My CS Backsword, Part 2
Aug 19, 2019 15:02:02 GMT
Post by pgandy on Aug 19, 2019 15:02:02 GMT
Part 2
After seeing the negative reports on this sword after Cold Steel’s release I lost interest only to regain it a few years later after realizing these reports had ceased. In fact I had been waiting several months for KoA to restock. When they did the Backsword moved to the top of my list and I had planned on ordering within the month when I received a PM from Uhlan saying that he wanted the room his was taking for other things and offering to gift me, no strings attached and would I be interested. Does a wild bear poo in the woods? I jumped at the opportunity. I remember when he received it and it was from the original faulty batch. No matter I was sure that I could overcome its short comings.
After what seemed to be a lengthy wait, but in reality not, considering; He had dulled the blade at my request to pass customs, packaged, and shipped the sword. Then there was the transatlantic journey followed by a transcaribbean trip. And then there was customs and processing in my country. But the day finally arrived and it was here. It was mine. Hehe
The buses and taxis seemed slower than normal that day but eventually we were home. Uhlan had done what he called mummifying the sword. On opening the packing there was a large amount of bubble wrap and an abundance of blue tape. The tape was from customs and it was most evident they had given it a thorough inspection, more so than normal. I was unable to penetrate the mess barehanded so it was my 1850 bowie. This was the first time in all the years and jobs I’ve given it that it failed. My dagger was up to the job easily slipping into all that plastic and ripping its way out. It took several tries to complete the job.
Once inside I discovered enough grease to prevent rust if the stay with customs became extended. Once as much grease was removed as I could I discovered he had wrapped the blade with cellophane tape. I could raise a corner here and there but there was enough residual grease to prevent a firm grip making it impossible to peel. My pocket knife was a good start but I discovered as single edge razor was the best and I literally shaved the tape off in pieces. This left much adhesive that was easily removed with a solvent. The job took four hours. I’ll have to hand it to Uhlan that sword was safe from the most aggressive package handler and rust imaginable. I was worried about shipping damage, but no way that could happen. That was the most secured sword I’ve ever received. Not complaining by any means just stating facts.
On expecting I saw that he had done an excellent job at dulling the blade. He had done so without deforming it in the least and that I was able to resharpen with no evidence it had been tempered with. Well almost none. I am sure CS provided a blade with a secondary bevel and I put a convex edge on it that blended in with the rest of the blade in regards to fit and polish.
I also saw immediately that he had made a washer for it. This is something that I had intended to do as I remembered from the photos posted at the time the tang slot was enormous. It would put the run of mill Windlass oversize slots to shame. Uhlan had done this on his own without me asking saving me the trouble.
The supplies that I had ordered for the job had not arrived so I played with it a couple of days getting the feel of it. I couldn’t put my finger on it but something didn’t feel right. I did discover that blade had taken a set at the base of the foible during this time and straightened.
After two days I decided to restore the edge which took most of an afternoon. The next day I touched up a spot or two that I thought less than satisfactory.
After that and still waiting I decided to start with Plan A, which was to rebuild with a disassemble factor in mind, I had shimming material. That’s when I disassembled the sword and took a real good look at what I had to work with. I was amazed. It was constructed in a manner that I’d expect some shyster on ebay selling a no-name sword would come up with. TERRIBLE would be an understatement. Certainly nothing from a well known name as Cold Steel. I don’t know what went on behind the scenes, but if I was Thompson heads would have rolled. At least one person would have been promoted to floor sweeper. With the exception of the threaded pommel the whole thing was held together by tension and friction making understanding so many complaints on the sword’s behaviour.
The entire steel bar, I’ll call it that to avoid confusion, that is the blade, tang, and the threaded stud welded on at the end is 381/8” long. The threaded stud is about ¼” in diameter and attaches to the pommel with a nut that uses about .401” of length of the threaded stud. That was essentially the only support of the blade. So there is a 3’ steel bar that is only secured at the extreme end with a nut that is gripping only 0.4” of it. The tang touched nothing. Tightening the nut drew the blade and guard together until the blade’s shoulders made butt contact with the face of the guard and is held there only with friction caused by the tension of the nut.
I was able to take a skewer stick and run it down to the pommel from the guard between the tang and the more than generous size tang channel in the grip.
By undoing the nut it is possible to remove the hilt as one unit. The three fingers, for a lack of a better term, that extends from the guard to the spherical pommel and attaches there with three screws supplies the tension that holds everything together. I did not undo those screws for fear the hilt would spring apart and I did not feel like fighting to put the thing back together. But that is what I observed:
The wood grip is covered with plastic made to look like ray skin with a wire wrap. This unit is seated in a metal boss at each end. I at first thought the distal boss was secured to the back of the guard but found that it was just wedged there and would move up, down, laterally, and any point in between, Not only that it would rotate.
Everything save the threaded stud and nut was a friction fit. OMG! What about in time the very possibly incorrectly cured wood grip began to contract?
To mark time for my supplies to arrive I decided to install aluminium shims that would both support the tang and fill some of the void in the grip. My supplies arrived during the three days I was doing this. By the third night Plan B was looking much better. I think that I could have complete Plan A but I was beginning to question its strength not to mention the frustration as everything kept moving on me, nothing remained stable. The next morning I received mail from Uhlan saying to epoxy everything together which was beginning to be my thoughts. So Plan B.
Plan B was a simple affair and that was to, you guessed it, epoxy everything together. Fool proof actually. This went rather quickly. I removed the hilt, applied masking tape around the edge of the guard’s tang slot. I had some traditional epoxy on hand that I’d been saving for 10 years that proved to be still good. The box didn’t fare so well, it literally fell apart due to our humid climate. I mixed the epoxy and worked it into the tang slot. It’s surprising how such a large hole can suddenly become so small. I did this until no more would go in. I suspect that I didn’t get as much in as I should and the epoxy began to build up only a short distance in preventing more from entering. I painted the tang itself with epoxy and after shoving the threaded stud into a jar of petroleum jelly to protect the threads I mounted the hilt and tightened the nut little by little constantly checking alignment and adjusted a few times as needed. After which I set the affair upright in a corner for gravity to do her thing.
After the epoxy set I brought the sword back to the work table, removed the tape and cleaned, then painted guard and ricasso with a release coating. I then mixed Acraglas, an all time favourite resin of mine, putting black dye in it for colour to closer match the guard. When done I put this in the tang slot also until it levelled off with the guard and set in the corner to come back several times later to repeat the process as the Acraglas would settle downwards into the voids still in the grip. Eventually it remained flush with the guard at which time I cleaned the guard of the splashes it had which went easily due to the release coat.
The fill at that point had not thoroughly hardened so I took it easy but could already tell that the “not right feeling” that earlier I couldn’t put my finger on was not there. The next day I dry handled it some but as the Acraglas’s instructions stated not to fire for two days because while feeling hard it takes that long for it to thoroughly harden. Acraglas is designed for firearms. After two long days, OK 36 hours as 48 would put me in the dark. I had to test it. And that takes you back to Part 1.
Part 1
sbg-sword-forum.forums.net/thread/58278/cs-backsword-1
After seeing the negative reports on this sword after Cold Steel’s release I lost interest only to regain it a few years later after realizing these reports had ceased. In fact I had been waiting several months for KoA to restock. When they did the Backsword moved to the top of my list and I had planned on ordering within the month when I received a PM from Uhlan saying that he wanted the room his was taking for other things and offering to gift me, no strings attached and would I be interested. Does a wild bear poo in the woods? I jumped at the opportunity. I remember when he received it and it was from the original faulty batch. No matter I was sure that I could overcome its short comings.
After what seemed to be a lengthy wait, but in reality not, considering; He had dulled the blade at my request to pass customs, packaged, and shipped the sword. Then there was the transatlantic journey followed by a transcaribbean trip. And then there was customs and processing in my country. But the day finally arrived and it was here. It was mine. Hehe
The buses and taxis seemed slower than normal that day but eventually we were home. Uhlan had done what he called mummifying the sword. On opening the packing there was a large amount of bubble wrap and an abundance of blue tape. The tape was from customs and it was most evident they had given it a thorough inspection, more so than normal. I was unable to penetrate the mess barehanded so it was my 1850 bowie. This was the first time in all the years and jobs I’ve given it that it failed. My dagger was up to the job easily slipping into all that plastic and ripping its way out. It took several tries to complete the job.
Once inside I discovered enough grease to prevent rust if the stay with customs became extended. Once as much grease was removed as I could I discovered he had wrapped the blade with cellophane tape. I could raise a corner here and there but there was enough residual grease to prevent a firm grip making it impossible to peel. My pocket knife was a good start but I discovered as single edge razor was the best and I literally shaved the tape off in pieces. This left much adhesive that was easily removed with a solvent. The job took four hours. I’ll have to hand it to Uhlan that sword was safe from the most aggressive package handler and rust imaginable. I was worried about shipping damage, but no way that could happen. That was the most secured sword I’ve ever received. Not complaining by any means just stating facts.
On expecting I saw that he had done an excellent job at dulling the blade. He had done so without deforming it in the least and that I was able to resharpen with no evidence it had been tempered with. Well almost none. I am sure CS provided a blade with a secondary bevel and I put a convex edge on it that blended in with the rest of the blade in regards to fit and polish.
I also saw immediately that he had made a washer for it. This is something that I had intended to do as I remembered from the photos posted at the time the tang slot was enormous. It would put the run of mill Windlass oversize slots to shame. Uhlan had done this on his own without me asking saving me the trouble.
The supplies that I had ordered for the job had not arrived so I played with it a couple of days getting the feel of it. I couldn’t put my finger on it but something didn’t feel right. I did discover that blade had taken a set at the base of the foible during this time and straightened.
After two days I decided to restore the edge which took most of an afternoon. The next day I touched up a spot or two that I thought less than satisfactory.
After that and still waiting I decided to start with Plan A, which was to rebuild with a disassemble factor in mind, I had shimming material. That’s when I disassembled the sword and took a real good look at what I had to work with. I was amazed. It was constructed in a manner that I’d expect some shyster on ebay selling a no-name sword would come up with. TERRIBLE would be an understatement. Certainly nothing from a well known name as Cold Steel. I don’t know what went on behind the scenes, but if I was Thompson heads would have rolled. At least one person would have been promoted to floor sweeper. With the exception of the threaded pommel the whole thing was held together by tension and friction making understanding so many complaints on the sword’s behaviour.
The entire steel bar, I’ll call it that to avoid confusion, that is the blade, tang, and the threaded stud welded on at the end is 381/8” long. The threaded stud is about ¼” in diameter and attaches to the pommel with a nut that uses about .401” of length of the threaded stud. That was essentially the only support of the blade. So there is a 3’ steel bar that is only secured at the extreme end with a nut that is gripping only 0.4” of it. The tang touched nothing. Tightening the nut drew the blade and guard together until the blade’s shoulders made butt contact with the face of the guard and is held there only with friction caused by the tension of the nut.
I was able to take a skewer stick and run it down to the pommel from the guard between the tang and the more than generous size tang channel in the grip.
By undoing the nut it is possible to remove the hilt as one unit. The three fingers, for a lack of a better term, that extends from the guard to the spherical pommel and attaches there with three screws supplies the tension that holds everything together. I did not undo those screws for fear the hilt would spring apart and I did not feel like fighting to put the thing back together. But that is what I observed:
The wood grip is covered with plastic made to look like ray skin with a wire wrap. This unit is seated in a metal boss at each end. I at first thought the distal boss was secured to the back of the guard but found that it was just wedged there and would move up, down, laterally, and any point in between, Not only that it would rotate.
Everything save the threaded stud and nut was a friction fit. OMG! What about in time the very possibly incorrectly cured wood grip began to contract?
To mark time for my supplies to arrive I decided to install aluminium shims that would both support the tang and fill some of the void in the grip. My supplies arrived during the three days I was doing this. By the third night Plan B was looking much better. I think that I could have complete Plan A but I was beginning to question its strength not to mention the frustration as everything kept moving on me, nothing remained stable. The next morning I received mail from Uhlan saying to epoxy everything together which was beginning to be my thoughts. So Plan B.
Plan B was a simple affair and that was to, you guessed it, epoxy everything together. Fool proof actually. This went rather quickly. I removed the hilt, applied masking tape around the edge of the guard’s tang slot. I had some traditional epoxy on hand that I’d been saving for 10 years that proved to be still good. The box didn’t fare so well, it literally fell apart due to our humid climate. I mixed the epoxy and worked it into the tang slot. It’s surprising how such a large hole can suddenly become so small. I did this until no more would go in. I suspect that I didn’t get as much in as I should and the epoxy began to build up only a short distance in preventing more from entering. I painted the tang itself with epoxy and after shoving the threaded stud into a jar of petroleum jelly to protect the threads I mounted the hilt and tightened the nut little by little constantly checking alignment and adjusted a few times as needed. After which I set the affair upright in a corner for gravity to do her thing.
After the epoxy set I brought the sword back to the work table, removed the tape and cleaned, then painted guard and ricasso with a release coating. I then mixed Acraglas, an all time favourite resin of mine, putting black dye in it for colour to closer match the guard. When done I put this in the tang slot also until it levelled off with the guard and set in the corner to come back several times later to repeat the process as the Acraglas would settle downwards into the voids still in the grip. Eventually it remained flush with the guard at which time I cleaned the guard of the splashes it had which went easily due to the release coat.
The fill at that point had not thoroughly hardened so I took it easy but could already tell that the “not right feeling” that earlier I couldn’t put my finger on was not there. The next day I dry handled it some but as the Acraglas’s instructions stated not to fire for two days because while feeling hard it takes that long for it to thoroughly harden. Acraglas is designed for firearms. After two long days, OK 36 hours as 48 would put me in the dark. I had to test it. And that takes you back to Part 1.
Part 1
sbg-sword-forum.forums.net/thread/58278/cs-backsword-1