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Post by william m on May 21, 2011 10:20:15 GMT
Hey all, I have been experimenting with using a gold marker pen to bring some life into otherwise drab fittings. First up are some cheap repro menuki, which REALLY look dull. They looked so much better on ebay! Anyways I painted them to simulate years of wear and tear on old antique menuki. The rabbit menuki are the antiques I have tried to copy. I am pretty pleased with the result and hopefully under some decently lumpy tsukamaki they should be able to withstand a good amount of ware. Before A comparison, the antique set are on top. The pen I used.
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Post by william m on May 21, 2011 10:11:49 GMT
Hey all, I decided to smarten up a knife I made while on Owen Bush's knife making course. Firstly I must say that when I made the knife, I knew I would want to do some filework on the tang, so when I heat-treated and quenched this blade, I made sure that only the blade would be hardened so the tang is nice and soft to file. If you try and do some filework on a hardened tang you will go through a lot of files, so bewarned! When it came to filing I made a bit of a mistake in making a simple horizontal cut. It looked a bit rubbish compared to the rest of the work, so in order to make it pretty I decided to try and put some inlay it! It is actually pretty easy when doing it on the tang. The key point is that you need to make sure that you have the base wider than the top part of the hole, so that the metal will stay in and not pop out. Kind of like a blunt pyramid. I found an old piece of brass to use, looks like an old rivet. So to start I first heated the brass to try and soften it but it didn't work all that well as it cooled far too quickly. In the end I found cold hammering did the job just fine! You need to be very precise with the hits but I am happy with my first inlaying work. Next up I need to file it a bit more to make it more flush with the tang and then continue with a vine pattern going up to the blade. A more up to date photo than the above.
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Post by william m on May 21, 2011 10:04:31 GMT
Hi all.... A bit of a show and tell today for you all. The story starts with one an old Atrim riding sword. I have had this sword for a while, and although it is very nice.. I yearn for something more exciting and frankly am growing bored of it. SO I decided to tear apart some rubbishy indian slo that I had the bad luck of buying a while ago and salvaged the guard. Quite a bit of work was needed to fit the guard to the tang and also to taper the guard to fit the blade which itself tapers into the tang. Also the steel was somewhat un-cooperative in keeping the bend and I had to heat it up under the stove to get it to keep. However it all worked out in the end though. This is only really an experiment and so I have not bothered to clean up the guard just yet. I think it looks pretty awesome! I have always wanted a cut and thrust sword and this Atrim blade in particular is quite suited for it.
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