highland claymore cutting edge thickness Claidheamh Da Laihm -- myArmoury.com

Craig McMillan

claymore desige is 56" long 2.3 kg flattened diamond profile 60mm X 6.2mm wide at hilt tapering to 34 X 4mm at tip what would be the unsharpend cutting edge for this size of sword i will be sharpening it tho.

Cheers craig

Scott Woodruff · Posted: Fri 18 May, 2012 9:21 am Post subject:

Craig, I don't understand your question. Maybe rephrase it and I will see if I can be some help. If you are starting a new project, judging from your last one I can't wait to see what you do next. Also, iirc, claymores usually have a lenticular section, and from the numbers you gave, it seems to me that you could perhaps use a little less profile taper and more distal taper (thickness) to get that classic claymore look.

Craig McMillan · Posted: Fri 18 May, 2012 4:10 pm Post subject:

Year i am starting a new project going to make one out of spring steel and pattern steel i was scaling it off the highland claymore from arms and armour but if u have some more accurate measurement that can be scaled off a historical claymore that would be greate and few picks to back it up would be even better all i would need is some cross section measurements and as per the cutting edge what i mean is if it is 6mm at spine and a flat grind to the edge how much meat do i leave at the edge eg .5mm and will the edge get thinner towords the tip ot the blade.

I just cant seam to find much info on the big 2 handers so any help would be very helpfull

Also making one out of spring sreel so i can have a bash with it the pattern one i dont want to use to much time goes into it dont want to damage it which is stuped cos it is a sword

Cheers craig

Scott Woodruff · Posted: Fri 18 May, 2012 5:37 pm Post subject:

Ok, I thought you meant something like that but wasn't sure. For what you are doing, anything from a flat grind straight to the edge to some pretty hefty meat at the edge would be historically defensible. (Recently there was a discussion here on Myamoury about edge geometry, I'll see if I can find the thread for you. Peter Johnsson said that he had seen a tremendous variation in the edge section of European swords.) It really depends a lot on how you will be using your sword. It might be cool to make your patterned blade with really nasty, acute edges and make your "beater" a little more sturdy. The one claymore blade that I have handled had a hexagonal section and edges that were quite beefy near the cop and gradually thinned out towards the point. The section also softened to lenticular in the last 30-40cm. Also, many of these claymore blades are surprisingly narrow at the forte, often 5cm wide or even less. The specs you gave sound fine, you could probably afford a little less width at the forte and a little more distal taper in the last 20 cm or so, depending on what you are going for. I have found that with these long, thin cutty blades, the middle third of the blade is where distal taper is most critical. With something that long, you want the middle third to be as stiff as you can reasonably get it and having a really thin, light distal portion will really help, as thin as 1.5-2mm thick 5-10 cm back from the point. Just a few pointers from my own experience, but of course feel free to disregard, what little of your work I have seen is extremely impressive, and ultimately I think that following your instincts/heart is more important than anything else when it comes to crafting a great sword. I love how you are going to extremes, from a spike-with-a-hilt longsword to a broad cutter.
PS- I'll try to gather a little hard data for you, I'll get back to you with whatever I come up with.

Scott Woodruff · Posted: Fri 18 May, 2012 7:31 pm Post subject:

http://www.claymore-armoury.co.uk/scottish_sw...sword.html http://www.albion-swords.com/swords/albion/ne...n-xiia.htm
Just a couple data points that may be of interest if you have not already seen them. Notice how Albion stresses the importance of a thin distal portion on this type of blade, though unfortuneately no measurements. I do know that some XIIIb's are only 1.5 to 2mm thick at the cop, even thinner at the tip. Alternately, some XIIIa's are up to 4mm thick at the tip. As soon as I find my calipers, I'll send you some measurements of the edge geometry on a few of my blades for comparison. Also interesting that the claymore-armoury sword is hexagonal-to-lenticular section, just like the one I handled.

Kel Rekuta · Posted: Sat 19 May, 2012 9:36 am Post subject:

I'll second Scott's advice. I had the good fortune to view a handful of originals in various Scottish manors and museums. I was very surprised to find all of them had fairly broad but thin and flat cross section to the blade. I've seen at least one fullered example somewhat like the Albion referred to above, but only in books. None of the half dozen or so I saw had more than the faintest fuller, there just wasn't that much metal in the center of the blade. I think a flattened diamond cross section is the wrong way to go. Stick with the hex to lenticular section Scott advises, IMHO.

Also start with 4-5mm instead of 6mm blanks - way less wasted time and abrasive.

Scott Woodruff · Posted: Sat 19 May, 2012 10:13 am Post subject:

Kel is certainly correct that you could go thinner and both be historically accurate and save some time/material, but I personally like your original plan when it comes to the thickness at the forte. I wish I could remember the example I handled better, but iirc, it was fairly thick at the cross and thinned out fairly rapidly in the first 30cm or so. If you start out at 6mm, you could taper to 4-5 at midpoint, but if you start at 4-5 then you couldn't really have any distal taper until past mid-point. It probably would not effect stiffness much either way, so it would mostly be a matter of mass distribution.

Matthew P. Adams · Posted: Sat 19 May, 2012 10:16 am Post subject:

I don't know if this helps but kult of Athena has the blade thickness of some Albions and Arms and Armor blades listed. It's a little hit or miss though. It looks as if they have been able to measure the swords that have been ordered through them.

If memory serves they tend to have a 50% to 60% distal taper. From about 6mm or 8mm down to 2mm or so. Of course this doesn't tell you where along the blade the tapering happens, but it may be of some use.

I'm just finding an interest in larger cutting swords, up until recently I have been much more enthralled with the spikes with hilts types.

Craig McMillan · Posted: Sat 19 May, 2012 4:14 pm Post subject:

i was going to do a composit bar blade but there are so meny of them out there but thinking of doing another ladder pattern but try to get it more even and maby the wave slighty diffrent still thinking on that one a simple pattern made perfect still looks prity cool and if i can make it better it might lead to selling my swords with with this pattern just somthing diffrent and there is somthing about a ladder pattern that i like so the diffrent grinds have diffrent looks where a flattened diamond profile will make the ladder look the best i still want the blade shape correct so maby a hex to lenticular section would be better if this was the way thay where Hmmmm what do do.

I will do some 3d drawing of them and have a look and see how thay weigh

Cheers for the info

Scott Woodruff · Posted: Sat 19 May, 2012 5:15 pm Post subject:

Ah, I didn't think about how the section would affect the pattern. Ultimately, the pattern welding makes this more of a fantasy piece with real sword handling, so perhaps you should not worry too much about historical sections. Perhaps diamond section for the ladder-pattern sword and hex for the carbon mono-steel? Maybe something like the first sword here: http://www.myArmoury.com/feature_higgins.html Incidentally, this sword has no "apple-seed" or "cat-cheek" or "niku" to the edge, just a straight bevel to a wicked sharp edge.

Craig McMillan · Posted: Sun 20 May, 2012 2:26 am Post subject:

yes u do have a point there on it being more fantasy so we hade a play tonight both of these are 60mm X 6mm at hilt and 34 X 3mm at 80mm back from the tip cutting edge is 0.5mm on flattened diamond profile and 1.5mm on the other one that we have done a eliptical shape to the profile that u can see if u look close enuff the weight we sort of worked out is 1550g total weight working out from where i think the cob would be at 115mm from hilt on both of them.

So how do u think thay would perform i have no idear where the cop would be we just sort of playing and i think it would look cool and i think it would work as well but dont realy know.

Scott Woodruff · Posted: Sun 20 May, 2012 7:00 am Post subject:

I certainly do not see any reason why that wouldn't work. Without being able to tell where the pivot points will fall it is impossible to predict performance, but my intuition tells me that you are on the right track. At 50% distal taper and almost as much profile taper, I imagine that you will end up with more of a fast, maneuverable sword than a super-chopper. Does the fullered one have hollow-ground bevels? It looks like it.

Craig McMillan · Posted: Sun 20 May, 2012 5:35 pm Post subject:

It is a hollow grind but the shape of the bevel is 1/4 of an ellipse not like a normal hollow grind so i wont be able to grind it on a beld sander so it will be all hand sanding after it has been milled out so the shape if the bevels will be a more fancy and this is the same in the fuller it is 1/2 of an ellipse that is why i made the edge a bit thicker becouse there would be a bit less meat on the edge with this shape well that is what i was thinking anyway

I am now thinking to do the sword a bit diffrent if i used this blade that we sort of designed our selfs and change the handle a bit so when u look at it u can still see the clasic claymore design bit just fancyed up a bit to sute me style and it would be cool to see how the blade comes out aswell

Scott Woodruff · Posted: Fri 25 May, 2012 4:56 pm Post subject:

Craig, check this out if you have not already seen it: http://tinkerswords.com/goodsword.html Towards the bottom Tinker has a bit to say on the subject of edge bevels and such.

Daniel Wallace · Posted: Sat 26 May, 2012 12:39 pm Post subject:

Craig,

I've been tracking down information on montante swords for a while, and what seems to be the idea behind most two handers seems to be like said before a lot of distal taper in the blades. i've never been able to inspect a 100% historical copy or an authentic two hander - but i would suspect that the distal taper begins at the hilt and follows the profile taper throughout the blade. a few of what i've been seeing taper down to 4mm (like the big german swords) and 2.5 mm in the iberian swords.

Craig McMillan · Posted: Fri 01 Jun, 2012 11:53 pm Post subject:

cheers for that got a bit more of an understanding on them now also starded to forge the pattern steel for the claymore and it wend very bad so am goint to try to get a mace out of it so i see how it goes tomorrow

as for the blade profile i might try the hexagonal-to-lenticular section i do still want to make it accurate to the way thay where in weight, feel, and look even tho it will be a pattern blade i do also change my mine lots tho