Broad Seax

I finally finished the blade I've been working on this winter.

It's a broad seax - a style of knife from the dark ages common in continental Europe.  Mine is fairly historical in it larger features, but it's decorations are mostly pulled from my addled imagination so I guess this should be labeled a 'fantasy' seax ( a seax fantasy?).

The blade is 11" long, made from 1075 carbon steel.  It's quite thick (1/4" at the spine) right up until the curve of the tip.  I've inlaid two decorative lines of Nu Gold on both sides.

The handle is 7" long and the wood is caramelized, stabilized maple.  I sanded it to the profile of the two end caps, and then laid out  series of 3/16" deep saw cuts around the handle which I rounded into the ribbed pattern.  The front & back end caps (ferules) are bronze castings I carved a ways back in my casting class and haven't had a chance to use yet.  I carved the wood very carefully so it goes up inside both ferules quite tightly.  I epoxy everything together, but my goal is make everything nice and snug so the epoxy is really more of a sealer, and the real structural strength of the knife comes from the mechanics of how it fits together.  The tang of the blade is very thick and goes all the way through the handle where it is peened over to hold all the parts together tightly.

The sheath is fairly historical in most respects, but the embossing on the leather is purely stuff that just came to me.  Lots of tangled vines, a wolf/hound doing something to a deer, moon-phases, women's faces and a skull all are mixed up in it.

This blade has no name.  Funny how some of them seem to spawn name right away, and some never do.

The next project is another seax someone commissioned from me.  The blade is done, but it will be a while in the works I suspect.