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Post by spatchcock on Mar 23, 2018 15:12:07 GMT
After the aborted sheet steel for sparring sword attempt thread we're coming at it from a different angle The aim is to make some sort of mortuary/basket hilted/backsword with a blade of around 331/2 inches long by 1 1/2 inches wide. The basket hilt needs to be big enough to take a padded glove. The blade in the end was fairly easy (and maybe this thread should be moved to customisation - up to you mods...) I bought one from medieval fight club in Aus. The do various bare blades and I went for a longsword. It arrived at my door from the other side of the world for about £85 including postage and import duty, which is less than I was quote to heat treat a blade over here. It's made from EN 45 and tempered to 50HRC. Next job was to thin it down. After chatting to a few people I got some 60grit ceramic abrasive belts for my sander and proceeded to remove about 7mm from each edge and 100mm from the length (well, disc cut the end and smoothed it) Did it all nice and slowly and the blade never got above warm to the touch. The ceramic abrasives are amazing! Temporary work bench as garage floor is being relayed. In fact the belt sander worked so well I had a go at putting a distal taper on it too, which went pretty well. All in all it took about two and a half hours to remove the material. After this we gave it a few wacks with a feder to see if it had kept it's hardness and it certainly seems to have. Gave it a few flexes and it seems fine. So far so good. Next step was having a bash at the basket. Borrowed a cad package and ran through a quick tutorial, looked at loads of pictures of hilts and jumped in. Hat's off to the guys that design these things - I found it really hard - but had a go and ended up with this... Took it to my lovely mate and three minutes later his super dooper laser had cut it out of a sheet of 3mm steel He said it actually wouldn't cost a fortune to get done if someone wanted to pay to get it done. After a bit of swearing and bashing we have a basic sword shape I think. The hardest bit so far was cutting the tang down and sticking an m10 thread on it. Much swearing there! Got the pommel ball from a metal gate and railings company for about 50pence. Stuck a hole through and threaded it. Still plenty to do but I'm pretty happy with it at the moment
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Post by spatchcock on Apr 5, 2018 6:54:54 GMT
Finally got it together, and learnt alot doing it. I take my hat off to the guys that make these properly! The first incarnation ended up being far too heavy - around 1800grams! Wieldy she was not The guard started out as 3mm thick and weighed in nearly 900grams on it's own so had another go at it with 2.5mm, which worked out better, but the intrinsic design of it is far too heavy. Back to the drawing board with that at some point. Made the handle up out of some ash. Routed out two halves and glued them together, shaped with belt sander and covered with heavy duty heat shrink. Thought it was going to be the hardest job but was probably the easiest bit to do. Took a lot more meat off the guard, and shaped the bars with an angle grinder taking it to around the 550gram mark. In the end I managed to get it down to a total weight of 1480grams (about 3 1/4 lbs) Must admit I never expected the weight to be such an issue, which shows just how much I know! I've had a little spar with it and the blade is standing up just fine, but would like to get the weight down to around 1280grams ( 2 3/4 lbs). Great fun and very interesting to do - would encourage anyone to have a go!
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Scott
Member
Posts: 1,675
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Post by Scott on Apr 5, 2018 11:26:35 GMT
Nice work. How does it handle?
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Post by spatchcock on Apr 5, 2018 12:03:18 GMT
Thanks very much! It really was a lot of fun:-) It handles just fine IMHO, just a little slower than I would like. Occasionally it feel like I'm using my elbow/arm to move it more than my wrist at times, if that makes sense. Oh, and the guard just touches my pinky finger knuckle with (lightly) padded gloves on - the gloves being more for wrist protection. No big thing but sort of surpised just how big the basket needs to be.
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Post by spatchcock on Apr 10, 2018 20:27:43 GMT
Back again with the mk2 lighter prettier basket.... Needs some tidying up but it'll do nicely Wifes sword next....
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Post by Sir Thorfinn on Apr 10, 2018 20:41:21 GMT
Thats some fine work there! Consider dishing the hilt parts to give a rounder profile, though it might mess with your length/depth final product. Get the process nailed down and you might have a weekend hobby bashing these out to sell. I like it...lots!
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Post by spatchcock on Apr 10, 2018 21:39:16 GMT
Thanks very much, that's high praise indeed! Will have a go rounding out the next one.
Cheers very much:-)
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Post by elbrittania39 on Apr 11, 2018 1:38:30 GMT
wow, awesome work! That basket looks better than a lot of whats on the market.
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Post by Dalin Caulder on Apr 11, 2018 17:43:01 GMT
Very nice work, the weight is only slightly heavier then what armourclass produces. I read on myarmoury (https://myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=5033)that single handed basket hilts could be anywhere from 2.6lbs to 2.9lbs...so your not that far off. Good work, if you ever get this down to an art form let me know and I may buy one off ya
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Post by spatchcock on Apr 12, 2018 13:22:34 GMT
Thanks very much guys, you've made my day!
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Post by spatchcock on Apr 12, 2018 13:52:21 GMT
Next little attempt... The wife didn't want a normal 'boring' basket hilt so we went with the following Little grip photo for you. Two bits of ash routed out and bonded together. Shape with bench saw and belt sander. Wrap with duck tape and cover with heavy duty heat shrink. Next, the main event. Drum roll please We went through about a dozen paper designs before she was happy with this The cat face guard I still need to pop the proper screws in the hilt but gives you an idea. She wanted something a lot lighter than mine so we used a cavalry blank from medieval fightclub. I haven't weighed it yet but I'm betting it will be around the 2lb mark. 34" blade taken down to about 24mm wide for the entire length. It feels pretty quick! Afraid I cheated a bit and bought a pommel from fightclub as it's really cheap. The blade comes threaded for it (M8) so it's a no brainer really. This was went together really quickly. The guard design took far longer than anything else I did bottle out dishing the guard though, sorry POB is about 80mm For the record I started doing another for a mate yesterday from a longsword blank and it took about four hours to shape it. It's time consuming but quite therapeutic really. Cheers again for all the nice replies!
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Post by elbrittania39 on Apr 12, 2018 15:33:17 GMT
No joke you should go into business, these are great.
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Ifrit
Member
More edgy than a double edge sword
Posts: 3,284
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Post by Ifrit on Apr 13, 2018 6:44:59 GMT
What woukd you charge for a basket hilt
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Scott
Member
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Post by Scott on Apr 13, 2018 8:44:20 GMT
Nice. How's it handle?
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Post by spatchcock on Apr 13, 2018 19:36:18 GMT
Thanks guys! Djinnnobi, I'm not sure I'm ready for that just yet, but if you want I can probably mail the drawing to you and you can just take it to a sheet metal place and they should be able to punch it out for you. Don't know what part of the world you're in but imagine it would be quite pricey postage wise to send one over the pond.
Surpised how well they handle to be honest Scott. Up to now we've been using the Rawlings synthetics which are about half the weight so thought it would be a bit of a struggle but they move well. The wifes's feels particularly nippy so suspect it will give me some bruises :-)
All in all we're very chuffed! Got a bit of a session booked Sunday so will report back after that.
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Post by Jordan Williams on Apr 14, 2018 0:50:49 GMT
Thanks guys! Djinnnobi, I'm not sure I'm ready for that just yet, but if you want I can probably mail the drawing to you and you can just take it to a sheet metal place and they should be able to punch it out for you. Don't know what part of the world you're in but imagine it would be quite pricey postage wise to send one over the pond. Surpised how well they handle to be honest Scott. Up to now we've been using the Rawlings synthetics which are about half the weight so thought it would be a bit of a struggle but they move well. The wifes's feels particularly nippy so suspect it will give me some bruises :-) All in all we're very chuffed! Got a bit of a session booked Sunday so will report back after that. You make it I buy it... the whole sword I mean. It looks great.
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Post by spatchcock on Apr 16, 2018 20:02:19 GMT
Thanks for the vote of confidence Jordan but not sure I'm ready for the stresses of the retail market yet:-)
We had a bit of a sparring session over the weekend and am pleased to report that they stood up well, and felt nice to use. Definitely nicer to use than the synthetics, mostly as they didn't slide off each other. The blades were great. The heavier blade had barely a bur and the wife's lighter blade had a couple of dings which I put down to the thinner edge rather than the steel. I think mine has about a 2.5mm wide edge and hers is about 1.5mm. Certainly nothing to worry about. Both guards got some good wallops Mine again is a bit heavier and stood up fine but I caught heres on one of the thin bars under the grip and it bent in by about 6-8mm but definitely saved her hand! The bar itself is only 5mm wide so that's something for me to think about widening next time. I will say this though...the extra pound in weight over a synthetic Rawlings soon told on our arms:-)
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Post by ember on Apr 16, 2018 20:24:17 GMT
Cat face guard, that's so different I love it
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