Hi

I have been interested in the mortuary sword for quite some time. Making a basket was out of the question for me, but after poking around I found KOA had the Hanwei practical in stock so I bought one to see if it would work with an H/T blade I already had. Of course the tang needed to be cut down and rethreaded, the basket tang slot etc needed to be widened to accommodate the wider tang. After a fair bit of work I am almost complete. Everything is put back together with a new wood grip core. Last but not least I will have to finish the grip. I am thinking a spiral wrapped cord along the length, covered in leather and perhaps twisted steel wire in between the cord. Not sure though.

Anyway....thoughts? I realize the blade type may not fit exactly with what was typical for this type of hilt, but I have seen blades that have a similar profile and maybe even slightly diamond cross section on Mortuary swords, but I am no expert.

Also, the POB is looking to end up around 5 3/4" from the basket. Is that within and acceptable range historically for this type of sword? Any comments are appreciated. Thanks for looking.

Original blade - very small, felt like a toy


H/T next to it for comparison


Component parts and tang work under way




Sword almost done. Everything back together and super tight. Rings like a bell.

Lovely work, I very much like the more "substantial" look. I believe I would consider making the cross section lenticular...

I like it a lot. It looks great.

I really like the way this combination of components work together. But, if you wanted to make it slightly more like the historical broadsword examples that I've seen, you could do so without too much extra work: grid or file a narrow flat across the central ridge of the blade below the fuller (hexagonal section), or round the ridge so that it is lenticular in section as suggested by Lucas, and cut off a small portion of the tip and regrind it to a stouter, more abruptly tapering point. Personally I'd just leave it as is though.

An interesting assembly of parts. I had once fooled around with a European 20th century naval hilt and a Del Tin XVIIIb blade but that was just _too_ much. Handled well though.

This looks pretty good and a bit more blade profile work could make it more along the lines of the heavier cavalry pallsches we see into the 18th century. A less convex profile. Hanwei had done a good job visually with replicating the Royal Armouries original but as you have found, some mortuary hilts (and walloons) did sport some pretty broad blades. Great job on the fitment you have progressed with and shows how the slow and steady patience can accomplish just about anything.

Had Hanwei used thicker stock to begin with, and made the hilt thicker, They could have knocked the effort out of the park. I had previously handled their Cromwell, so I knew kind of what to expect in buying the basic mort. The Hanwei basket is too thin (I think) But well shaped and not overly wide. The Cromwell is narrower. I have large hands but seem to be able to wield both with due considerations. The length of the grips seemingly more of an issue when shaking their hands. I don't mind shorter grips on more open hilts but even with light gloves, these baskets are a bit confining.

The turks heads on the Hanwei pretty good and adding those would add to eye appeal. I look forward to your finished product.

Cheers

GC

I don't think you should be concerned about the appropriateness of the blade. There is a lot of variety in the blades found on the original Mortuaries, from rapier slim to heavy, wide broadswords. Length could vary as well from longer cavalry swords to shorter versions to be used on foot. That's a nice combination you have put together. The bare H/T blades are very useful for all kinds of constructions..

Hanwei blades make very nice project blades, that one right there looks awesome. So all you had to do was replace the grip?

Did you consider using one of the singlehand H/T blades with a shorter tang? Or were the blades too short for your purpose?

Will you show us some cutting with this thingy? ;) I will soon be able to buy a Bastard on a sale with a good discount and I will only buy it if I decide to make some kind of single handed design for it, so I wonder how will it cut single handedly... :)

Finished. POB ended up being 5 3/4" from the basket. The blade is not real heavy to begin with so it had blade presence but is not at all heavy feeling or unwieldy.

Excellent grip job and I love the color. A very nice marriage. Have you planned out a scabbard for it?

Both unwound and double wound contrasting wire color coan look very nice. I love the brown choice.

Cheers

GC

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Thanks all for the comments. I will make a scabbard at some point...nothing planned right away though.

It's good that you found a basket wide enough to completely get your hand inside.One of the knocks on this model in the past, was that there was some variation in the width between individual examples. On some of them it was so narrow that you couldn't get your hand inside for a good fist grip.

Superb grip Bryan!

I like the sword quiet a bit - the blade is a bit over the top to me - at a glance I can't forget that this is a longsword blade fitted with a basket hilt. I'll probably shorten it a bit and tweak the blade profile to lenticular as it as been said above.

That said, the larger blade works very well (I thought about getting one of this baskets but always gave up because the blade was rather unappealing. This is a very menacing sword - very cool project :)

Cheers,

J

I like the way the new blade looks. On antique Morts, you can find almost any length and width of blade. I have seen one with a rapier blade at one end of the spectrum, and a few with blades 2" wide at the hilt at the other end!

Now what I've never liked about the Hanwei Mort is the pommel. A larger, more rounded pommel would look better, and it would bring the POB back a bit, too.

--ElJay

Hey Bryan,
Thank you for posting this. You inspired me to change my own mortuary. Except I used an old Windlass hanger blade and with a little work I ended up with a beautiful little sword...