I recently obtained a "French" small sword via another forum, as you can see the blade is much too large for a small sword. . The hilt was one of the crudest pieces of brass casting that I have seen on a sword in a very long time. It also was very small and uncomfortable in my hand. I decided that I would create a new hilt for the blade, since it was very good quality for an imported piece. I believe it to be a Windlass made blade, it reminds me a lot of other Windlass blades I have owned. It has a very good temper and it should hold a decent edge.

The hilt was inspired by a piece sold by Arms and Armour. It is marketed as their proto-mortuary hilt from the Tower Armoury. The basket is made of 12-gauge cold rolled steel, and the pommel is made from 16-gauge steel and the grip is fashioned from a piece of ash.

My next step is to make a new all leather scabbard, but that will be in the future.

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Very nice Paul, how about some close ups of the hilt.What are the dimensions of the blade? Did you peen it or use a nut?

Hi Stephen,

Thank you for the compliment.

The blade is roughly 29.5 inches long, I will have to measure it otherwise. It is suprisingly very balanced with this new hilt, before it was very hard to get an idea of the balance. It weighs around 2.25 pounds the way it looks in the photos. I used both a nut and peening to secure the hilt. I used a square nut that I filed to appear "period" and once it was in place, I peened the tang to prevent it from working loose.

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A good piece of work - I love the 17th century stuff - been making a few hangers myself and have just about got the hang of making globular pommel nits with a 1/4'' internal thread. The blueing you've achieved looks great by the way. Matt paint and furniture waxing gives a nice effect too.

Steve

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Thanks! Your swords are beautiful!

I oil blued this basket and then I used steel wool to give it some highlights.

That looks very nice. Very utilitarian. I have a cut down Windless saber blade that i wasn't sure what to do with. You've given me some cool ideas. What did you use to cut the guard out? 12 gauge is pretty darn thick.