uddha sword breakdown (adding a gaurd)

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first pic is ov the gaurd in place waiting to be epoxied into place. the laha was/scale or whatever the black layer was was mostly ground off, and the antler was ground clean of the majority of laha.

doing so made the scales a little uneven (the gaps were filled with laha initially), so those gaps were filled with epoxy. at the second photo, the edge of the tang is complete covered in epoxy, making a soft round bump over the entire exposed tang. this will be sanded flat, ensuring that there are no gaps, and that there wont be any edges from the tang or from the scales if they were set a little off (and i know there were off by just a touch).

the pins are made of 2 long brass studs (or whatever they are called when there that long). because the antler is softer then the brass threading, it had a self tapping effect when you turned the studs into the handles, so that it basically screwed the handle slabs together when i inserted them. (one more thing to hold it together if the epoxy fails).

the second to last step will be making new wood fillers for the brass bolster ring, and then once that is fit in and epoxied, its just sanding everything smooth - and im done :)


of course, that is if i dont end up filling the etching with brass wire *epoxied in place* and then sanding it smooth once filled...



(in the second photo it appears as though the gaurd hole is missing some epoxy, that was filled several times in the drying process with more epoxy, its not a small mount that i'll sand/file down to flat when it cures fully.)
 
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the two wood fillers for the bolsters waiting to be put on. the one on the right was remade since the original broke and i lost 2 of the peices. its made of a turning block of cherry wood i've had lying around for a year or two. the epoxy dust was cleaned off before they were put on.

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and here is the bolster wrapped up slathered in epoxy. it looks like its lifted off the tang on the left hand side of the image where your index finger would rest, but thats more a trick of the epoxy bending light then it is actually out of place.

once i got to this point i realized that without brazing it, it was going to be difficult no matter what i did to get the bronze bolster ring on, being that i had to have epoxy under it. if i were brazing, i could heat it up and hammer it into shape and then braze the edge, but with the glue underneath, hammering it into place would be ultimate messy and not worth it. so instead i just put bronze wire around it, gripping it with a large pair of pliers to make it form to shape, then tightening the wire around it till it was about as tight as it was going to get.

the epoxy will be coming all of the wires, but i'll be sanding those off along with the epoxy thats on the outside of the bolster, possibly tommorow, or within the next few days. i'd kind of like to finish this this weekend, since i start a 8-5 job monday, and i dont want to be using the dremel after 5pm.

i think it will turn out nicely.


it probably looks on in those pictures - i have it stabbed through the top of a box thats about the same length as the sword, so the tip doesnt rest on the floor, but its still in a standing position to set.
 
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in an odd way (and when you look at them together it really doesnt show), it reminds me of the grosse messer. but not really....

with the gaurd on it makes it a touch bit more blade heavy, but i can also let the gaurd set firmly on the top of my hand, it becomes an entirely new blade.

now its a fully functional chopping tool, that actually feels very good in the hand. i would say that the patang is close, but i'd probably go with this for actual work.

may not be the case when i get my special patang....


so this is the final product. im not going to try to make it look beautiful by polishing the gaurd, and im pretty sure im going to leave the handle just like it is. the handle could actually probably use some thinning out, as it is very large in circumfrance, but until i actually use it i'll leave it as is.

the gaurd on the patang is what it was modeled after, and it turned out looking rather different, but also better for that knife then the original.


edited to add - the one flaw in it is that the gaurd set tilted. it iether rested flat, or tilted, and i guess it got bumped into the tilted position while drying. you dont notice it at all in hand as it is very slight, only 3 degrees or so, but if you look at it dead on you can tell
 
I guess I never realized how big they were....looks like I will have to get one afterall.

Nice job on the project. :thumbup:
 
Skyler R. said:
I guess I never realized how big they were....looks like I will have to get one afterall.

Nice job on the project. :thumbup:
Click to expand...


me too, i have never seen it in a hand before, always thought of it as a big dagger til now. it really looks like a khyber knife when you see someone holding it. i'll need to keep my eye out for one. nice project result.
 
A very interesting and informative project, thank you very much for posting it. :thumbup:
Regards,
Greg
 
You the man Seth! :thumbup: :cool: I would love it if this inspired Bura or Sher to try one of their own.

What was it Uncle Bill used to say? You could start right now at BirGhorka for wages and all the rice you could eat. :D

Regards,

Norm
 
Kudoes to you Seth!:thumbup: It looks a lot better than I imagined it would although I'm really not sure what I imagined.;) :D :cool:
 
Looks to me, Seth - that you saw what was needed, looks like it was born like that :thumbup: :thumbup:

"Full steam ahead and damn the torpedos"
 
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