I have just hammered my first blade, a dagger, I did it in XVI century forge, I did a lot of errors in shape but I corrected almost all of them by grinding.

Low carbon steel, as in old times, 0,3 - 0,4 % carbon, the finished blade will be carburized for strength and elasticity by case hardening, I will be using a nice medieval style pack of charcoal powder wrapped in leather skin.

The blade is 45 cm long, distal taper will be evident, starting from 4.2 mm to 3 mm something at the starting of the debole (last third of the blade).

Pommel will likely be oval, cross as simple as possible.

I have measured three period sword from a private collection (a type XII sword and a couple of stoccos from the XIV century, plus many XV century blades).

So I made a direct experience of actual blades and crosses, took measurements of distal tapers, weights, point of balances etc.

Alas i'm not allowed to publish these swords by express order of the owner.

Obviously i verified myself what has been said by connosseurs, real blades have nothing to do with most of the modern replicas.

Most of them ( I also examined a spate of healthy schiavonas with various kind of blades) feel like feathers in your hands.

The only exception was the type XII, heavily unbalanced, ridicolously little pommel: all the weigth was in the point.

Likely made to make is a slashing tools.


The impressions I feel from my blade, at this point of grinding, distal taper is still unsatisfactory, are not so bad, even without a pommel and cross the blade is light (less than 700 grams) and maneuverable.

rather elastic too, if hit with a metal tool it rings satisfactorily

The tang is still unfinished, not yet tapered both distally and laterally, so this add to the weight and lack of feather-like feel, however i know I'm on the right track.

Picts picts picts!

Err, I'm only a couple of hours away from you, assuming you are from Italy. :)

But your project sounds interesting. I don't think anyone else uses case hardening now. Could be fairly tricky to get the right amount of carbon into the blade, and then heat treat it...

Aren't Picts a type of celtic warrior??? :surprised:

This is terribly off topic but apparently I have to explain everything in my short post of one word and one small picture. :eek:

Word "picts" is found 61 times on this forum, word "pict" 25 times if you use the search function. I think that only 1 or 2 of these posts actually uses the word to describe Scottish natives, all the rest are just funny typo error (like "pwned" for "owned"). I know, silly, but it has ben done before.

And I'm sorry for the screenshot of the message, I found it funny, but it was totally off-topic. I have removed it from my message.

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Bruno, I'm still interested in seeing your product. :D

The term "picts" has indeed been used before, but most prefer to use "pics" as a shortening of "pictures" as it takes just the first syllable of the word (pic-tures) as the shortened form of the word. Really, though, this "picts" discussion is off-topic and should go no further.

I would love to see pics of the project as well, Bruno. :)

You will pardon me the defects of this picxties .. pictures.

they are taken with an uncontrollabole digital camera, plus an incorporated flash on the camera's lens' axis:there are shadows that alter a bit the point profile, also there appear to be irregularities that do not exist.

Defects of the surface are greatly enhanced. Please remember that I'm not yet finished grinding it, it is still unpolished, a thing that will be completed after carburizing.

The tang has yet to be enlarged a bit and distally tapered for balance.

this is the first rough grinding, tomorrow I will be at the forge and grinder again.

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Tang. Pic more realistic

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This tang is to be corrected slightly leftward by hammering it hot, with a few gentle strikes.

That's some pretty impressive work for your first time, I'd say. I'm working on my first knife and I've just finished the rough forging and I'm planning on finishing it on the grinder. Your tang shape is very good, I especially like the shoulders where it meets the blade. Did you do that with the hammer or did you grind those nice curves in?

I look forward to seing what the finsihed dagger looks like, Bruno!
What kind of materials will you use for the handle?

Cheers,
Henrik

Looks good! Every time when I see a topic like this I want to try to make my own blade too.

Today i finished flattening and correcting the tang.

Also I made a rough blank for the cross, piercing it almost perfectly.

File work will be necessary for the cross hole and slot to be perfect, arms are still to be cut to proper lenght and hamered into proper shape.

The blank has been made at the power hammer, piercing was made with a traditional style piercing tool (foradùr in brescian language), an hammer shaped tool with a flat sharpened beak and a wide back.

It was made by two people, an expert professionist, a wrought iron smith, and me.

He gave me access to his shop, but I used a traditional carbon forge fueled with coke and later charcoal.

Shaping of the cross will occur next week, it will be obviously reduced in width, arms will be slanted downward a bit (maciejowski style), also they will be distally and linearly tapered.

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A first blank had gone awry, I left it one minute too much in the forge when i switched from coke to charcoal, when I was back one of the arms had been burnt away.

I had made an igloo style mound to betetr heat the pieces, estimating low the power of such forge.

It revealed more powerful than a gas one!

Actyually igloos were used for welding by brazing .... when the piece emerged broken it was white hot.

there was no way to work in the dark, since here it is again stifling hot, it is impossible to keep a forge inside a hall, however big.

Bruno;

Interesting post: It always nice to see the work and thought that goes into making a design, as well as the choices.

The blade looks lenticular in the early pics to me and more diamond shaped in the last few ? Assuming we are looking at the same blade.

Are you planning in it having a fuller or fullers ? Just curious as these I would guess would be at least partially forged into the blade ? Although they could be ground / machines in. So, far my best guess is for no fullers.

Looking forward to following the process to the finished dagger. :cool: