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I Forge Iron

new seax


Ed Steinkirchner

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this, like most of my projects, has been mocking from under the junk on my workbench for a while.
a small seax made from part of a T track from the carriage of an ols sawmill. very hard stuff! just to cut the top part of the T off took an hour to do 2 feet. i kept it pretty hard tempered, yellow/ bronze temper, but since it isn't too long that shouldn't be a problem. pretty rough all over for now, but i should be able to work on it over thanksgiving break week.
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the materials for the grip are antler, brass, and mahogany

Ed Steinkirchner

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the different materials should look good together, tha hardest part is getting a perfect fit between them. i tried to peen the tang once but the antler bolster split, so i glued it back together and noe i need to make a brass bolster to go before the antler. then peen and shape. then carve the wood and antler. and finally make the scabbard, and carve it. so the work has only begun. :rolleyes:

Ed Steinkirchner

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  • 2 weeks later...

here are the parts with the bolster fit and the pieces roughed out and ready to be riveted together.
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the gap between the blade and the bolster will be closed slightly before i peen the tang. the gap is there because the tang is slightly thicker than the blade, but i don't know of a better way to fix that this far through so i'll shrink on the bolster(ima gonna smak it witha hammer!)

Ed Steinkirchner

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Had to take pictures, so here it is assembled and shaped. still needs carved and sealed. also it isn't mahogany it is black walnut, i forgot what it was because it sat on my bench so long. :rolleyes: the peening should have been nicer but it was very cold in my shop at the time and the cold bolster cooled the tang faster than i anticipated, so i had to use a center punch to really get it set. oh well. any way the only thing left to figure out is what to carve into the antler, because ive already drawn up the wood part, that's it in the last pic.
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more to come
Ed Steinkirchner

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ive hit a kind of stupid snag on transferring my drawn pattern to the knife grip. i usually use carbon paper to do this but this wood is too dark for me to see the lines. does any one have any suggestions? i'll probably rub the back with white or silver pencil and trace it on that way. it is always small, trivial things that hold me up. :rolleyes:

Ed Steinkirchner

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thanks a lot! ill use a scribe. it is something like that, that i would not have thought of myself. glad i asked. work will be progressing and i'll post pics as i finish. maybe i'll even post a step by step progression of the steps. who knows? not me! that's for sure. :lol: thanks again Golgatha!

Ed Steinkirchner

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  • 2 months later...

it is almost finished and the tung oil is drying on it as i type this. but here are some pictures from the last post up to now.

the layout, done with a triangular copper awl(because that's AWL I had laying around!)
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the wood about 90 percent carved
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the antler and wood both carved and almost finished
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i am not going to checker the parts that I had originally intended to, the knife doesn't need it, and i don't really feel like forging a chisel for that(even though i will at some point anyway). regardless, i am very happy with it so far and it will be finished soon (probably).

Ed Steinkirchner

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  • 3 months later...

Finally the knife itself is (relatively) finished. The blade will be blackened after I get the scabbard made/ fit, so it wont get ruined during the process. Other than that, the brass needs the final polish put on when i get back to the shop. But besides those 2 things, i is done. I'm really happy how the carving turned out on this one.
Both sides are mirror images of each other, so no asymetry for a change. Also, this happens to be the first handle ive carved. Everything else was a scabbard I think.
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Now I just need to figure out what to do with the scabbard.
Thanks for the compliments, as well as the help!

Ed Steinkirchner

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