German hunting trousse, part IX

I next returned to working on the cleaver.  I've been putting it off for a long time because of technical challenges that I was unsure of how to deal with.

Firstly, a method of how to fabricate the side ring rivet and affix it in such a way that it wouldn't rotate in the rivet hole had long eluded me.  Many of the originals have spike-shaped extensions sticking up from the rings along the bolsters which I surmise were created by sophisticated forging techniques and incorporate extra pins.  Fat chance of me accomplishing anything like that.  However, not all of them are constructed this way, and I eventually came across a post on myArmoury by Lukas Mästle-Goer which shows an alternative method:  The side guard - in his case a shell Nagel for a Rugger, but it would work just as well with a Waidpraxe's ring - has a rectangular base that fits into a slot on the face of the bolster, locking it in position.

With this understanding, I drilled a 5/8-inch hole in a bar of mild steel, cut out the ring around it with an angle grinder, and ground and filed its shank down to a round cross section 3/16 inch thick.

The other problem was no more complicated but will take longer to explain:  Most hunting cleavers of the 17th century have a finger guard on the edge side of the blade that protrudes out past the blade shoulder.  This seems to have been created in one of two ways:  Either the bolsters are forged as a single piece that semi-encloses the tang, with the two bolsters held together by the finger guard itself, or they're made in two pieces and the tang also features a protrusion that they're sandwiched on either side of.

Because I can't weld and the Crazy Crow blade has no such extension, my first attempt to deal with the problem was to create a pair of bolsters with protruding finger guards, soldered together by a small piece of filler steel.  However, this proved unfeasible.  The filler piece was a hair too thin and the tang wouldn't fit into the guard.  I tried grinding out the inside, but the solder wasn't strong enough to stand up to the vibrations and the guard fell apart.  After re-soldering and re-grinding several times and getting nowhere, I put the whole thing on hold.

Again, myArmoury came to the rescue.  At a later date, I found a post by Radovan Geist of a knife that looked a lot like the one I'm working on, although it is intended as a Bauerwehr (thus again a solid shell Nagel instead of a ring).  It even had a little un-beveled section of blade shoulder just like the Crazy Crow blade's ricasso, which Radovan used as the support for the bolsters.  Looking through my collection of hunting cleaver photos, I realized that a handful looked quite similar with small finger guards that didn't protrude past the edge of the blade.  This was the solution.  (I also copied his idea of adding a thinner pin hole to the blade shoulder so that the bolsters could be pinned there as well.)

Starting fresh, I cut two new pieces of mild steel in approximately the shape required.  Another problem soon arose:  The part of the blade that transitions from the tang to the ricasso becomes thinner, and while the transition is more-or-less flat on one face, it's curved on the other.  This meant that while one bolster could just sit as it was and be pretty much flush with the blade, the other needed to be ground on the inside to match the curve; otherwise, it would teeter across the tang's surface, leaving a large gap on one edge or another.

 

The bolster partly through shaping.  I managed to get it not quite so bad after a few more passes of the angle grinder's flap disc, but perfection eludes me.  In this project I won't feel so bad about using a modern epoxy to fill the gaps..

Once that was done, getting the profile perfect was simply a matter of glueing, drilling, and grinding the edges flush with the tang.

After that, the bolsters could be detached and rough-shaped.  Adding the slot for the ring was another tricky step:  Unwilling to risk mayhem with the aggressive angle grinder, I instead used my Dremel with a fairly small flat stone grinding disc.  This took longer but I believe reduced the chance of the slot coming out crooked.  I finished it with coarse files.

Next I added some decorative grooves freehand with needle files, then polished everything up.  Finally, it was time to peen the pins and rivet.

I epoxied first, then set the smaller pins - a cut section of 1/8-inch common nail as used throughout this project, and an annealed section of thinner finishing nail in the shoulder area.  Then I ground and polished out the dings.

 

I set the ring rivet last, after annealing, re-polishing, and shortening the shank.  To prevent the ring from being marred, I put the 5/8-inch drill bit through it and had it rest on two steel blocks with the ring between them.  The bit supported the ring and prevented it from popping out as the shank was peened.  Then I once again ground and polished the peen to be less protrusive and visible.

 

The cleaver with rough-cut oak scales and washers.  I'll be getting them closer to their finished shape and might start the scabbard over the next few months, but this is the last update I'll be sharing on the cleaver until spring, when the weather warms up enough to varnish the scales.