70 Fall, 513AV
Following on from his thoughts about the places that he needed to improve his skills with regards his crafting Eanos turned his attention to the question of inscriptions and decorations on the swords themselves.
He had yet to make up the hilt fittings for the short sword that he had recently completed and this seemed an appropriate time to do something about that. With the forge up to heat he started work on the blade guard which would be a simple oval shape, but reasonably thick and heavy for the hilt on the sword needed to be fairly heavy to compensate for the thick and heavy blade. In addition the thick guard allowed him to have space to decorate in a design which he thought would be quite eye catching and something that he’d not seen here.
Starting with a bar of metal he heated it in the forge and bent it in two using another bar that he’d shaped to the same size as the tang. This was a typical example of something that might be cast but for strength he preferred it to be forged. This was all that stood between the swordsmans fingers and another blade sliding down the length of this blade so being sturdy was essential.
Wrapping it around the dummy tang he brought it around and closed, taking it up past yellow hot and welding the two parts together so that now he had a slightly oval rectangle with a slit in the middle for the tang. This all needed shaping, both to bring the outside down to a smooth oval and on the inside to match the tang. Once slipped over the tang it would be held against the shoulders of the blade by wedges which in turn would be covered by the hilt wrappings.
Although it took considerable time to get this far he was still early in the project as now the finer work started. He’d practised first on a piece of the same steel bar first so he knew exactly the measurements that need to be made. Measuring carefully he scribed marks evenly along the length of the edge of the guard and then with a square extended those lines across the width of the guard so that when he was done the edge of the guard was covered in a series of parallel lines. The gap between the lines was very carefully calculated and tested for if it were too far apart or too close then the effect would be lost.
Now he needed a very sharp and very fine chisel which he honed carefully then slowly cut down one of the lines. The second pass deepened it so that there was less risk of the blade skipping and marring the surface of the guard. With those two passes done he altered the angle of the blade and started cutting deeper but this time he was opening out the cut so that there were two roots which angled out slightly.
Following on from his thoughts about the places that he needed to improve his skills with regards his crafting Eanos turned his attention to the question of inscriptions and decorations on the swords themselves.
He had yet to make up the hilt fittings for the short sword that he had recently completed and this seemed an appropriate time to do something about that. With the forge up to heat he started work on the blade guard which would be a simple oval shape, but reasonably thick and heavy for the hilt on the sword needed to be fairly heavy to compensate for the thick and heavy blade. In addition the thick guard allowed him to have space to decorate in a design which he thought would be quite eye catching and something that he’d not seen here.
Starting with a bar of metal he heated it in the forge and bent it in two using another bar that he’d shaped to the same size as the tang. This was a typical example of something that might be cast but for strength he preferred it to be forged. This was all that stood between the swordsmans fingers and another blade sliding down the length of this blade so being sturdy was essential.
Wrapping it around the dummy tang he brought it around and closed, taking it up past yellow hot and welding the two parts together so that now he had a slightly oval rectangle with a slit in the middle for the tang. This all needed shaping, both to bring the outside down to a smooth oval and on the inside to match the tang. Once slipped over the tang it would be held against the shoulders of the blade by wedges which in turn would be covered by the hilt wrappings.
Although it took considerable time to get this far he was still early in the project as now the finer work started. He’d practised first on a piece of the same steel bar first so he knew exactly the measurements that need to be made. Measuring carefully he scribed marks evenly along the length of the edge of the guard and then with a square extended those lines across the width of the guard so that when he was done the edge of the guard was covered in a series of parallel lines. The gap between the lines was very carefully calculated and tested for if it were too far apart or too close then the effect would be lost.
Now he needed a very sharp and very fine chisel which he honed carefully then slowly cut down one of the lines. The second pass deepened it so that there was less risk of the blade skipping and marring the surface of the guard. With those two passes done he altered the angle of the blade and started cutting deeper but this time he was opening out the cut so that there were two roots which angled out slightly.