Targe from Armlann Gàidhealach

Armlann Gàidhealach was formed in Edinburgh at the end of August 1745, in anticipation of the return of Charles Stuart.  Its owners were Màiri MacNeil of Edinburgh and Caitlin O'Shaughnessy of Kilmacduagh, who temporarily moved to Scotland for the venture.  They officially began production three days after Stuart entered the city on September 17.  The factory produced targes, furnished German broadsword and dirk blades in the usual fashion, imported French firearms and swords, and stored and distributed captured government arms.  When government troops reoccupied Edinburgh in January, the workshop was hastily moved to a barn outside the city, where they continued production right up until the disaster at Culloden on April 16 of the following year.

Last year, I was able to obtain a beautifully-preserved targe through my connections with the Hawkins family of Gloucestershire.  They weren't Jacobites, but some were friends with O'Shaughnessy and MacNeil, and bought out the remaining stock to help the venture recoup some of their investment and dispose of/launder the evidence, since the Hawkinses had ties with the shipping industry down in Bristol, and the middle class in their own hometown would purchase swords.

The vast majority of Armlann Gàidhealach's stock has been sold, auctioned off or given away over the centuries, but I hope to put aside enough money next year to get a sword and dirk.

Learning curve

Last year, I found a 1/4-inch maple plank at Lowe's that had a wonderful amount of curl to it.  I didn't want to use it until I had a project that could do it justice.  For me, that typically means knife scales, since they show off a broad section of the thin cut.

I selected some modern "patch" blades because they're inexpensive (being made in Pakistan), stainless (thus low-maintenance), heavy and sturdy, pocket-sized, and have a neat rustic look to them.

The blades themselves required a bit of cleanup.  They came with a machined finish which I polished up as best I could (removing the PAKISTAN etching in the process).  The "Spanish notches" had a very mechanical, straight-sided appearance with a small round hole drilled at the top of the middle notch, giving them a profile like a lollipop; either they were produced with a minimum of effort or the smiths had never seen a Spanish notch in person and didn't know what one should look like.

Additionally, both blades had very sharp, square edges everywhere.  Along with the notches, the shoulders required a bit of rounding, to make them comfortable against the index finger.  The spines, thankfully, were already smoothed enough to not feel ragged against the fingers, although they are still square.  Some but not all of the holes had to be filed to accept the 3/32-inch brass pins.

My Orapik skated over the surface while I was attempting to feel the etching.  I think therefore that the steel is hard enough.  However, my overall impression of quality, and most of all consistency, was rather poor.  I am aware that Pakistan has a poor reputation with regards to blademaking.  These ones are okay for my purpose but I might choose a different project next time, though the small blade does make a fun little project for showcasing various scale materials.

The seller's specifications are as follows:

Overall length:  6-3/4 inches (medium blade), 5-1/2 inches (small)
Blade length:  3-1/2 inches (medium), 2-1/2 inches (small)
Thickness:  5/32 inch (i.e. a hair under 4mm)
Tang holes:  3/32 inch

In fact the medium is the advertised length, but its cutting edge is just under 3 inches and the blade only reaches 3-1/2 inches if you count the ricasso.  The smaller one, meanwhile, is 5-11/16 inches and has a blade of 2-11/16 counting the ricasso with a cutting edge of about 2-1/8 inches.

I didn't do anything special with these in furnishing.

Lesson one:  Use the section of the wood with the tightest curl for the smallest scales, and looser curl for larger ones.

Lesson two:  A knife with an un-flanged slab tang requires scales shaped to fit with extreme precision.  As you can see, the slightest imperfection is obvious in the finished object.  They may also slide a bit when epoxied on.

Lesson three, the real challenge this time around, was the stain.  I originally wanted to obtain or make some "magic maple," a noxious mixture of acid and iron which reacts with the wood when heated to produce a rich brown.  I've seen people speak highly of magic maple for bringing out the depth and contrast of figured wood, but it's costly and using it is complex and dangerous.  Also, since the scales were very thin, I worried that heating them might cause them to warp, as a sample piece did when subjected to a heat gun.

After sitting on my hands about it for months, I recently decided to just go ahead and use the Minwax red mahogany I already had on hand.  This was a very bad idea.

My Minwax was about 12 years old and had become a thick, molasses-like blob that a brush bounced off of.  I just scooped up dabs of it and rubbed it into the surface.  The first application looked great, producing a deep reddish-brown with almost black bands that rippled wonderfully when turned under bright light.  But it never dried.  When I went to apply some oil varnish, the stain wiped right off.

I then put some of the Minwax in a disposable bowl and thinned it down with varnish.  Again it went on beautifully and never dried.  At this point, I realized the Minwax was a lost cause.  I wiped the old finish off with mineral spirits and got a new can.

The new can was "red sedona," and while it was nice and liquidy and seemed to stain the wood, it looked...  well, awful.  Too light, almost pink on top of the pale maple, and opaque.  I hoped a layer of linseed oil would darken it, but no such luck.

Finally I went out and got another can of the red mahogany, sanded the sedona finish off and started over.  Again I followed the directions for the darkest possible finish.  This time the result was acceptable; not fantastic, but not bad-looking either.  I finished it with a couple applications of linseed oil and then tung oil varnish for a semi-gloss finish.

I only wanted the small one, so I gave the larger one to my mom.  The sheaths are made from 4-ounce veg-tan, incised, stitched with imitation sinew, wet-molded and tooled, and finished with Fiebing's dyes and "leather sheen" acrylic, which is a very watery liquid that actually doesn't look as glossy as it appears in the photo.

I wanted to go for an "early American" frontier-esque look on mine, with the understanding that this is not really a historical knife design and so I didn't feel obligated to stick with only documented embellishments.  Thus, the brown dye, whipstitching, spots, and carved wooden beads.  The thin Greek leather cords holding the beads in place are simply looped through the stitch holes and knotted on the other ends of the beads, a method used by several commercially-finished versions of this knife.  I secured the knots and stopped the ends of the cords from sticking apart by slipping each pair of ends through another bead temporarily and applying a drop of epoxy to the knot.  The thicker leather cord braided under the belt loop will allow the knife to be tied to a belt if desired without having to take the belt off first.

I consulted with my mom about how she wanted her knife sheath done; she chose to keep most of the same details I used on mine, but with red dye and no beads or additional belt cord.  She also chose a necklace charm from a craft store to attach near the top; I sewed it on with heavy brown button thread.

Presentation box for my letter opener

Yesterday I finished up my fine woodworking fundamentals course.  There were exactly two projects in this class (aside from doing a practice set of dovetail joints), a picture frame and a box.  I'm not publishing the picture frame because it's very plain and uninteresting.

I made the box to fit the letter opener I finished in September.  The finger joints reminded me of masonry, so it's obviously inspired by West Asian architecture, particularly the palaces of Persepolis.

It consists of American or black walnut and soft maple.  Unfortunately, the walnut's color varied a lot through the plank.  For finishes I had a choice of boiled linseed oil, tung oil-based varnish or water-based polyurethane, but being short on time, I was forced to go with the polyurethane, so its finish is still a bit rough (the professor noted that polyurethane, in her words, "bubbles" a lot when brushed on; it requires repeated sanding to look good).

It has two brass-plated steel hinges.  Sadly, copper to match the letter opener's furniture seems to be unavailable.  I might try to fabricate my own in the future.  The letter opener and scabbard are supported by two inserts carved from rigid pink insulating foam and covered with epoxied polyester suede cloth.  A considerable amount of epoxy seeped through the cloth; clearly I should've found something with a non-porous back.

Because the box is so small and cut to fairly tight tolerances, it's feasible to have the upper insert rest on a pair of narrow shelves over the lower one so the box can be more compact.

This was a good class for learning the use of the major standing equipment and how to get the greatest precision in fit.  Most of the work is (if you do it correctly) done on the planer, table saw and routing table, machines with which I was totally unfamiliar before.  It also gave me a chance to get started on a handful of personal projects which I can finish up over the summer.