9 Comments

Spring steel is an excellent material for spears and that walnut handle is delicious.

In some traditions (according to Fathermouth's side of the family) giving another man a knife as a gift will fate them to eventually betray you, so you sell it to them for a token sum like a penny.

Make of that what you will.

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deletedDec 22, 2022·edited Dec 22, 2022
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A hug was sufficient... although I give away a lot of knives, so maybe I should be worried.

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Thank you :) I am super happy with that walnut as well. I didn’t catch it in the pictures, but there is a lighter splash of grain going through the top by the head. That’s why the end seems so much lighter, it actually is lighter not just just catching a glare. The other protoshaft shares the pattern of course, so the twin spear will look like they go together like Voltron or something. We will have to plan that when one of us does the other one gets the spears reunited. :D

Noted on the betrayal... perhaps I can count the spring as payment. Or he can give me a slightly better deal on changing oil :)

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Good work. I have a Seax I'm slowly working on inlaying twisted copper and silver wire myself. 1084 is hell on gravers.

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Thanks!

How are you doing the inlaying? I was kind of putzing around with getting copper into the test runes later. I found that pounding wire into the grooves doesn't work well, and while melting the copper into the runes does work (filed/grind off the extra till it is flush with the steel) that sort of jacks up the temper of a high carbon blade, and I imagine popping it into the quench afterwards won't be great. I didn't try that though, so who knows...

Anyway, how does inlaying work? Any good tutorials you know of?

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Dec 26, 2022·edited Dec 26, 2022Liked by Doctor Hammer

You have to undercut your grooves. Cut them before quenching, undercut, then trying to make a channel that's wider at the bottom than the top, then quench, temper, and hammer the wire into the channel.

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Hmmmm sounds tricky, but I think I can see how that would be done. Thanks for the guidance! I look forward to seeing the results of your labors as well.

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If I could add pictures I'd show you one or two of my test strips. To get a chevron pattern like on Beagnoth's Seax you do two opposing twists into the same channel.

I come into the grooves sideways with a very steep graver to make the angled bottom of the channel if that makes sense. May post a small tutorial on my substack if I get some time

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Wonderful, thank you so much!

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