[Jean Thibodeau]

[Mark G.]

Alright, I finally have some progress to report. I have been able to get my batch of blades ready to go for heat treat. It's been a long couple of weeks of grinding.... Anyway, the blade is turning out rather nice, and is much more manageable now. There's still going to be quite a bit more grinding to be done after the blade comes back.

It varies how long it will take the vendor to heat treat blades. It can be anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks. I'm just crossing my fingers that everything goes well in heat treat. The thought of grinding another one of these right now is not a happy one.

Mark

[Jean Thibodeau]

Mark thanks for the update and it's looking really good and I second that thought about NOT having to make a replacement blade anytime soon.

Let me know when you need a final decision on engraving or inlays: I assume that if you engrave for an inlay or engrave for no inlays that the way you cut the lines, how deep or how you finish the sides and bottom of the engraving.

Maybe burnish the sides and bottom bright ? Or texture or left rough ? At the moment I can say that engraving only is my preferred option. ( Final GO on that pending discussion. )

[J. Bedell]

That blade is really turning out great, I love the look of it! Really great work so far, Mark.

Jean,
I think engraving is your best option...hope it isn't too hard to decide

-James

[Scott Kowalski]

Wow Mark, the blade is looking real good. It just looks massive in the picture. I realize it is, but to do that without a frame of reference is impressive. I look forward to seeing further updates as this sword gets finished.

[Mark G.]

Thanks for the comments, guys.

Here's a picture I forgot to add yesterday of some of the stuff that went to heat treat. The two other blades are the ones that had been leaning against the anvil in a previous picture. I think it was the one of me grinding. Anyway, here's a little size perspective for you. To say that it is a big sword is a bit of an understatement. The smaller blade isn't really that short of a sword, but the overall length can fit inside Jean's blade.

Take all the time you need to make your decision about inlaying or engraving or whatever. I'm still planning on working on some sample stuff here pretty soon. I just have a project I'm finishing up right now.

Mark

[Steve Grisetti]

[Jean Thibodeau]

[James A. Vargscarr]

Jean, I think you'll be stunned by Mark's grinding when you see it first hand. That crispness of geometry was what initially caught my eye in the various photos of Ollin pieces we've seen on the board, and it's more impressive by orders of magnitude to see in person.

I concur with Steve - enjoy your limbs while you can!

[Jean Thibodeau]

[Mark G.]

Ok, who's interested in an update?

I wish I could say that I had some good news to share, but instead it's mainly setbacks. So, the good news is that the blades finally made it back from heat treat, and most of them turned out without any major issues. Care to guess which one has the problems? If you answered Jean's blade, you woud be correct. In a nutshell, it sabered. On top of that, they had problems even acheiving the hardness that the blade needed to be, so they annealed it and sent it back. Why they would have bothered to anneal it is beyond me.

Frustration is a bit of an understatement right now. While the blade is soft, trying to bend a blade laterally takes a tremendous amount of force. I'm thinking it might be easier to to scrap it and grind a whole new blade out.

So there you have it. I do apologize for the delay.

Mark

(I'm not in the most pleasant of moods right now)

[Steve Grisetti]

Arggh! My condolences for the setback. I can't imagine what force would be required to straighten that blade, if it is possible in a controllable fashion.

[Jean Thibodeau]

As the client I should be the most disappointed but frankly I feel worse for Mark considering all the work he put in and all the work he will have to re-do if the warping can't be fixed without compromise the quality of the final sword.

Is it some mishandling of the sword during heat treating or just one of those chance things that are going to happen for no preventable reason randomly.

Heated to a low red heat it might in theory be possible to straiten without needing extreme force and possible twisting rather than straitening.

Seems more like forge work than stock removal techniques.

Mark: Before " junking " the whole piece, if you have to start over with a new piece of steel, maybe this one could be salvaged and made into a much shorter short sword of some kind ? ( Or turned into a polearm head ? Big Cinquedea ? )
( Let me know if a super dagger about 18" blade could be made out of it: I might even find that interesting as a side project but that should wait a while as it should mean some redesigning of the profile taper and fading out the fuller near a new tip ? HMMMMM ...... we could call this one the Wolfpup companion piece ! )

Oh, as far as I'm concerned I think you could sort of reset the clock at least as far as completion date by a few months: This kind of thing is what I consider a very valid reason to change the estimated delivery date. Rushing to do another one too fast might just cause you an injury handgrinding it out if you try to rush it ...... and then where are we if you hurt yourself with a repetitive move injury ! Anyway, you have to get the frustration out of your system before you try it again.

So, no pressure from me.

[Russ Ellis]

Oh man... that sucks. There's nothing worse then having to start over. I've had to do it three times recently and it's VERY frustrating.

[Jean Thibodeau]

Here is a copy of part of an e-mail I just sent to Mark:

" Since you have to do another sword anyway anything you would like to do differently ? One thought I had was that maybe the lenticular point might be for only the last couple of inches rather than the 7" or 8 " it was with this one ? I certainly wouldn't have changed the design at this stage if the heat treat had worked and I don't know exactly how you would have blended the point and the hollow grinding. I guess it is just that the hollow grind looked real good and the reinforced point might look better as just the point instead of a longer section of point: Would take some weight from the tip end of the sword and would still function as a reinforced point.

Let me know if you like this idea better: I will leave a lot of this up to your judgement about how long the lenticular section should be. It's a bit like when we lengthened the central fuller and made the design better: Maybe the fuller and the hollow grinding should all taper off together ? "

Here is the latest update from me:

" Did a new render drawing of what the modified point should look like: I think it makes for cleaner lines where the point only is reinforced and just the point.
I will also post this on the myArmoury Topic thread as I'm more and more certain that this is what I want. ( But I still want your opinion(s) on the change before making the change official. "

[Etienne Hamel]

do you have some updates of the sword? It would be good to see how's it going.

[Jean Thibodeau]

[Bob Burns]

Both Jean and Mark are friends of mine and I had the opportunity to meet Mark in person last October at Shane Allee's Cutting Fest. I've had some of the most thoughtful and kindest emails from both Mark and Jean, and I feel terrible for both of you
I had the opportunity to handle a couple of swords that Mark made, and in my opinion Mark was born to be a Swordsmith! No two ways about it To be so gifted and yet so humble is amazing and Mark is one humble man!

I am so very sorry this has happened to both of you my very good friends

May something Outstanding work out for the both of you as a result of this!

My Sincere Compassion to both of you fine men Jean and Mark

Bob

[Jean Thibodeau]

[Matthew Grzybowski]

Hello all!

First off I want to say thanks to everyone for their interest and support of this thread. It has been very wonderful to see!

Second, I'm sure there has been some questions on what's been going on with this project since we last posted. Well it all started when we sent the original blade for this project off to the heat treater. We got it back with a pretty major sabering in the blade. It was so bad that there was really not much we could do with it. This was the last in a string of issues we had been having with this particular heat treater. We let them go and began our search for a new more responsive, responsible heat treater that shared our same views for schedule. While I was busy pounding the pavements on our quest for a new heat treater, Mark was busy in the shop working on creating a new blade for Jean's project. We found 3 places that all looked very promising and sent them all samples so we could test their quality. The results where across the board, however one stood out from the rest. Their sample was so good, we couldn't break it. Mark had it to a 85 degree angel and it still sprung back into shape. So we're very happy with how they've tested.

I'm very happy to announce that we have a NEW heat treater and with that being said, Jean's piece is among a batch of blades out for treatment. We should be getting them back next week. With that being said, there will be most posts back on this thread as we continue forward.

Thanks again to Jean and all for your patients and support!

Best,

Matt