This is a fixer upper that I did over the summer. Tell me what you guys think both in terms of historical accuracy and in appearance. (By the way, this is NOT a high quality sword. Its more or less just for appearances, but it will cut and may cut better with a little work.)

I purchased this sword for $20 a few years ago before I really knew anything about swords. All I knew at the time was that carbon steel = good, while stainless steel = bad. You can find it all over the place, but I happened to get mine from Budk (man I feel dirty just for saying that...) :lol:
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I started out by unscrewing that awful rattail tang and pommel attachment. The handle included wasn't all that bad, but there were three or four nails (yes, nails) underneath the faux leather wrap, so I just made a new one out of oak and wrapped it with hemp cord. Next, I straightened out the crossguard (I just like the look of the straight guard better) and then I had to do some work on the pommel and the tang. Turns out the threaded welded rod on mine was only an inch and a half long or so. I sawed off the tang just below that threaded rod weld, but that left me with too little tang to peen it down. So, I went up the blade about an inch and three quarters with a hacksaw, going slowly so as not to create enough heat to ruin the temper (like this sword has one anyway...). This made the blade a bit shorter, but I don't think its much of a loss :lol: . Next, I extended the fuller all the way back to the guard using a dremel multitool (all I've got). Then, I drilled the pommel all the way through. I fitted all the hilt parts on the blade, annealed the end of the tang with a small torch, and peened away. I then decided to antique the blade based on the tutorial here on myArmoury, and I'm really happy with the result. Let me know what you all think.

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Sword after peening [ Download ]

Is it at least more accurate than it was?

Hello.
Is the picture taken from an angle? It looks like the grip is atached a bit off center.

/Viktor

My overall impression is that the pommel is a bit to small, but othewise the convert looks nice. The grip could tapper a bit more, but overall nice.

The blade puts me off and although the grip looks better after the modification, I'm still not too enthousiastic about it.

That is, until you take the price into account. For $20, I think it's really quite nice and I might just snap it up if I came across this sword somewhere. :D

A friend of mine gave me the same sword, and it hangs in by bedroom. It's a starter sword and not much else.

The blade is very heavy and slow, the fuller is very narrow, the grip is overly large and uncomfortable. The blade finish is chromed, which is not a bad thing if you like shiny blades (I don't). The pommel is not badly shaped, though it seems that it should be a two piece pommel with pins, but that is a level of detail that is far beyond the $50-200 sword market.

I think even in the "starter sword" bracket it gets a resounding "Meh".

As far as the re-grip, I think anything is better than a black grip for a viking sword, so I like your new grip, though I might have shaved the wood down a bit while the leather was off. The straightened guard looks surprisingly good; that was a good call I think.

I have the same sword (my first sword, in fact). The grip was coming off, so I removed it, along with the risers. I will be doing a more thorough re-grip when I am done with my current projects. Personally, I think it's one of the better (if not the best) sword available for $20, as long as you're not expecting anything more than a wall-hanger or costume-piece...the fact that it comes with a pretty well-built wood-core scabbard helps a lot in this regard.

This too was actually my first sword. Although slow and somewhat heavy it took a decent edge cut good and looked decent from a distance. Although not that historically accurate after a few years of light use it took a good patina to it.
The only thing wrong with mine was the lousy threaded tang. And I mean lousy the tang was a typical rat tail threaded at the end about the width of two penny nails side by side. If you have the chance weld up the tang a lil bit to make it a lil more durable. Mine broke just by swinging it.
But yeah I got mine for 35 bucks nearly 15 years ago and it is still a nice very cheap beater.

Thanks for the replies everyone. I hear you on it still being a p.o.s. :lol: but I'm actually pretty happy with the result.

Victor, I'm not sure whats up with this photo really, but it looks straight to me in person. I think I'm at a slight angle here and the shadows in the background make it seem even more off center.

So the overall consensus is that for $20, it's not too bad? That's what I'm going for at least.

Here's a picture of the blade finish after antiquing, and another of the hilt, which doesn't look so off center in this picture. Sorry they're so blurry. I had no camera, so I took these from my cell phone.

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Hello Myles,

I think Any sword is an entrance into another and interesting world, and this one after the work looks better than it did, so I'd give it a thumbs up!

If you ever have the binding off the handle, you could taper the grip a bit narrower at the pommel end, that wouldn't hurt.
Do you have any "finish" on the hemp cord?
If not, a rub with some beeswax will give it a bit of a polish but won't make it slippery, and will hold down the hemp fibres.
I think in this case the blade looks a lot better aged as well!