At Last years Blade show, in 2004, I had the pleasure of having dinner with several forumites, including Ron luciano, stephen Han, Thomas Macdonald as well as Vince and Grace Evans........ After dinner i was speaking with Ron, and he showed us a antique shell guard cutlass. This sword really impressed me and stuck wtih me. i contacted Vladimir cervenka , who I had done business with before, about replicating this sword. After some design time, we decided to make it a set wtih a matching dagger. The Dagger as Vladimir points out was NOT used En suite with the sword but rather more of a backup peice for the right hand, hence the quillon setup.
I had him patina them to give the appearance of the antique i handled.
The peice Ron had, had a curved blade. After some research on Vladimirs part, he discovered many swords in museums he visitied with this hilt setup had straight blades so we decided to go that route.
the finished peices are quite impressive and true to Vladimirs style.

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Patina finish

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The hilts prior to being finished

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Hilt closeups

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The Finished set

I like those quite a bit. That's a very nice aging job too, not over the top and artificial like some we see.

yep, it still allows the beauty of the sword to show thru some its not just "rusted up"

does Ron Luciano still post around here? I wish he could throw up a pic of this cutlass that inspired me.
they are really totally difference.... his had a half shell on the "palm" side with a thumb ring........ this was not my favorite feature, hence the ommision

David Stokes wrote:

does Ron Luciano still post around here? I wish he could throw up a pic of this cutlass that inspired me. they are really totally difference.... his had a half shell on the "palm" side with a thumb ring........ this was not my favorite feature, hence the ommision

Here is a photo of me holding the antique cutlass:

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Click photo for larger version

Lovely reproductions, David. Personally, I'd want the rear guard and thumb-ring, but it's still nice without the full hilt. I'd really like to get these in-hand. If you should ever want to part with them, please consider me interested!

David,

Those look really great.

Good choice on design, and good chioce on smith to execute the vision.

It seems like his work is continually improving.