[Gary A. Chelette]

I’d like to start off by saying that, in no way am I a knife maker or a blacksmith. I did not forge the blade nor did I grow the wood or anything like that. I got someone else to make the knife blade to my specs and my buddies and I came up with the rest off the shelf.
I, my Brother-N-Law and his brother many years ago formed a military order for a re-enactment group and call it, The Order of the Coustille. Story goes it was an artifact this Order had and claimed it was the dagger (knife) that cut Christ from the Cross. Worked out great and all fighters were required to make their own dagger, with our help.
It was decided that a Rondel was perfect and researched it for many weeks with great help from a 4th member who was a professor in medieval history. It was funny when he informed us about the "coustilliers" as dagger welding bandits. Fit our personalities perfectly! I was in charge of getting the blades and Davey the handles and Ken (my brother-n-law) the bronze rondels.
I contracted a friend who was a knife maker to make four blades 12 inches long and a sturdy tang that was a bit longer than usual. He had plenty of scrap metal from making swords and axes and used a stock of 5160 he had laying around What he produced was a forged blade that could puncture a BBQ pit barrel with little effort. Scary!
My brother-n-law, Ken, was a bunch lazier and went to the custom metal factory and got a round bar of bronze. A very pretty bronze and when shined up, looked fantastic! Davy, Ken’s brother, turned the handles out of Cocobolo wood I found on the internet and made 4 sets of beautiful and functional handles. Ken on the other hand cut the bronze bar to make a thick roundel for the top and bottom. Of course he didn’t do a pretty job of it and it took some time to file and sand and polish this beautiful metal back into something worth using.
On mine at least, I spent hours filing, sanding and polishing these little guys till I was sick of seeing a work bench. Drilling, cutting and tapping the finished rondels was a chore I hated then, but very glad now that I spent the time doing after I saw a finished product.
The Rondel here has an extended handle so as to make it usable in an armored gauntlet. The bronze rondels are thick so a hammer could be used on them to drive the blade into the target or pushed with the palm of the hand if need be.
After all said and done, the whole project came out the way we envisioned it and we were all very happy. It was also the only 4 Rondel Daggers we made. Too much work.

Custom blades with long tangs: $65 each.
Cocobolo wood for the handles: $35 total
Bronze bar (round) : $27
Blood, sweat, and tears in the assembly process: Way too much!
Finished dagger: You decide!




PS. Please, any commit is welcome.

[Joel Chesser]

Very impressive. I have been contemplating doing some tinkering with this kind of stuff. nicely done.

[Nick Winley]

Very nice. Simple yet refined.

What is the length of the grip? It does not look out of proportion in the images.

Nick.

[Gary A. Chelette]

The handle is 5" and the roundles are 2.5" dia.
The 4 blades varies up to an inch, mine is 12 3/4" long.
Another could be 12 1/2 or just under. It depended on the piece of stock he had on hand. It didn't matter to us, it was a good deal for what we got.

[Chad Arnow]

Gary,
That looks like a nice, handy rondel dagger. Not bad. I hear Cocobolo dust isn't good to breath.

How did you guys secure it all together? Is it peened or threaded, etc.?

[Gary A. Chelette]

It's threaded on the top roundel and secured with a brass nut. It sorta locks it into place and no rattles.
I can take it all apart for cleaning and polishing very easy.
The 5" handle give me enough room for a mitten gauntlet without problems. Like most rondels, it is top heavy.