Ride the Lightning, a viking inspired piece -- myArmoury.com

Matthew Stagmer · Industry Professional

During one of our recent forge parties, Kerry decided that he wanted in on the action and through together a 15 layer 1070 and 15N20 billet. He forge welded it and drew it right out into a highly distal blade. I liked it so much that I had to mount it viking. It has no fuller, but the lightning like pattern just read viking to me. As you can see I had some fun with this one. Forged and ground the guard from a huge chunk of beautiful wrought. The pommel is mild steel with an etch to darken it(although the pictures make it look polished). I tried to incorporate some historical aspects with a bit of a twsit. This sword was atleast 3/8" thick at the shoulder and tapered out almost to a paper thin tip making it light in the hand. I dont think the pictures show how big this sword was.

Ladies and Gents I give to you Ride the Lightning.

More info and a story on this piece coming soon at http://baltimoreknife.com/lightningsword.htm

Scott Kowalski · Chris Landwehr 10/10/49-1/1/09 My Mom

That looks really great. I really like the look of the "lightning" flashes on the blade and also really like the guard and pommel. What is the grip made of? It looks interesting.

Scott

Matthew Stagmer · Industry Professional

Thanks Scott. The handle is stabelized and died maple burl. It's a favorite of mine. I have a nice piece of blue died burl that I a planning on saving for a pattern welded cutlass. The green looks almost natural though. Love it.

Allen Andrews · Posted: Tue 19 Jan, 2010 10:14 am Post subject:

Cool pattern in the blade. Interesting piece.

D. Claville · Posted: Tue 19 Jan, 2010 10:22 am Post subject:

that is very nice looking i like it a lot and the guard is spot on and the blade pattern is very cool
I find the handle material a bit to modern looking for the rest of the sword for that's IMO

DC

Matthew Stagmer · Industry Professional

Thanks guys. I like the overall piece a lot. I think if you saw the sword in person that the handle wouldn't throw you off as much. Either way I am happy with it. BTW I had a few PM's about pricing, but this piece was sold 1 day after I made it. I hardly even got to play with it.

Cheers,

Shahril Dzulkifli

Matthew,
I realize that the sword's name sounds just like the title of Metallica's 2nd album Wink

Jean Thibodeau

Matthew Stagmer · Industry Professional

The customer has become a pretty close friend of mine as many of my customers do, so I am able to get him to take some dimentions for me.

The overall length was 38 3/8" I guess it wasn't as long as it seemed, but it was a big sword. The POB was right on at 2 inches from the hilt. In hand it felt bigger then it was.

I wanted to keep the length of the grip around hand and half size mostly because it seemed wrong cutting down the damascus forged tang. I guess I could have cut it down a little and made it more of a one hander. I was never thinking historical on this piece. I will on the next one!