Another 'Helmes' Sword in the Works -- myArmoury.com

J.D. Crawford · Posted: Sun 13 May, 2012 3:08 pm Post subject:

You're all right of course, might as well do it right and have something to be proud of.

I'm quite happy with the advice and decision. The original intent was to keep the budget down and sell a couple of swords to raise the funds, but I ended up selling 3 (some of you know what I mean) so there were funds left over anyway.

Now we have to wait a bit more...at least until the silver arrives in Jeff's hands.

Luka Borscak · Posted: Sun 13 May, 2012 3:26 pm Post subject:

Buahahaha, we are so cruel. Happy

But the sword will be glorious. Wink

Robin Smith · Posted: Sun 13 May, 2012 6:08 pm Post subject:

Tim Lison · Posted: Sun 13 May, 2012 11:35 pm Post subject:

Good choice on the inlay. It's the right thing to do! Oh, and we're not being cruel. If we were being cruel we would have recommended doing gold inlay! Wink

J.D. Crawford · Posted: Mon 14 May, 2012 6:14 am Post subject:

So it goes. In the mean time, I wonder about the meaning of the inscription: + NEDEHER EWEDENI + +

This does not appear to be Latin or any easily recognizeable religeous invocation. I did a bit of research and came to these partially-formed ideas:

NEDEHER
- could be an acronym
- the semi-repetitive NE DE RE is reminiscent of some repetitive medieval sword inscriptions like ANTANT or TOTO
- similar to German NEHER (middle) or Jewish NEDER (sort of a religious vow).
- a google search reveals several current latin surnames with this spelling so it could be a proper name

EWEDENI
- sounds to me like a proper name, something like Edwin
- similar to Nigernian proper name Ewedemi
- contains most letters of 'Sweden', but seems unlikely that S would be missing.
- similar to a Czech word for seduction (again seems rather unlikely).

Either could be a mis-spelling like on older swords, although one might think 14th century artisans to be more literate

If anyone has insights into this phrase, I would be very interested to hear about it.

-JD

J.D. Crawford · Posted: Mon 14 May, 2012 7:55 am Post subject:

Stop the press, I just translated the description from the Cluny display (its one of the pictures on the Vikverir site). Here's what it says in French:

"Epee
Oakeshott XVI
Cette epee, munie d'une lame a gorge etroit et a pointe vive, est efficace aussi bien de taille que d'estoc, surtout lor de combats engages au fer.
Europe de l'Ouest XIV Siecle
Alliage ferreux, cuivre, or"

Which I translate as (francophones help me out here):

"Sword
Oakeshott XVI
This sword, with a narrow fuller and lively balance, is effective both in cutting and thrusting, and specialized for fighting against metal armour.
Western Europe XIV Century
Ferrous alloy, copper, gold"

(My italics)

First, not silver, but copper and gold. (A Kingly sword!). I can't do gold, but maybe we should use copper and/or some other gold substitute rather than silver. I need to confer with Jeff about this.

Second they call it an XVI. This implies a diamond shaped ridge toward the tip. I cannot see this from the photos. It looks like the blade is quite flat at the end of the fuller. However, it might be reenforced for thrusting near the tip. Or maybe they called it XVI just because its quite pointy toward the tip. One would need to see a close-up to be sure.

-JD

Jeremy V. Krause · Posted: Mon 14 May, 2012 9:43 am Post subject:

J.D. Crawford · Posted: Mon 14 May, 2012 1:31 pm Post subject:

So, slight change of plans. We're going to go with bronze inlay. Not to save money (other than gold, material is not the major expense here), but rather to capture the visual essence of the 'copper and gold' mentioned in the Cluny exhibit. Also, I'm sure silver would be very elegant, but I want the letters to 'pop' for the eye. We'll see how it works out.

Luka Borscak · Posted: Mon 14 May, 2012 3:18 pm Post subject:

Bronze will look great. Pure copper would also look very good I think but I don't know if pure copper inlays were used on blades...

Robin Smith · Posted: Mon 14 May, 2012 3:56 pm Post subject:

What about Brass/Latten? I know you don't wanna have to keep making changes, but brass/latten is very appropriate for inlays in this period and will look quite similar.

J.D. Crawford · Posted: Mon 14 May, 2012 4:58 pm Post subject:

All good ideas folks, but I don't want to jerk Jeff around anymore. I think he would have preferred silver, but I was influenced by the Cluny museum description and out the 'yellow metal' choices he likes working with bronze, so there you go.

No scholarly thoughts on the meaning of the inscription?

Robin Smith · Posted: Mon 14 May, 2012 6:52 pm Post subject:

Jeff is gonna come in this thread and tell us to pipe down, we're making his job harder. Eek!

With the price of gold these days, that inlay would have cost more than the rest of the sword...

J.D. Crawford · Posted: Tue 15 May, 2012 5:27 pm Post subject: While others talk, Helmes does...

"Here is a pic of the pre-heat treat rough grind. It is slightly wider and thicker than the finished blade will be but it is close."

J.D. Crawford · Posted: Thu 17 May, 2012 9:42 am Post subject:

Now Jeff has finished the rough grind and has marked in guidelines for the cutting the letters.

Jeremy V. Krause · Posted: Thu 17 May, 2012 12:28 pm Post subject:

This is SO awesome!! Eek!

Robin Smith · Posted: Thu 17 May, 2012 3:07 pm Post subject:

Thats gonna look awesome...

J.D. Crawford · Posted: Thu 17 May, 2012 3:24 pm Post subject:

I could say I'm looking forward to seeing the actual inlay, but that would be understatement of the year! Thanks guys for convincing me to do this! (Or more accurately, fund this, I'm just sitting on a chair watching like the rest of you).

Robin Smith · Posted: Thu 17 May, 2012 3:27 pm Post subject:

Luka Borscak · Posted: Thu 17 May, 2012 3:45 pm Post subject:

It's really going to be great. I'm used to inlays on earlier blades but I really like the combination of this blade and inlay.