| Jean Henri Chandler wrote: | ||
I've been looking for a Seax myself for a buddy for x-mas, and haven't been too impressed with what is out there. It seems like there are quite a few crappy cheap ones, or you can get very expensive hand forged ones, (I remember seeing a particularly breathtaking hand forged piece here on myArmoury about two years ago) but there seems to be a gap in the market for these in the mid-range, something just solid, simple, decent quality materials and well put together, with a recognizable historical shape and appearance. Heres my $.02 on what I have found available so far on the cheaper end.
yeah I notice at least two windlass and two paul chen / hanwei, plus some other versions by windlass, deepka and others. Here are the two paul chen designs Both retail for about $60-$70. To me the first one looks like an oversized butter knife, the second one looks MUCH better but who knows what the quality is. Probably ok. Windlass has this one standby which to me looks a little strange with the knobs on the grip and whatever kind of decoration that is on the blade. My friend has one and wasn't too thrilled with it. I think it's overpriced at $75 ..and they have this newer 'crusader' seax for $80which I like the look of much better The deepka one looks to me like it doesn't know whether to be a bowie knife or a gurkha knife. I know they made saxes with all different kinds of blade shapes but I'm most drawn to that classic long strait cutting edge and curved spine look. I'm glad some of these outfits seem to be finally moving in that direction. I found this page which has a bunch of Viking Stuff, including all of the above, in one place. http://www.kultofathena.com/viking.htm Finally ,there is this one from Highland Arms which is showing up on Ebay for about $40. They claim it's carbon steel and a full tang, and it looks pretty good compared to some of the other cheaper ones so I'm going to get one and see for myself. Jean |
Update
I got the Deepka sax and the Highland Arms sax, both from Ebay for about half the normal price, both are intended as Christmas presents. The Deepka sax is a [i]monster/i]. It's around two feet long, very heavy. If you put an edge on it it would probably be a scary chopper. It's roughly made but everything seems tight. It and had some burn marks or soot marks near the forte of the blade and a few specks of black rust or patination on the blade which I scoured off. It comes with a formidable thick leather scabbard wich like the knife, is somewhat crude but tight and functional.
The whole thing seems a bit overscale though, the handle especially seems like it's designed for somebody 8' tall and 400 lbs. Like a knife made for bigfoot. I'm reasonably pleased with it, the tang is very thick and so long as the heat treat was ok I reckon this is a very tough knife.
The Highland Arms Sax is much smaller, more what I was expecting. It's quite simple, there is nothing spectacular about it, just steel and black painted wood. It has no edge but a bevel for one. I like it though. It's quite attractive in a humble way, and it has that classic broke back shape I like. The only reservation I have is that the steel is very shiny, I'm betting it's got some chrome in it. They claim it's 1050 steel or something, I'm not familiar with the type of steel but I wonder if it's really carbon steel or stainless, I hope not. I'll know soon enough because unless it is indeed stainless, in the climate of New Orleans it will have rust appearing very soon the first time I forget to keep it oiled for even a few hours.
I'll try to post some photos when I figure out a new place to host my web page. We'll also be sharpening the big one and trying it out on some hard and soft cutting targets so I'll report on that too.
JH
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