"Bargain" AT1429 Project Sword
Oct 7, 2008 1:27:25 GMT
Post by ShooterMike on Oct 7, 2008 1:27:25 GMT
I was lucky enough to see this early ATrim 1429 Nathan Robinson put up for sale recently in the myArmoury classified section (asking well under our $300 price point). I knew it would make an excellent "project sword" so I bought it immediately. Gus lists this sword as fitting into the Oakeshott typology as a XVI due to the flattened diamond cross section and the profile taper. To my way of thinking it's always looked like a type XII with an erroneous flattened diamond blade tip. Just not quite pointy enough for a XVI. But that's what it is, similar to Oakeshott's XVI.15, not withstanding the diamond cross section. But in any case, it's an excellent handling sword and is the basis for Christian Fletcher's "Redeemer" LOTR-inspired sword seen here in the myArmoury review. I believe this is the actual sword in the comparison photo in the Redeemer review.
In any case, I had plans to make it a bit more "14th century" looking and had what I feel to be more appropriate hilt furniture on hand. Initially, I rust blued the guard and pommel, letting the rust build up to a "pile", then removed it with a lot of scrubbing. And I changed out the grip. This was the initial result:
But I decided the grip was not quite comfortable and didn't add much in the way of distinctiveness. So I stripped it down and did a new cord-over-leather wrap, selecting cranberry for the color. And added a little bit of distressing to the color to try to match up with the aged hilt furniture. Here is the result:
Also, the blade needed a little touching up as far as symmetry and it especially needed the "early style blunt fuller terminations" smoothed out. This shows the blade after rework:
And the smoothed out fuller tip:
I'm very happy with the result. Thanks Nathan, for offering up this little beauty at such a bargain price.
In any case, I had plans to make it a bit more "14th century" looking and had what I feel to be more appropriate hilt furniture on hand. Initially, I rust blued the guard and pommel, letting the rust build up to a "pile", then removed it with a lot of scrubbing. And I changed out the grip. This was the initial result:
But I decided the grip was not quite comfortable and didn't add much in the way of distinctiveness. So I stripped it down and did a new cord-over-leather wrap, selecting cranberry for the color. And added a little bit of distressing to the color to try to match up with the aged hilt furniture. Here is the result:
Also, the blade needed a little touching up as far as symmetry and it especially needed the "early style blunt fuller terminations" smoothed out. This shows the blade after rework:
And the smoothed out fuller tip:
I'm very happy with the result. Thanks Nathan, for offering up this little beauty at such a bargain price.