German hunting trousse, part VIII

The knife is a traditional Jagnicker blade of a type that originated in the 19th century.  It strongly resembles earlier forms, but has noticeable differences.

Using my trusty angle grinder, I reduced the size of the bird's-head, flattened the grip belly, and ground away as much of the finger guard as I felt comfortable removing.  The slight bolster left behind is still not historically accurate, but I've resolved to live with it.  I then applied the scales, pins and washers as with the fork.

I haven't thrown away the old belduque blade; in fact, I already have a project in mind for it.

The set so far.  You'll notice the sanded-down edges of the scales are much paler; this should be resolved when I get to varnishing.

German hunting trousse, part VII

Remember seventeen months ago when I said that this project is going in a somewhat different direction?  Now that the interminable preparations for Plataea 2022 are behind me, I can show you what I meant by that.

I'd never been satisfied with the original start of the project, using ash that had been textured and stained to resemble antler and then glazed with a modern wood finish.  The homemade nickel silver washers always turned out uneven and didn't look like historical examples.  They were also difficult to drill and the pins were difficult to peen, which didn't bode well for the idea of making nickel silver fittings for the cleaver.

Wanting to use more historical materials but still not wanting to rely on genuine antler, I've decided to just make the scales out of a good honest wood that isn't pretending to be something it's not but still has a rustic look in the same vein as antler.  I selected white oak, which is the preferred oak for cutlery, being much less porous than the red oak commonly sold in the States and (so I read) more similar to European oak.  For this purpose I ordered 1/4-inch scales for the cleaver and 1/8-inch scales for the accessory pieces.  I'm finishing them with linseed oil and historical rosin varnish.  These give the wood a richer, more yellowish color than it originally had.

Henceforth, all fittings except for the washers are going to be steel instead of nickel, with pins cut from 1/8-inch common nails.  The accessory pieces have forged bolsters while the cleaver will have a guard and nagel cut from 1/4-inch mild steel.

For the washers I gave Radovan Geist's method of using upholstery tack heads another try.  This time I drove the tacks into a block of wood, used my Dremel round cutter to grind a pit in the exact middle of the tack to prevent the drill from slipping off-center, and proceeded with the drill press.  I then removed the tacks, pried out the loosened shanks, and gripped the tack head's edges with a pair of pliers as I finished drilling out the hole.  The tack heads often seized on the drill bit, causing them to spin around in the pliers and be badly scratched on the sides, and the drill bit often wandered off-center despite my best efforts, but thankfully upholstery tacks are cheap and I could give it plenty of tries until I got enough washers for the project.  Even the edges of the washers that didn't get unuseably scratched often required a little cleanup with a finetoothed needle file.  Finally, I've used the large attachment of a line snap setter to roll up the sharp edges of metal that stick downward inside the washers.  It's a lot of work, but the result is a much, much more professional washer than I could have fabricated from metal stock.

After the varnish had cured on the first set of scales, I attached them with pitch glue, drilled, used an X-Acto to trim the scale edges flush with the fork's tang, sanded the scales round again, and just this afternoon I set the pins.  There is a stainless steel washer under each domed washer to try to reinforce it from collapsing during the peening process.  I don't know if this helped but they don't seem to have been flattened.

I sanded out some of the dings that resulted from peening, and have reapplied linseed oil and will be re-varnishing the scales over the next week or two.  The knife should go pretty much the same way.

Forged brass ring

Based loosely on rings from the Bronze Age Andronovo culture of Central Asia.  This one is made of 3/32-inch brass rod, and has one less loop around the finger than the originals.  It's made by repeated annealing, bending with tweezers and hammering to make the curlicues tight, then wrapping around a 3/4-inch wooden dowel.

I've recently discovered that some yellow brass cracks easily when forged.  The rod for this project came from Ace Hardware.  I don't know the alloy, but at least I know whatever it is they carry forges well.

I somewhat overestimated the length required, so I tightened the wrap and took up the slack to keep the curlicues in line with each other by rolling them up more.  Unfortunately, because they are slightly oblong, curling them a little too much causes them to stick out more and rub against my joints.

Polishing was a pain; I used both Brasso and fine polishing paper to get the black scale off, and as you can see, there was still some inside the curlicues that was out of reach.  To prevent tarnish, I sprayed the ring with automotive lacquer.  I'm not yet sure whether this will work.  I do know that it replaces the nice metallic shine with a slightly plasticky one and also causes the metal to feel squeaky when being worn.

Vampire-slaying dagger

This dagger was a mini-course in processes I hadn't tried before or hadn't pushed this far.  It has a Solingen-made blade with deep saltwater etching.  The resist for this step is nail polish; I found that permanent marker and paint pen both rubbed off too easily, while the nail polish is very tough and can only be removed with a powerful organic solvent.  The original etching came out very dark, and I found it also seemed to have a little red rust despite the blade being a fairly high-chrome stainless.  (The steel-soaked q-tips also turned red very quickly.)  I sprayed the blade with Ospho to neutralize the rust, but this produced a dull coating which I had to sand off, which in turn required me to re-polish the blade, removing much of the dark patina in the process.  As a result, this now looks more like a typical acid-etched blade, which I guess isn't a bad thing.

The guard and pommel are nickel silver (the pommel is called "white brass," but I suspect that in this case, they're approximately the same thing).  I had to tap the pommel to match the unusual 10-32 blade thread - most blades of this sort are threaded 10-24.  It was excruciating, took two tries, and gave me a blood blister on one finger.  Despite my best efforts, the first pommel wound up with a badly off-center hole; the second is still slightly off-center.  The ferrule and chape are fabricated from nickel silver sheet.

For a while, I was puzzled about how to make the grip.  The tang doesn't taper until it reaches the threaded end, which makes filing out a hole very difficult and time-consuming.  On the advice of several members of BladeForums, I built an initial grip up by ripping a 1/2-inch wide section off of each of two paper micarta scales, thinning them down to match the tang's thickness, epoxying the layers together, and then attempting to turn the assembly to shape.  Unfortunately, the micarta is so smooth and impermeable that the epoxy didn't hold it together, and the assembly exploded when I tried to turn it.

In the end I used a solid wood grip and filed it out the slow way after turning.  It's American walnut, double-dyed:  first with vinegaroon, which turned it charcoal grey and ensured that no deep grooves maintained their natural color, then with Minwax ebony stain to turn it deep black.  I did not neutralize the vinegaroon; my earlier experiments showed that a subsequent baking soda rinse turns the walnut brown (and not a nice brown like it was before).  It's given linseed oil and then sealed with Tru-Oil.  The spiral wrap is silver-plated copper wire which I twisted at home.

The sheath is 4-5oz veg-tan, dry-stitched with black artificial sinew (I did not use contact cement, in order to avoid any spots which wouldn't absorb dye), dyed with Fiebings Pro Dye and finished with Resolene, neatsfoot oil and Sno-Seal.  I did not apply Resolene on the flesh side this time, and I think this prevented it from becoming too stiff.  Before stitching up the sheath, I added a screw-back button stud (nickel-plated brass).  I'd read that to prevent the button coming loose, I should put a drop of Loctite inside before screwing it together.  I used Go 2 Glue (Loctite's all-purpose formula) and only later realized that the Loctite in question was referring to Threadlocker.  Apparently Threadlocker Red 271 is the preferred type for setting the button permanently.

Due to the pommel being quite heavy for the blade, the retention strap with snap is absolutely necessary.  I haven't mastered setting the snaps so that the internal metal deforms evenly, so the snap is still slightly less secure than I'd like.  As for the double-capped rivets, they're very light; probably strong enough, but they should be domed, and without a specialized setter, hammering them to set leaves them completely flat.

The chape is the usual simple rolled cone.  I made a curved tip and ground the end of the chape to fit it, soldered it on, then ground the end smooth.  Then I cut out a drag to fit it, and etched it in ferric chloride.  Although I tried to give it a thorough resist with permanent marker, the raised areas came out rather streaky and the etch isn't very deep.  I suspect whatever formulation of nickel silver this is is more resistant to the ferric chloride than yellow brass.

Soldering the drag was also tricky, as the way the chape tapers means that the drag has to be seated on supports (I used bits of scrap brass) at a slight angle so that it will be straight relative to the chape.  The chape then had to be slid in between the supports.  I turned them both face-down and lay thin strips of solder on the back of the drag along the seams so that they wouldn't get onto the front and fill in the etching.  There are still traces of solder on the back of the drag, so I'm sure this was the right decision.

On the whole, I'm satisfied with everything except some minor imperfections.  The blade etching is definitely not as neat as the stenciled etchings of a professionally-made sword.  However, keeping in mind that the real thing would actually be damascened in silver by hand instead of etched, some raggedness is to be expected in all but the most expensive versions.  (As well, the fittings should all be a genuine albeit low-fineness silver alloy - plating would not be used, because it wears off with too many polishings.)

This is the generic type, issued to Milites Ecclesiæ members who weren't affiliated with a specific order.  With slightly altered devices, the same lodge dagger would be issued to the Ordo Fratrum Calvariæ Loci, the Sancti Societas Vampyri Catholicæ, the Legio Sīcāriōrum, and hundreds of similar chivalric orders organized under the ME.

Jagdnicker

The Jagdnicker is a traditional style of Bavarian hunting knife.  Its name means "hunting nicker," the term "nicker" having no English translation that I know of but referring to a particular method of finishing a wounded game animal.  In modern times the exact form varies a lot; this one is an old style, but with some modifications.

The conceit behind this one is that it's a replica of the one carried by Robin McKay.  Because it's made to be carried in a marine environment, all the metal is stainless steel, except for the brass pins and lanyard tube and nickel-plated brass rivets.  The blade is an 11cm graved-back flat tang from Weber Messer, which is 23cm (just over 9 inches) overall.  Jagdnicker grips are classically, and almost invariably, made of antler, but I don't like working with antler - it's basically bone, so it smells foul when being ground and cracks too easily.  Holding antler grips also tends to leave a funny smell on your hands.  The grips on this one are ash, dyed and stabilized by K & G Finishing Supplies, epoxied and sanded up to 3000-grit before the pins are set, then waxed and buffed.  The wrist loop is 2mm waxed hemp.

The sheath design is the modern German style.  I made it from 4-5 ounce veg-tan; it's stitched with black nylon artificial sinew to resist rot, dyed with Fiebing's Pro in dark brown, sealed with Resolene, and finished with neatsfoot oil and Sno-Seal.  I was very concerned that the knife should never fall out of the sheath when it's not in use, since if it were to plunge into the ocean, you'd never see it again.  In theory, the two snaps prevent this, but I find they open slightly more easily than I'd like.  They are stainless line 20 line snaps from Tandy.

Lastly, I included a belt dangler, riveted closed, with a square aluminum screw carabiner so that the sheath can be quickly removed and e.g locked in a glove compartment when one is entering an establishment where large knives are not welcome, without having to take off the belt.

I like the profile of these old-fashioned knives.  However, the full flat grind from the spine makes the edge a bit too dainty for my tastes, even with the spine being 4mm thick - at this length, most utilitarian knives would have a spine of around 3mm, but also a significant secondary bevel beefing up the actual cutting edge.  According to Fimbulmyrk, this very thin edge is a deliberate feature of Jagdnickers called nagelgehend (apparently translating to "nail-going"?) and I have no doubt that it would make for an extremely sharp blade capable of slicing and skinning easily.

Fancy fancy knife

A "spare parts" project. I've had a kit-built Scottish dirk hanging around my house for the last 16 years or so.  I was never very satisfied with it, and a few years ago, after I deciding I wanted to add a sax (not the musical kind) to my collection, I settled on using the dirk blade rather than spending more money on a new one.

This is largely a fantasy knife, although its pommel is based loosely on the Nijmegen sax.  The hilt is inspired by the Thorvaldr's Sax by Matthew Berry and one created by Petr Florianek.  It has a mahogany grip and holly spacers finished with linseed oil.  Admittedly, the mahogany is wrong for something meant to look Northern or Western European, but it's what I had on-hand; same with the yellow brass (I believe ancient brasses were more reddish).

Since I didn't have confidence in my ability to replicate the same carving in mirror four times, I instead gave it four different animals, a horse, wolf, hart and boar.  The lower two brass plates were sand-cast knife guards, while the upper two are fabricated from bar stock.

The pommel cap is fabricated from Crazy Crow stock, which seems to have a lower zinc content and grinds into an almost floury powder.  I etched it with a bird of prey using ferric chloride.  The top end of the tang is round and threaded; historical saxes would have rectangular ones that the hilt parts fitted tightly to.  The pommel is prevented from rotating by a pair of long escutcheon pins that extend through both plates and into the grip.  I ground a pair of pits into the bottom of the pommel cap to make space for the pin heads, then silver-soldered the cap onto the upper plate.  The pommel button is a ground-down steel nut.  The hilt is assembled with pitch glue.

The sheath is 7/8-ounce veg tan, stitched with heavy linen cord, stained with walnut dye, and finished with neatsfoot oil and beeswax.  The dragon is sort of a mix of Migration-period designs (with teeth cribbed directly from the Sutton Hoo shield ornament) with those painted by Professor Tolkien.  At the top of the sheath is a heart and flower taken from northern German folk art, translated into knotwork.

I'm delighted with how the homemade walnut dye worked with this project.  Even after filtering, it contains fine sediments which settle into the tooling crevices, making it a natural version of a commercial leather antique gel.   However, if I were using it on an un-tooled surface, I would want to use several applications to produce a darker stain, as the smooth leather here isn't a whole lot darker than it would be with just oil and wax.

I'm less delighted with the suspension tabs; specifically, setting the pins with a small hammer and anvil resulted in the tabs becoming badly dinged-up.  I'm not sure whether I should try re-polishing them.

Once all the projects for Plataea 2022 are done, I might add a belt and companion knife to go with this one.