Bevy of bush swords

Storm Crow

Storm Crow

Joined
Apr 12, 2006
Messages
2,506
Some bush swords recently finished up and off to their new owners.

All are 80CrV2 steel with marine epoxy-impregnated cord wraps and Boltaron sheaths.

About a 13 1/2" blade, based on a wooden Filipino training sword the customer already had. Black on black wrap.

bushsword05 by James Helm, on Flickr

bushsword06 by James Helm, on Flickr

This one is about a 16" blade. It was made for an old schoolmate of mine, one grade ahead but who was in several classes with me in high school. Olive drab on OD wrap, tan Boltaron.

I had made it almost 36 years without any stitches. As I was re-sheathing it from taking these pics, the sheath slipped and I cut the ever-lovin' crap out of the thumb on my dominant hand, earning 10 stitches. I tweaked the sheath to be a smidge looser before mailing it to him. :) Sure has made it challenging to get ready for the Blade Show.

bushsword03 by James Helm, on Flickr

bushsword04 by James Helm, on Flickr

And finally, a two-hander with an 18" blade and a hemp cord wrap. Wasn't sure about it, but by the time I finished up, I really liked it. Fast and powerful!

bushsword01 by James Helm, on Flickr

bushsword02 by James Helm, on Flickr
 
Nice work, as usual, and the 2-hander is definitely doing the Wasteland Vibe. Too bad about the hand, it's never a good time for stitches. I can almost picture you with the hammer taped to your forearm, with a Blade Show or Bust t-shirt.
 
Mayhap you've created a battle blade of legend , born hungry for blood !

You should be able to charge double for that . ;)
 
Very cool! well done, how do they pull from the sheaths? looks like towards the tip as the blade widens it would have to wedge itself out of the thinner section? or is this an eye twister?
 
Maineiac1 said:
Very cool! well done, how do they pull from the sheaths? looks like towards the tip as the blade widens it would have to wedge itself out of the thinner section? or is this an eye twister?
Click to expand...

It does make sheath-building interesting. For blades that widen a lot toward the end like cleaver blades, I'll usually make them open-backed. For ones like the ones in this thread, I might have to do a little tweaking with a heat gun, but the Kydex/Boltaron flexes well enough to sheathe and unsheathe easily. The one that bit my thumb needed a little more tweaking as it was still too tight.

Here's an open-backed carcass splitter sheath:

carcasssplitter04 by James Helm, on Flickr

This double-edged hybrid cleaver demanded a split sheath to be able to safely unsheathe it.

bladeshow13 by James Helm, on Flickr

bladeshow12 by James Helm, on Flickr
 
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