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Forum Index » Makers and Manufacturers Talk » OlliN's Custom Shop Project with Jean Thibodeau

Posts: 74 Location: WI

Wed 02 Apr, 2008 2:44 pm

I finished grinding on the blade, taking it up to 400 grit. Next comes the fun part, polishing. There's really not much to it. It just involves a couple of wooden blocks shaped to the diameter of the contact wheels, a bunch of sandpaper, and a lot of elbow grease. Polishing a hollow is actually pretty easy, you only have to ride the curve down the length of the blade, over and over and over..... It can make for long days, but I enjoy it.

I have to put in a disclaimer that shadows going across a blade in my pictures make swords look waisted and lines look curved. It's some weird lighting/camera thing that I don't really understand.

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Posts: 8,310 Location: Montreal,Quebec,Canada

Wed 02 Apr, 2008 7:01 pm

Well this is getting to be very exciting. :D :cool:

Running out of words. ;) Well, maybe not. :p As I'm sure I will return to my verbose ways soon enough. ;) :lol:

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Posts: 52

Sun 06 Apr, 2008 10:18 am

I can 't wait to see the finished product. I'm currently designing a sword with Ollin as well, its on the fantasy side of things but I bet it'll rock some peoples worlds here lol.

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Richard Gessman

Posts: 37 Location: Pittsburgh

Sun 06 Apr, 2008 10:47 am

Brian Kent wrote:

I can 't wait to see the finished product. I'm currently designing a sword with Ollin as well, its on the fantasy side of things but I bet it'll rock some peoples worlds here lol.

Ollins swords seem to have that effect on people ;)
This is all very interesting, I hope you'll share yours with us as well once it gets going.

Jean, your sword is looking amazing. It appears Ollin has outdone themselves again!

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Posts: 656

Sun 06 Apr, 2008 10:52 am

Jean and Mark and all the other Ollin folks,

I've been following this thread for a while now and uncharacteristically for me I've kept my mouth shut, until now. I'm going to say nothing about the "you know what", I don't want to jinx anything. However; I want you to know that I'm giving you all a standing ovation for being really classy guys about a project that clearly had some serious set backs.

You all have my profound respect,

Ken Speed

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Posts: 8,310 Location: Montreal,Quebec,Canada

Mon 07 Apr, 2008 7:38 pm

I'll let Mark go into details as well as post pics as I don't want to steal his thunder. ;) :lol:

He sent me a pic of the sword almost finished and it's too beautiful for words ........ words, for now. :p

What I will say is that the weight has come down to 4 lb. 15 oz. so we cracked the 5 lb. barrier.
The POB is at 4".

Here is a small copy/paste of a part of my e-mail to Mark:

" Just reading the raw statistics about weight and POB is not as informative as actually handling the sword but the number does seem very good considering the extreme challenges of the original design, and I'm very optimistic that my actual handling is going to feel good even if a little more tiring than a more modestly sized sword, and this is not a " modest " sword to say the least " .

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Posts: 52

Tue 08 Apr, 2008 5:00 am

Sounds great Jean! I'm trying to find a way to cut the weight down on my design. But I'm sure Mark is up to the challenge lol.

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Posts: 8,310 Location: Montreal,Quebec,Canada

Tue 08 Apr, 2008 8:08 am

Brian Kent wrote:

Sounds great Jean! I'm trying to find a way to cut the weight down on my design. But I'm sure Mark is up to the challenge lol.

Distal taper goes a long way into cutting down on weight as well as the profile taper even when the steel stock started at 3/8" like with mine: If I remember correctly from one of the early posts by Mark, the initial piece of steel weighed 10 pounds.

With a fantasy design a lot of the " fantasy " ends up in the guard and pommel if the blade is reasonably conventional, and this is where mass can add up if the guard elements are very " chunky " , so care should be taken to slim down the guard design elements.

If the design is just an exercise in visual design, sculpture, it can be less important to worry about weight and the handling of the piece. If the goal is to create something unique and new ( not easy to do as almost everything has been done before in at least some ways ) , but also make it a successful design defined as something you would bet your life on " theoretically ", then it's very important to prioritize the practical over the aesthetic.

If the design is extreme in shape or eventual final weight and handling, sometimes, one must go with it and take the risk it might not be a complete success. I would recommend taking Mark's advice about design choices and letting him make the detail choices that affect handling as opposed to having a too rigid preconceived idea about POB or other quantifiables: Discussing how the sword should feel in a general way and giving objectives is O.K. but once the design has a set blade profile and basic guard dimensions, let the sword be what it wants to be.

If it handles in a completely unexpected way it will be because that is the way it has too be ! Now, Mark, or another skilled swordmaker will fine tune the design and can make the difference between the best sword that a particular design can be and a boat anchor. ;) Like anything there can be successful interpretations of a design or unsuccessful clumsy interpretations.

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Posts: 74 Location: WI

Tue 08 Apr, 2008 2:45 pm

Jean Thibodeau wrote:

With a fantasy design a lot of the " fantasy " ends up in the guard and pommel if the blade is reasonably conventional, and this is where mass can add up if the guard elements are very " chunky " , so care should be taken to slim down the guard design elements.

That certainly can be true. All depends on the design or concepts involved or how far into the realms of fantasy you're going, I guess. To go completely off topic, this is a fantasy piece I'm working on that is actually pretty light, being 2 lb 4 oz.

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Posts: 74 Location: WI

Tue 08 Apr, 2008 2:54 pm

To get back on topic, here's how Jean's sword turned out.

I haven't had time to take final piuctures yet, so I hope these will suffice. I thought it would be nice to take a shot of the finished sword alongside the previous blades. Fot the first blade, the heat treater wasn't able to harden the blade properly, even though trying multiple times. They did manage to put in a pretty good saber though. The top of it was cut off to get tested for chemical composition. The second blade yielded the same results as the first, apart from the saber. It was a different heat treater and they were kind enough to no saber the blade, which I thought was pretty nice of them. The third blade finally hardened. It seems as though is got a little too hard though, and it broke.... That's one of the reasons why I test every blade I make. They may appear fine, but you never know.... Which leaves us with the fourth and final blade and another heat treater.

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Torsten F.H. Wilke

Posts: 250 Location: Irvine Spectrum, CA

Tue 08 Apr, 2008 3:31 pm

I would recommend shipping Jean that finished sword as quick as possible, before it decides to get too much sun and warp itself... :p (Just kidding, Jean!)

PS; Jean, have you picked out a name yet?

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Posts: 52

Tue 08 Apr, 2008 3:31 pm

Very nice! Mark you are gonna make me a very poor man lol!

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Posts: 8,310 Location: Montreal,Quebec,Canada

Tue 08 Apr, 2008 8:33 pm

Torsten F.H. Wilke wrote:

I would recommend shipping Jean that finished sword as quick as possible, before it decides to get too much sun and warp itself... :p (Just kidding, Jean!)

PS; Jean, have you picked out a name yet?

Yes I picked a name as I mentioned quite a few posts before. ;) :lol:

So, I call it RAVENWOLF in one word:

1) Sounds cool
2) After googling a lot of other names to see if they were already associated with something or worse " something VILE or negative " and to try to be original this name gave me the fewest number of search results ( At least at the time, some months ago. :lol: ).
3) The Wolf part because if I was making some heraldry design choices I would have a wolf in it.
" Swords will gnaw like wolves through armour "
This from this site: http://www.mythicalrealm.com/legends/valkyries.html
4) Ravens from here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valkyrie
Specific quote:
" Whereas the wolf was the valkyrie's mount, the valkyrie herself appears to be akin to the raven, flying over the battlefield and "choosing" corpses[2]. Thus, the packs of wolves and ravens that scavenged the aftermath of battles may have been seen as serving a higher purpose ".

So there we have it the whys for the name: RAVENWOLF

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Posts: 8,310 Location: Montreal,Quebec,Canada

Tue 08 Apr, 2008 8:43 pm

Mark G. wrote:

Jean Thibodeau wrote:

With a fantasy design a lot of the " fantasy " ends up in the guard and pommel if the blade is reasonably conventional, and this is where mass can add up if the guard elements are very " chunky " , so care should be taken to slim down the guard design elements.

That certainly can be true. All depends on the design or concepts involved or how far into the realms of fantasy you're going, I guess. To go completely off topic, this is a fantasy piece I'm working on that is actually pretty light, being 2 lb 4 oz.

Mark, that's also a very nice sword and not completely off Topic as this Topic is about my sword but also about the process of design and how a custom sword gets made and the creative interactions between the designer/buyer and the co-designer/maker.

This fantasy sword looks like a good example of a guard and pommel design that doesn't have the " CHUNKY disease " ;) :cool:

Maybe you should start a Topic thread about this other sword as it looks like it might also have an interesting design history?
( Obviously with the customers approval if you go into details about it that might be confidential ).

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Posts: 8,310 Location: Montreal,Quebec,Canada

Tue 08 Apr, 2008 8:46 pm

Mark G. wrote:

To get back on topic, here's how Jean's sword turned out.

I haven't had time to take final piuctures yet, so I hope these will suffice. I thought it would be nice to take a shot of the finished sword alongside the previous blades. Fot the first blade, the heat treater wasn't able to harden the blade properly, even though trying multiple times. They did manage to put in a pretty good saber though. The top of it was cut off to get tested for chemical composition. The second blade yielded the same results as the first, apart from the saber. It was a different heat treater and they were kind enough to no saber the blade, which I thought was pretty nice of them. The third blade finally hardened. It seems as though is got a little too hard though, and it broke.... That's one of the reasons why I test every blade I make. They may appear fine, but you never know.... Which leaves us with the fourth and final blade and another heat treater.

Oh, I've already said it because I saw some of the finished pics before anyone else, but the sword looks great.

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Posts: 443 Location: Granby (QC) canada

Thu 10 Apr, 2008 6:00 am

Jean the name of your sword is awsome and it makes me think some pets from the nordic mythology you know the 2 crows and the 2 wolfs of odin its like as if you fusioned the 4 pets to make a sword :lol: .

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Matthew G.M. Korenkiewicz

Posts: 864 Location: Michigan, USA

Thu 10 Apr, 2008 12:00 pm

I have to borrow Etienne's adjective to describe your OlliN sword, JT : AWESOME ...

APPLAUSE SIGN ON ...

I've never been a big fan of naming a sword, however. But that's me. I usually use some small
variation of the maker's original description ...

Will OlliN be doing the scabbard for your blade ?

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Posts: 8,310 Location: Montreal,Quebec,Canada

Thu 10 Apr, 2008 6:39 pm

Matthew G.M. Korenkiewicz wrote:

I have to borrow Etienne's adjective to describe your OlliN sword, JT : AWESOME ...

APPLAUSE SIGN ON ...

I've never been a big fan of naming a sword, however. But that's me. I usually use some small
variation of the maker's original description ...

Will OlliN be doing the scabbard for your blade ?

I usually don't name my swords either past what the manufacturer calls it, like the Sovereign is called by me " The Sovereign " ;) :lol:

But since OlliN does name their swords in most cases I thought I would see what I could come up with. Also, there was a Topic here about " Do you name your swords ? " that got me thinking about it and a custom sword is sort of different than a standard model.

Oh, and thanks for the compliments guys.

Yes, OlliN will be making the scabbard the design of that not finalized at this point: At least a simple campaign scabbard and maybe a little nicer with some carving in the body of the scabbard and wolf/raven metal decorations.

I want to keep the price on the scabbard reasonable though. I might stray from historical accuracy and not have the scabbard leather covered if the wood ends up carved in some way. ( Nice exotic wood chosen for nice colour and grain pattern as well as a wood not bad for the steel if stored for a long time i.e. wood that won't promote rust or staining ).

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Posts: 336

Thu 10 Apr, 2008 8:47 pm

Finally finished ! Congratulations Jean, and bravo to Mark for his perseverance. :)

Jean, don't forget to post a picture of you with the sword in one hand and a 50 pounds dumbbell in the other as soon as you get this masterpiece... :lol:

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Posts: 8,310 Location: Montreal,Quebec,Canada

Sat 31 May, 2008 9:06 pm

Well things are getting close to delivery and here are some pics of the scabbard. The engraving still to be done on the metal parts of the scabbard holding the baldric.

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