In another thread I had posted a few pictures of a pair of falcata blades that I had been working on earlier this summer. As these progressed, I decided it would be a good for these to have their own progress page on my website and a thread here wouldn’t be a bad idea either. The last time I posted they were about half way forged and looked something like this.

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I didn’t get a final forged picture of the crow head, but this is how the crane looked after forging.

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Here is the crow after Mark set the profile and started grinding.

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Mark then put in some hard hours scraping the fullers by hand. He really worked some magic on these blades. This is how they looked the other day just before they went out for heat treatment.

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Once these are back from heat treatment, Mark will do final grinding on the blades. The fullers will remain dark from the heat treatment so they will stand out against the polished blade. Then I will be making the guard and doing the final mounting work. I’m still in the process of picking the hilt materials for these. The crane will be something like bone, holly, antler, or a light horn. I would like to do a darker hilt with the crow but less sure of what I want to use. Horn is a likely possibility, but I am also looking into other options. A case might be made for the possible use of ebony at the time, but I’m still unsure. I have also been reading and doing some experiments with early mineral pigment techniques on bone and antler. Should have a couple weeks anyway to make up my mind as far as the hilt material goes.

I'll keep updating this thread and the falcata page on my site as there is progress.
http://www.ironagearmoury.com/falcatas.html

Shane Allee

Wow, it looks amazing! I always find it fascinating to see a lump of blackened metal turned into a beautiful object, like a sword or a knife. I'm not ready to make either yet, but I'm getting close! Keep up the amazing work!