[Alan Schiff]

I haven't had much time lately to work on projects, but here's one I just finished for my brother that's been several years in the making. The story begins with an Albion Maximilian blade from the moat sale (who remembers that?). I don't know why the blade ended up in the moat, but my brother picked it up. It wasn't heat treated, so it went to L Driggers for that as I don't have the proper equipment for such a long blade. Then I removed the scale, finished grinding the blade, and gave it a satin finish. The guard is an Oakeshott style 7 and made of mild steel. The pommel, also mild steel, is a type T, and has a star garnet set into a silver bezel mounted to the end. Both guard and pommel also have satin finishes.

The bezel was a bit of a challenge. The pommel has an inset for the bezel and stone, and I thought I would peen it before soldering the bezel wire into place, because it would be easier to peen without the wire in the way. Unfortunately, with the pommel already mounted to the blade and contacting the handle, it made it almost impossible to solder the wire to the pommel. I messed up the original bezel and had to retry. The second attempt failed as well. For the third try I just epoxied the bezel wire into the recess, which seems to be holding fine. For anyone attempting to do something similar, I would suggest soldering the bezel in place before attaching the pommel to the rest of the sword so you can heat it without messing with other parts of the blade.

Anyway, the handle is in the "waisted" style, made of poplar and then wrapped in veg-tan leather. The leather was cord wrapped to add texture and dyed oxblood to approximately match the garnet in the pommel. The handle shape is oblong in the section nearer the guard, and hexagonal in the narrower section to match the pommel facets.

Overall the handling is very similar to that of my Archduke. This sword is actually a bit lighter and the point of balance is about a half inch closer to the guard. It's not a light, nimble sword by any means, but I think it came out rather well. Here are the stats:

Overall Length: 55 Inches
Blade Length: 41 Inches
Blade Width: 2.18 Inches at the guard
Grip Length: 11.125 Inches
Point of Balance: 5 Inches from Guard
Weight: 4.96 Pounds

This project took quite a long time to complete, as I was working on it between other projects, commissions, and the regular 9-5. Not to mention that I had to redo both the guard and pommel at one point (the first attempts didn't come out how I wanted). In the end I'm pretty with how it came out, though. Thanks for looking!