothing out that transition. (It's all about smooth transitions, sometimes.)
The other issue to be dealt with is the grip. As I've put it together, I'm pretty happy with the feel of it. I've always planned on doing a leather wrap, to disguise the sandwich construction and the traces of glue and JB Weld, but now I'm bumping up against the unfortunate fact that that I can find no historical evidence for leather wrapped shashka grips. None. Nada.
Military shashkas resembled the Windlass and Weaponedge versions: brass at both ends of a wooden grip. Civilian shashkas ran to bone, horn, ivory, wood or metal grips. But don't I have a wood grip? Yes, but it's "not right" and everyone would laugh if they could see the glues holding everything together.
Additionally, there is generally a step, just below the blade, where the grip gets smaller, and I haven't duplicated that, and while I like the grip overall the ears, i think, could be done a little better. I think that when I've finished up on the blade, I'll reshape this wooden grip somewhat, to see if I can bring it more in line with my ideas. Then I'll tear it off the blade and start all over, with either horn, bone, fake ivory, or perhaps ebony (which I think would look sharp).
It's kind of a shame that I can't justify doing a leather wrap. I had a couple of ideas for treatments that would have, I think, turned out pretty nice, a rayskin wrap, and one I'm going to keep mum about in hopes of surprising everyone later.
First off: I am sorry to blather on here. I'm really not just trying to pad my post count! I'm just a guy with about half an idea, and limited skills, trying to express my knowledge in plastic form. (In the old sense of the word plastic.) I guess I'm using this as a substitute for a blog post, and I'm just trying to document my progress. I think that it's also helpful to me to be documenting this, as I go along. In a sense, I've promised that I'll "git'r done" and so I'm less likely to say, you know what, I'm just tired of spending time on this, I'll go watch TV or something.
Anyway.
Ever since I said "benchmark" I've been forced to re-evaluate my progress and my goals. If I'm going to make it a benchmark, where, exactly, does the point come when you can say "OK I'm there"? It seemed so simple, to start with. I was going to strip it down to a bare blade, reshape the tang, and make a new wood grip for it. Honestly, I figured it would be one solid afternoon's work.
Well, so much for my predictive powers.
If we believed in the Marxist labor theory of value, this would be a Jake Powning level sword. If I end up writing a NYTimes best-selling book about this experience, the subtitle will be "How I spent $75 on sandpaper and ten thousand hours to turn a $110 sword into an $80 sword."
Anyway, again.
I rounded off the back edge of the blade, down about 3/8 of the blade. My initial idea had been to have a sharp break delineating the rounded back edge, sharp front edge, from the squared back edge and blunted front edge. I suppose I was thinking of old black powder single shot rifles, where the barrel would sometimes transition from octagonal to round.
This was NOT a purely cosmetic change. Rounding and thinning the back edge restored the infamous "Windlass whippiness" that, in this case, I really wanted. Now when I hold the blade horizontally, I can see the faintest trace of droop to the blade. I don't think it's anything I could even measure. Call it a smidgeon or a tad, just a bit.
At the same time as I rounded the back edge, I was shallowing out the angle of the cutting edge. Using a succession of finer files, and then a succession of finer sandpapers, I worked down the ridge running along the fuller, this, too, on the forward 3/8 of the blade. I still need to go back and clean it up again, probably going back to a fairly fine file. Despite the fancy polish I put on it, I've still got a few scratches that didn't get cleaned up. Oh well, learn and grow!
I don't think I'm happy with the esthetics of the transition from rounded to squared on the back edge. It's too abrupt. I think I'll go ahead and blend it down another couple of inches, smoothing out that transition. (It's all about smooth transitions, sometimes.)
The other issue to be dealt with is the grip. As I've put it together, I'm pretty happy with the feel of it. I've always planned on doing a leather wrap, to disguise the sandwich construction and the traces of glue and JB Weld, but now I'm bumping up against the unfortunate fact that that I can find no historical evidence for leather wrapped shashka grips. None. Nada.
Military shashkas resembled the Windlass and Weaponedge versions: brass at both ends of a wooden grip. Civilian shashkas ran to bone, horn, ivory, wood or metal grips. But don't I have a wood grip? Yes, but it's "not right" and everyone would laugh if they could see the glues holding everything together.
Additionally, there is generally a step, just below the blade, where the grip gets smaller, and I haven't duplicated that, and while I like the grip overall the ears, i think, could be done a little better. I think that when I've finished up on the blade, I'll reshape this wooden grip somewhat, to see if I can bring it more in line with my ideas. Then I'll tear it off the blade and start all over, with either horn, bone, fake ivory, or perhaps ebony (which I think would look sharp).
It's kind of a shame that I can't justify doing a leather wrap. I had a couple of ideas for treatments that would have, I think, turned out pretty nice, a rayskin wrap, and one I'm going to keep mum about in hopes of surprising everyone later.
