[Robert Muse]

Thank you Tim for your kind words. From you, that is something. Over a year ago I had Owen Bush make me a blade, now after many months, I hope to see it soon.

Robert

[Robert Muse]

Created by J. Arthur Loose. A bit away from my usual Anglo Saxon blades, but I have always liked Norwegian sword hilted langseax, having one by Michael and one from Ollin Blades.

He was inspired by a trip to the museum in Oslo, I believe. Heavy silver covered, not plated fitting with all inlay being Niello.

She is more an exercise in art.

Robert

[William P]

[Phil U]

I dont want this thread to die off so here are a couple of mine.

[Chad Arnow]

As part of the rebuilding effort, here's my English Cutler small sax, received recently. It has a thick, sharp, mono-steel blade, beech handle, and thick leather sheath with brass mounts. All in all, this is a great, inexpensive ($135-140 shipped from the UK), solid, nicely accurate piece.

For those who don't know, the English Cutler is the production arm of Tod's Stuff. Tod designs the pieces and assembles them from parts made to his specs. They're usually in-stock and ready to go. The two I own are great, inexpensive pieces, well worth the asking price.

[Matthew Bunker]

Here's one I finished recently, a reconstruction of the seax found at Oliver's Battery, near Winchester.
As ever, the challenge with the sheath was to come up with a workable solution that didn't involve contradicting the find evidence.
In this case, the presence of a silver mouthband nailed to the wooden core of the sheath made it clear that the leather didn't extend to cover the handle.

Blade by Mark Routledge. Rest by me. Beech handle, silver pommel, ash core and some Salin Style 1 decoration. Paired slit suspension taken from the Groningen sheath.

[Josh MacNeil]

Re-post from the site crash... Here's mine that I finally finished up a while back. Blade is made by Paul Binns and is of 4 bar construction; wrought iron back, a layer of twisted pattern weld, another wrought layer, and a high carbon steel edge. The rest made by me. Antler handle, thick veg-tanned scabbard with brass edging and knotted brass suspension ring. This one was a learning curve for me (first time mounting a blade in antler and moulding leather to the broken-back shape), so I decided to keep it fairly simple. I may add a lanyard cord with a 1000+ year old Viking glass bead I just acquired. That little bead has some serious energy attached to it, let me tell ya. All in all a fun and informative project.

[G. Freeman]

Hej to all SAXowners and SAXusers,

I went through the great pics you sent and I would like to ask you these question and offer some my opinions to be discussed:

- I have taken a look at historical find (and of course historical replicas) and they usually show blade thickness cca 0,4-0,6 cm...some historical even 0,7 cm

- Those which were shorter (more like knifes) showed more often the thickness cca 0,3-0,4 cm...only some were thicker

- those designed more for battle (langsaxes) showed (from what I have seen or read) two different "branches" cca 0,3 cm (some 0,2 cm) and 0,5-0,6 cm

In principle a sax is (by its purpose) low cost mixture among Sword x Axe x Working tool - so some are supposed to be faster and lighter and some to be heavier (dependeing on prevailing purpose)
Langsaxes used in battles (close-contact, shieldwall = no place) are used (as I see it) mostly to cut the opponent legs and knees and to thurst and pierce bellies and thighs...so there is no need to be heavy = agility and swiftness is preferred (if material / iron allows it)

- So am I right in my guess that heavier (thicker) saxes were designed (by its primal use) more like tools than like weapons?
- My other guess is that using low quality iron might result in the production of thicker sax blades (which doesnt snap or bend)
= better iron is used for sax-weapons while worse iron can be used for sax-tools

So what is your experience with "sax using" - in fights , as tools? Your guesses, opinions? Do you have some corrections to my conclusions or measurements I was able to gather?

I didnt want to start a new thread with that and because you all seem to have saxes in use :-) therefore I consider this to be a good enough place for that..
.

[Petr Florianek]

What leads you to believe saxes were used as tools and axes? from my information, there is not such reasen to believe that.
Also 2-3 mm as thickness in langsaxes is pretty dubious

[D. Bell]

I think the topic Petr created to show off this seax has been lost so I will repost the pics here.

Last year I received a custom 9th century English sword from Patrick Barta, and I wanted a seax to match it. Petr Florianek's previous work had impressed me and he seemed the obvious choice so I contacted him and after some discussion settled on a design, which he has executed masterfully. It (like the sword) features trewhiddle style decorations that were popular at the time along with silver fittings. The blade is made from four bars, the spine is wrought iron, then 9 layer twisted rod, then wrought and then steel toothwelded to this, and it looks great. It is definitely my favourite seax. I found Petr easy to work with and I hope to buy from him again in the future.
Overall length 410mm, blade length 234mm, blade width at hilt 27mm, maximum blade width 34mm, spine 6mm.

[Raymond Deancona]

Finally got around to taking some pictures of more of my saxes: Okay, some are not strictly saxes, but still in the style.
First picture is a group of 4, from top to bottom: Michael Pikula, then 2 House of Steel, and finally a damascus piece from eBay (not bad for 20 bucks!). The next group of 3 includes another eBay find, Paul Binns and ML knives version of a small Viking belt knife. The last 3 single shots are my "camp" saxes to do all the dirty work... First is a White Hart Forge, roughly 15 inches long, second is Gen II with a different scabbard, and last is another White Hart Forge, though this one has a 20 inch blade. I will take some pictures of my higher end pieces soon, though this is a good start. You can't have too many saxes!

[Johan Gemvik]

[Johan Gemvik]

I finally finished my "weapon knife", well it's a type of seax so I'm posting it here.

[Boris Bedrosov]

Meanwhile, waiting for the horn, mentioned in the "Yushman Project" thread, I finished this broken-back seax:





Blade - hand-forged from 65G steel;
Grip - unknown hard wood (maybe very well dried acacia, but not sure), black buffalo horn, bronze fittings.
Almost everything is made by hand with hand tools. Electric tools were used as less as possible.

The scabbard is still missing, I hope I'll manage to make it within week or so.

[Harry Marinakis]

I just bought this 7-inch long seax from Owen Bush, and I am pondering what to do with it, in terms of a handle and sheath.

Does anyone know of any good resources about the broken back seax? I found this thread, wondering about reference books

http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?p=180478#180478

[G Ezell]

[Robert Muse]

Hi,

While reading through this post, I noted that several seax were never posted here. Some were posted elsewhere, but not here. So to keep things together I have posted a few of my last ones here.
Robert

[Robert Muse]

Smaller brother by Petr.

[Robert Muse]

About the most massive langsax I have, challenged only by one other.

[Robert Muse]

Lastly this Langsax came to live with me a short while back. Since Tinker seems to have been forced to stop his custom work, hopefully just for a short while, we may see less of these,