Hello people. :) I got a new seax blade from Paul Binns, very impressive piece, 11" long blade, iron back, pattern welded middle and steel edge and I would like to get a grip as historical as possible for it. I read old threads about seax grips, but I thought maybe some new stuff got discovered in the mean time or some new hypothesis appeared. ;) So, is it still the safest way to grip a broken back seax with a straight, bare wood handle glued on the tang without any metal parts or wood covering? What style of decoration could there be on it if it was bare wood? Would ancient maker choose special part of a tree for its beauty and strength? Root for example? What kind of wood? Could such a seax be fitted to grip in some other way than just glued? I know these are hard to answer questions since there is so few archeological samples of surviving late seax grips but I think it doesn't hurt to ask, right? ;) Below is the Paul's picture of the seax blade.

That's an excelent blade.

There are many handle variants and materials that was used historically for seaxes.
The most common for broken backs was probably as you say a straight wooden handle, and these could be as long as the tang or far longer. But there were also hand width length conical and teardrop cross section handles, often with one or more metal end plates. Horn, and antler would also have been common materials, and in some cases bone.

If you want to decorate a plain straigh handle then you could use knotwork carvings, alternating ribbing or the simple rings with center holes seen on a lot of iron age combs.

If you want to replicate a well known find that fits with a large wide brokenback blade like this I'd start with looking at the Charlemagne seax. It's a long straight handle. This thread has some photos, scroll down to see the original find since the reproduction, although very nice, is a little off.
http://www.swordforum.com/forums/showthread.p...harlemagne

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(photo borrowd from the swordforum thread)

Then there are the smaller scandinavian brokenback knives of course.

Here's a different type of handle on a small bladed viking age brokenback seax from the north of Sweden. Conical wood handle with silver wire decoration at the blade end. Lots of swedish finds have these silver wire windings at the blade end.

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Here's another knife from Gotland. The handle is bone.

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Yet another one, this one from Adelsö (close to Birka) again with wood handle and silver wire winding at the blade end. This one shows a lot of interesting sceath parts. The blade isn't serrated, it's the bronze edging clamps on the sceath that have partly fused with the blade.

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A handle, May be from any type of blade, but it's really tiny.

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Thanks Johan! That Charlemagne seax grip has a metal covering at the end it seems, do you know how is it attached?
About the other pictures, they are nice to see and useful, but they don't show big broken back seaxes so I don't know how sure it is that such a different type of seax would be made with similar style grip. Especially if the dates and areas are not the area and period of large broken back seaxes.

Evidence points towards broken back seaxes having fairly long, straight handles, not only period illustrations but also the surviving sheathes. The Aachen seax has a handle, roughly from memory, of 8"+ long, made of horn (likely bovine). Finding a solid, straight piece of horn of this size is difficult. Other possible handle materials would be masur birch (still popular in the Norse countries), boxwood, pear or other fruitwood, maple, walnut... any native tree would be a possible candidate for a wooden handle. Look for woods traditionally used for tool and knife handles in the area and you will not go wrong. Ivory would be an expensive but upscale choice.

It is possible the handles could be leather covered, some earlier continental saxes show evidence of this, and/or carving, but unfortunately there is no surviving handle I am aware of for a broken back than the Aachen seax. The metal covering (silver? bronze? not quite sure), if one looks closely is held in place by tiny nails/tacks. A plate between the handle and blade is quite unlikely, and a guard is definitely out.

That is a beautiful blade!

Thanks! Interesting picture! So, basically there is no archeological proof for anything else on broken backs than what we see on "Charlemagne" seax? Honestly, I don't feel completely secure about the grip being only glued and force fitted on the tang.

Btw, is the Charlemagne seax hilt wood or bone? I read some contrasting views about that...

I have glued in a few knife handles and I find that wooden handles will break and splinter before they fall off. I just use Elmer's wood glue or sometimes just Elmer's white glue like you used in elementary school. On my last knife, I wrapped the grip with wool yarn and glued on a thin leather covering. This gave a very sturdy grip, which is a good thing on a knife with a 13" blade. Such a construction would probably be your best bet both from a strength perspective and historical accuracy. Of course, if you really are not comfortable with just glue, you could easily hide a pin under the leather wrap.

For a very strong historical glue you can use cheese aka casein glue. You can buy it ready to use, or make it fairly easily. I've made and used it a lot. Let me know if you want instructions on how to make some.

For some equally strong modern glues I'd recommend epoxy as Michan says or Loctite PL 400 (which a lot of professional knifemakers use). The good thing about PL 400 is that is works both as adhesive and wood filler at the same time, and looks like bone glue when done but without the awful smell.

I will talk to Alojz, (local weapon maker) who will do the grip, to see what he thinks, what glue we should use.

Does anyone know of any resources that describe seax grips by Century?

I am getting a seax blade that is likely 5th or 6th Century and need to get a period-appropriate handle.

Well.... I had Ben Potter finish my seax blade.

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Nice one Harry! Ben and Owen both do wonderful work.