[Peter Messent]

Howdy folks!

A while back I posted about the Danish Hand Axe from MRL ( http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t...highlight= ) and the Deepeeka Triple Lobed Godfred ( http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t...highlight= ). Both of these I thought were decent for the money, but neither were great. That being said, I'm a tinkerer by nature so this is far from cataclysmic

The DHA was never that attractive IMO - it did look better on their website pics though! I wound up chopping the beard to a flat, which helped some but I still wasn't big on it. The other day I decided that I would make it better, and this is what I came up with:





I chopped more off the beard, brought the heel back about 3/8" and then blended the curve from beard to eye a bit better. Reground the edge, sanded off the blue finish and then did a gun blue/bleach combo to rough up the surface. Hung it with part of a sledgehammer handle which happened to be the perfect size to fit 'tomahawk style'. Pinned with a nail, riveted over. All in all I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. It weighs about 1lb 14oz now - the handle was really heavy, I get I got a particularly dense growing piece of hickory. I may wind up changing it out for ash down the road - I'm not sure if I like the length the way it is.

On to the Deepeeka! This sword has a bunch of issues really, but it doesn't look terrible IMO. It came with a diamond cross section which had to go. It also had the typical falsely-terminated fuller, rather than the fuller terminating because of distal taper, which meant the the sword was thickest at the tip. I wound up cutting a few inches off the blade - it's right around 26-27" now if memory serves me, and I ground the hell out of it to a spatulate tip. This one took a while, but was well worth it IMO - I was pretty taken aback by how much better it feels now. Weight s now 2lb 4oz and the point of balance has shifted towards the guard by 2" to about 4.5". While I was at it, I worked some on thinning the edges, bringing it closer to an appleseed. Still not quite there, though.



Since I had to shorten the scabbard , I had to remove the strap bridge and some leather. Turns out the scabbard is MDF. Kind of a bummer! Still, it works I guess. I'll probably make a new one, possibly uncovered wood with an integral strap bridge. We shall see!

Thanks for looking,
Pete

PS: sorry for the garbage pics - I made the effort to take good ones, they turned out bad and I said to hell with it! I have an axe coming in a couple days though, might take some beauty shots of them together!

[Jussi Ekholm]

I really like the updates you've made to Deepeeka viking sword. You've improved it so much.

[Peter Messent]

Thanks Jussi! I didn't spend as much time as I should've on the finishing, but I'm very pleased with the decision to chop a few inches off!