Condor Tactana?

So here is yet another installment on a 'Tactana' thread. Pictures show the handle with the one side off and folded back so you can see the new holes in the tang. That took off over 2.5 oz of steel but only moved the POB 1/4" farther down the blade. Much better feel - lighter in hand and still very fast. That brings the sword to 33 oz. The tang was very soft but by the time we were grinding out the top of the second hole the steel chips were coming off blue and not coming off very easily at all. The guy who was helping me said that should mean mid to high 50's Rockwell from his experience but he doesn't have that much experience really so who knows. Any off the cuff ways to guess how hard something is? you can see the heat treat coming off the blade into the tang in the pictures.

crimson - the saya is coming nicely also. Once I get the sword fitted to it a bit better I'll post pics. I probably should have started my own thread on this but for what this really is, a bad sword turned OK, I guess it's OK. I am starting to like it a lot. I took a 3'x4" piece of basswood and put 1 micro paste on it so I could strop it a little. Long very light strokes just to buff the edge a little. 1 session so far and very scary sharp.

So just to get back to the OP - terrible sword as is but great project sword if you have lots of time on your hands.

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OK now you all know I hallucinate a bit and that I'm delusional, right? That's why we get alone. Anyway I was polishing the sword with 1 micro paste and noticed that it appears to have brought out a harmon!?!!?? Now all I can figure is that they must have done the shaping on annealed steel and then did the HT so the thin edge did in fact cool much faster than the spine, that being 5 mm thick. So it's not a wavy cool harmon but it definitely 'tings' like glass when you tap it and the back does feel a lot softer to file. And it probably isn't the right difference front to back top to bottom etc etc but it looks quite cool. I'm liking this more all the time. I can't wait to see what the .5 and .25 micro paste do to it. And by the way, that board in the back ground is my 'strop'. That's when I noticed the harmon while stropping it. And no it's not fine scrap marks it's a difference in the steel. At this level of polish it's like an iridescence and can only be seen in the right light at the right angle. A bluish haze. A haze of death ...... OK - just the Tourette's acting up with all this excitement. So what do you think it really is?
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It works great as a machete, and is balanced enough to work as a fighting implement should zombies take over. ;)


Speaking of zombies, I did, yes, I resurrected the thread
 
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