While speaking of the other sax sheath, I wanted to show this other Langsax sheath that George Ezell also made. It is really huge and fits my giant Owen Bush Langsax that has been posted before. It is leather with brass and copper fitting. The metal parts are hammer finished.

Kick-ass.....Love it! Merry Christmas!!...........McM

Actually the fittings are hammered phosphorus bronze, with brass rings and copper rivets... :cool:

Glad you're happy with it, she was a monster of a blade to clothe, depleted my leather supply with that one.

MY bad George. When I polished them up they because nearly as bright as the brass.
Robert

No problem, I should have told you. I like the phosphorus bronze as it is fairly close to the old alloys, and it has nice colors as it tarnishes. Strong too, especially when work hardened, which was my primary reason for using it on this sheath... copper would have matched the copper pommel, but would not be anywhere near as strong. This is not a lightweight seax by any means...

These sheaths I've been making are my best guess as to how they may have been done, the originals do not have the metal fittings, but it is obvious that some once did. They were likely stripped to be recycled when the sheath was discarded. There are 2 or 3 from York that have iron fittings, but they have mostly rusted away. I have a strong suspicion that the fittings on the sheath for the Aachen seax are replacements, and they lack any means to suspend the sheath. The problem is compounded by the fact that this qualifies as a langseax, and I have yet to see any surviving sheaths for a langseax. The scant clues seem to point towards having fittings like the Scandinavian knives of the same period, and this is the direction I've taken. If anyone has any information concerning the way these sheaths were made, particularly the metal bits, please let me know.