Valiant Armoury Norseman Touch-up
May 3, 2020 3:47:21 GMT
Post by ErikTheLed on May 3, 2020 3:47:21 GMT
I recently bought this Valiant Armoury Norseman used as my first sword. It was advertised as having some rust that was sanded out with a worksharp belt on the pommel and guard and the satin finish was scuffed up. The pictures in the add made it look worse due to lighting, it almost looked like it had been discolored in the photos, but it was just scratched up. The seller stated that it was purchased new from VA in 2016 and had never been used to cut, had been sharpened on worksharp. When I got it the blade was in good shape with no signs of ever having cut anything that would have left any kind of scratching on the blade (I cut a couple plastic water bottles and it left some small scratches from that), but it still had a little rattle at the guard when I'd hit the side of the pommel. A little loc-tite squirted in the gap at the fuller fixed that. Nothing loose or moving anywhere, not sure why it rattled if never cut with.
Last night I drank some whiskey and sat in the shop and re-sanded the pommel. I basically followed the process described here:
I've sanded and polished metal for a job at one point so have a little experience. This was a little tricky with the small curved surfaces and converging angles, couldn't really cross sand so had to go same direction for each grit. Was able to do like the video starting at 400, 600, 800, and back to 600, was hard to pull straight lines. It came out pretty good though, definitely looks better than it did. Shading always looks strange in photos, but it looks pretty clean in person. Next planning to re-dye the grip from cocoa brown to oxblood since I can't find antique red leather dye anywhere.
Before:
After: