Type E hilted Viking era style short sword build project

If you can't be bothered by my endless rambling and just want to see the build process I suggest that you skip to that part.

A what now?
Well, this was the best description I could come up with. A Type E hilted Viking era style short sword.
I intended to make a blade that would be suitable for home defence. Something small enough to pass through doorways and corridors, light enough to move around well but with enough blade mass to deflect an incoming screwdriver or knife. I don't expect the average burglar to wear full 15th century gothic plate armour so a wide cutting blade with a slightly pointed tip would probably be best. Our government does not care in the slightest for the life of it's citizens and insists that civilians should just be left to the whims of criminals, therefore we are not allowed firearms for self defence so a handy short sword is the next best thing. The wakizashi I have by my bed now doesn't handle the way I want and I thought I could make something better.
I've wanted to make a medieval short sword for a while now and had also never worked with Viking era style hilted swords so I thought I would combine the three into one project.
I have been wanting to get back into blade making for a while now and I decided to start out with something small and simple to re-learn some skills and make something nice without putting to much strain on my body.

I think a small (re-)introduction is in order.
I started out young practising primarily Iaido, Katori and Karate, later on studying and collecting nihontou, and eventually forging blades myself. But after a year of volunteer work abroad, university and numerous health problems blade making has been low priority for the past 6 years or so. The past few years the focus of my interest has shifted greatly from Japanese to European arms and armour, fuelled by my continuous amazement over the depth, breadth and complexity my own continents history has to offer, and I have been trying to learn as much as I can. My current focus is the 10-11th and late 14th century, and future projects will probably revolve around those periods.

I started out making a blade blank but since I (still) absolutely suck at making fullers I screwed that up pretty bad and seeing how straining this part already was on my (still injured) shoulders I decided that modifying an existing blade would be a better option. Fortunately I stumbled upon a Del Tin 1st century B.C. Celtic sword which had the width, thickness and shape I wanted with length to spare. Of course the flattened diamond-shaped cross-section isn't exactly historically accurate but then again neither is a Viking era short sword in the first place. I was originally looking for a lenticular blade since re-purposing an older broken blade or using one from Byzantine origin would be very plausible but it's a strong compact blade so it will definitely do it's job.

I started out by dismantling the Del Tin sword.
[Rant mode on] It seems that somehow swordmakers these days don't understand the importance of a properly shaped and sized tang and handle core anymore. The forces transferred by your hands through the handle core to the tang moving the blade are not to be underestimated. If you have worked with equipment that receives a lot of stress ranging from swords to bicycles to firearms like I have you understand that stress points due to improper construction can do a lot of harm. Even on a blade with good harmonics a thin and narrow tang will still be a weak point and as we all know a chain is only as strong as it's weakest link. I don't understand why it's so hard to leave a couple extra mm of steel on there, it actually takes less work to leave it on. The handle doesn't add enough material to warrant the ridiculously narrow tangs that pop up way too often. I have seen too many cracked handle/tsuka cores, bent tangs and even broken tangs sending blades flying to trust any sword without having seen the tang. I'm not even talking about cheap swords here, I'm talking about very well known, well established, manufacturers and makers ranging from 200 to 2000+ dollars.
Del tin is no exception. Though their blades are always well heat-treated the tang of this blade turned out to be only around 11mm wide, not something you would want to go into battle with. I'm sure there are people who feel I'm overreacting but a well shaped tang of sufficient width and thickness has long been a pet peeve of mine. [Rant mode off]

Since this sword was going to be an experimental project anyway and I had never working on Viking era style swords before I wanted to incorporate various ideas I had into this. A short handle facilitating a handshake grip for example. A few weeks before that I had just had a very enlightening conversation with Brendan Olszowy from Fable blades on Viking era sword handle length, though that pertained a different project I decided to incorporate his advise in this sword as well. With his permission I will post our conversation below this build thread since we both believe there is some good information in it.

With a suitable blade and fittings present I acquired the other necessary parts:
A set of Hanwei Tinker Viking (era) sword fittings that would become the new guard and pommel.
A niece thin piece of tulip wood for the handle core. I was told this wood has similar properties (low sap content being the mayor one) to Japanese honoki wood making it suitable for use on swords. I picked a piece with the grain structure running as parallel as possible to the intended tang contours.
2 mm round leather cord stained in a deep brown with a slightly rough finish would do nicely on this utilitarian sword I thought.
Water-proof wood glue.
Devcon epoxy. Shooters, at least those who bed firearms, are most likely already familiar with the reputation of Devcon epoxy. I have used it on anything from swords to boots to firearms and it has held up better than any other epoxy I've tried. No, I don't have stocks in their company of sell their product, I just really like their epoxy. I epoxy-bed all my swords and firearms to get the best possible contact between parts eliminating any unnecessary stress points. I believe that any self-respecting sword maker should properly epoxy-bed their handle cores to the sword for a stress-free contact between the handle and tang.


But enough rambling, onto the actual build thread.
The first step was to create a new tang and setting the blade length by moving up the shoulders.
The way I decided on the total sword length was literally by just measuring the width of the narrowest door opening in my house and subtracting about 5 cm. The way I determined the grip length was by measuring the width of my hand at the place where it would be between the pommel and guard, just after the knuckles, around the first joint. This was around 7.5 cm so I opted for a grip of around 8cm. Luckily this was one of the older versions with a longer blade and I was able to move the tang up about 7 cm. You can see from the red line where the old tang ended and the new one begins. Big difference right?
The shape of the tang was dictated by the grip shape I had in mind. I wanted to try out a narrower grip with more taper than I normally make so after calculating how much width the core and wrapping would take up I was left with a tang that starts out at 30.4 mm right after the shoulders, tapers to 27.6 mm after it comes out under the guard and ends up at 11.4 mm before going into the pommel. The thickness is a constant 4.5mm throughout the tang.




The biggest challenge turned out to fit the guard and pommel to the tang. The opening in the guard was narrower than the new tang but all other dimensions were oversized so I has to create a bunch of insert keys to get a proper fit. This took the longest time by far of the whole build project. I shaped the insert keys so they had to be hammered on the last couple of millimetres making as much contact as I could get between the guard/pommel, insert key and tang.
After installing them the whole sword rang like a bell with no movement whatsoever in any direction. I also made a little peen block to give the peen a nice flat surface to impinge on.
The peening itself didn't turn out as well as I had hoped. My burner didn't produce enough heat to get the tang glowing, it didn't go much further than a dark blue so it was basically a cold peen. With some of time and elbow grease I was able to get it to spread out very well though. The to-be-peened tang-extension was originally 4.5 mm thick and 10 mm wide, it ended up at 9mm thick and 14 mm wide, plenty of overflow, this pommel isn't going anywhere.
I then wirebrushed the fittings to get that horrible chrome-like shiny Hanwei finish off of them, but only had a brass wire brush lying around at that moment so it ended up with a matte/satin finish with a goldish shine.










With the fittings in place I could start carving the handle core. I always deliberately carve out the handle/tsuka core a little more than necessary to give the epoxy room to fill in every little corner and crevice so that the handle core and tang make full contact. The abundance of overflow (already wiped off in the pictures) showed that the epoxy had done it's work.
Like always I spend more hours holding the handle up against the light checking it's shape than actually removing material. Somehow I find this process therapeutically soothing.















Next up on the to-do list was wrapping the handle, everything so far had gone pretty well but this part was my biggest “oh, right that's why I used to do this different” (re-)learning moment. Wood glue got everywhere, took too long to dry making the grip unravel when I wasn't paying attention, etc. Let's just say Murphy's law kicked in and my vocabulary wasn't exemplary at that moment.
Anyway, the result was a lot better than the process and I ended up with the wrapping firmly attached to the core. It doesn't move one bit under normal use and it won't be coming without destructive force.










When I finally had the grip done I noticed that the strong 90 degree corners of the edge of the pommel were rubbing against the hand very annoyingly. Swinging it for a couple minutes would quickly make your hand hurt. The thickness and shape of the pommel was well done and facilitated a hooking grip with your pinky against the pommel very well, the only problem was the edges. Not much material would have to be removed to make the pommel comfortable, just rounding the corners would do.
To prevent the freshly made grip from getting damaged I wrapped it in masking tape and proceeded to rounding the corners. After that I carefully wirebrushed the fittings again, this time with a normal steel brush, ending up with a matte/satin grey metal finish that is much easier on the eyes.
Unfortunately the masking tape was the one damaging the grip because although the glue is very weak it was apparently enough to tear off tiny flakes of the stained leather cord. You can see in the pictures that the grip now has a rougher surface compared to the pictures of when the grip was just wrapped. I could almost bang my head against the wall for such a stupid screw up but then again this was, above all else, a (re)learning project, and it would just have to be something to remember for next time.
The rounding of the edges of the pommel made a big improvement. The pommel now lies comfortably against the hand and doesn't hurt when the sword is swung, it just glides through the hand.











Anyway, I think the end result turned out pretty good for a first project in such a long time.
The handle turned out well; the short grip and sharply tapering handle naturally let your hand hook the pommel without forcing you to use much strength and with the rounded edges of the pommel it glides through your hand comfortably.
I think the grip could have used a bit of flare at the bottom though, maybe around 3-4 mm to cradle the hand a little better. I also think that the fit in the hand would improve with a little more thickness, primarily in the middle of the grip.
I expect a lot of people will be concerned with the short grip and I can certainly understand there are people who prefer the regular hammer grip on swords of all ages. A grip length of only 80.5 mm might seem very short but is well within historical limits and with the pommel under the thumb against your hand instead of the full hand inside the grip the handshake grip requires much less room, I don't have large hands but they are not small either and I still have room to spare. I am certain I could get away with a grip length of 75-76 mm. I can still wear a glove while gripping the sword.
A short grip really makes the handshake grip shine because it locks your hand inside the handle. A longer grip would actually make it harder to use a handshake grip because your hand is no longer locked in place on three sides thus requiring much more strength to keep the handle in place.
I will try to get my conversation with Brendan on this subject up as soon as possible but it will take some time compile all the mails.

At this point the blade is still blunt with a 1mm edge and rounded tip as all Del Tin blades come. I haven't decided on the exact final shape of the tip area. Of course this blade is designed for cutting but I think that a more pointed tip would definitely fit the overall shape of the sword and with the rather close point of balance and stiff blade it could make a decent thrust if I made the tip acute enough.

These are the final stats on the sword:
Weight: 919 grams / 2.03 lbs
Total length: 65.5 cm / 25.8 inch

Point of balance from the guard: 7.1 cm / 2.80 inch
Point of balance from the hand: around 9.6 cm / 3.78 inch
Point of percussion: this blade is so stiff that I wasn't able to properly measure any blade harmonics.
Pivot point: about 28 cm / 11 inch

Blade length: 51.3 cm / 20.20 inch
Width at base of the blade: 53.0 mm / 2.087 inch
Thickness at base of blade: 4.2 mm / 0.165 inch
Width at 9 cm from the tip (the point where it starts to curve towards the tip): 38.9 mm / 1.531 inch
Thickness at 9 cm from the tip: 4.0 mm / 0.157 inch

Grip length: 80.5 mm / 3.169 inch
Width at top of the grip: 36.1 mm / 1.421 inch
Thickness at top of grip: 18.0 mm / 0.709 inch
Width at base of the grip: 26.3 mm / 1.035 inch
Thickness at base of grip: 18.8 mm / 0.740 inch

Handling characteristics:
Since the blade is still blunt and my shoulder is still screwing me over I haven't been able to handle the sword much. What I did notice quickly is that this sword is very agile for a viking era styled sword. It feels a bit sluggish because of the almost complete lack of distal taper and profile taper but with the close point of balance and heavy hilt it's quite fast in the hand. The blade accelerates, changes direction and stops a lot faster than you would expect from the 9th century look. The point control is also pretty decent for a broad viking era styled sword, I can draw half-circles in the air with the point with relative ease.
With the point of balance being around 7-10 cm or 3-4 inches it's not a heavy cutting sword but when cast out from the wrist or elbow the tip gets up to speed very quickly, thus allowing quick but still relatively powerful cuts on un-armoured opponents in confined indoor spaces with the added bonus of fast blade recovery. I think this sword would shine in defending a narrow hallway. Since I made use of stock blade and fittings and therefore had little control over the final product it's all the more surprising that the handling of this sword is pretty much exactly what I was aiming for.

After the blade was finished I noticed I still had a shield boss lying around and decided to make a small round shield (60 cm / 23.6 inches diameter, 9mm thick 7-layer plywood) to accompany this short viking era styled sword.



So, what do you guys think of the result?
A good short sword for home defence? An unhistorical abomination? A modern art masterpiece? (for those who get the reference...).
All of the pictures I have taken so far can be found in the corresponding album: s495.photobucket.com/user/LewisPhotoB/library/Type%20E%20hilted%20Viking%20era%20style%20short%20sword?sort=3&page=1