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Post by Kilted Cossack on Jul 30, 2013 21:22:28 GMT
Gents: This is a long shot, but I was wondering if anyone could ID this saber blade. It was cut loose from it's moorings with a blowtorch. The original blade length should have been 36", with two fullers: a wide fuller that ends 8" from the tip of the blade, and a narrow fuller that ends 10" from the tip of the blade. The narrow fuller is partial, and runs 19" in length. It's possible that this (these, really, I have five of them) blade is a reproduction, but it doesn't look nor feel like one. An inch from the tip the blade is 2mm, and at the base of the torch-cut the blade is 7mm.    |
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Post by Dave Kelly on Jul 30, 2013 21:31:02 GMT
What stats you provided sounds more like a Civil War period Solingen Montmorency.
Check my Civil War M1840/60 article for charts. Solingen foible blades were longer than the french ones.
Didn't say how wide the blade was.
Why buy a blade with the tang cut off? :?
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Post by Kilted Cossack on Jul 30, 2013 23:57:11 GMT
Blade width (at torch mark): right at one inch.
Blade width (at termination of shallow fuller): right at 3/4".
Why buy a blade with the tang cut off? Because I am UNDAUNTED BY COMMON SENSE! (That's a motto, so it doesn't count as shouting.) As an example of being UNDAUNTED BY COMMON SENSE, me and a bunch of other fellows set out on a project to recreate the .476 Eley using American components: we shortened the .45 Colt case, designed a heel based .475" 300 grain bullet, and reamed through .45 Colt cylinders on an Italian SAA clone, then fitted a .475" barrel to it: shazam! Another successful project! (Even if it's not particularly useful, in the modern sense.)
Why buy a blade with the tang cut off?
a) $15/each
b) STEEL!
c) potential to shorten the blade to add a new tang, these could replace the blade on, say, an 1850 Field and Staff sword
d) "retro American cuttoe"
e) project fodder!
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Post by Dave Kelly on Jul 31, 2013 2:45:03 GMT
Blade width (at torch mark): right at one inch.
Blade width (at termination of shallow fuller): right at 3/4".
That sounds like an M1860 type blade 35.5 inches long. One would hope it's cut off a replica stock and not an historic one.
I don't have a French blade of similar dimensions.
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Post by Kilted Cossack on Jul 31, 2013 3:22:01 GMT
They certainly could be replicas---I'm open to that possibility. But I've handled enough Windlass saber type blades to know that these are a cut (at least) above a Windlass in the details. Thinner at the tip, the fuller just crisper somehow. Not what I'd call "sharpened for service" but with a finer edge, a touch-up away from sharpness. My strong suspicion is that these are 19th century originals.
This is sad making. However, this means that I've got my hands on already defaced artifacts, and if I fabricate new furniture to salvage and rehabilitate them, I'm working in a fine old American tradition.
Lately I've been really taken with the American colonial style, as done up by Old Dominion Forge. A lot of the guards are fairly simple of construction, with fewer of the curlicues, loop-de-loops and fleurs-de-lis that European cutlers ran to: with sheet steel and a good torch something like that could be kitbashed together. Elk antler for the grip, Bob's your uncle.
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