[Folkert van Wijk]

I am "affraid" the grip wouln't be wrapped.
"just" the material your looking at but then pollised like the guard and pommel...

I don't belief there is any evidence of wrapped grips on Celtic swords, so the specialist assume they where made of wood, boon, antler, bronse, iron and such or combinations offcourse, much like there Roman and Greek counterparts...

If anyone has an other idea about this, pleace feel free to parry , correct or to underscribe my post...

Still an interresting topic: When was the first evidence of leather wrapped grippes anyway????

[Shane Allee]

Hey everyone

Sorry for not keeping as up on this post as I should be. We've been heat treating katana blades all this week, and any free time I've been trying to work on designs.

Nate's sword blade is still awaiting final grinding, so it is still in the same state as the last picture along with the lenticular blade of mine. I'd hoped to get to final grinding his this week, but at this point I'm not sure. Might be next week...

The original walnut guards were not holding up to my expectations and were overshadowed by the buffalo horn grip, so I changed over to the all buffalo horn construction you see in the finished pics of the first incarnation of the sword. I did the buffalo horn the same way I would do wood though, the tang is peened over a small piece of wrought iron that serves as a rivet block.

The buffalo horn grip will be polished up to match the upper and lower guards, and Nate is planning at some point to add his own carved decorations. I'm looking forward to seeing this because I'm not quiet that talented nor brave.

I've been thinking about this for a few days, and I think I'm going to change my plan to do the falcata blades next. I've been rather stumped that there has been little interest in them, but there seems to be plenty in the various la tene blades. So it is looking more and more like it may either be some blades based on the la tene III double fullered spatha possibly with the crown styled guard plate, or maybe a couple double fullered wide dedicated cutters like the Port sword.

Thanks again everyone.
Shane

[Folkert van Wijk]

[Shane Allee]

I'd mentioned the falcata blades earlier in this thread back about March 28 I believe, as well as one or two other threads where Nate's la tene was discussed.

Anyone should be able to get ahold of me about like anyone else on the forums; email, PM, or pretty much any thread I'm posting in I keep and eye on. A website is in the works, not so much to sell swords, but to keep people updated on current projects and future ones. Thought about posting in the Makers forum, however Nate started this thread that seems to be serving the same purpose. Even wondered if this might get moved over to the other forum, but it hasn't yet.

What can I say about the katanas... Barrett was heat treating and one of them was my personal sword. An extra hand helping during the process is always useful, plus it gets pretty hard to do much else by the light of the forge. Another aspect is that I don't have to take one nearly as far along to make the same if not more money. In the japanese sword market there still remains the division of craftsmen, so it is expected from the customer to buy the blade in binsuido polish and move the project from there. Where most people expect to buy other types of swords finished. If I can learn a completely different art form and use it to fund research and development of other things I'm even more passionate about, I'd be crazy not too.

Shane

[Folkert van Wijk]

Thanks Shane.

You made your point.

I am looking forward to see more things Celtic being made.

Can you tell us more about the lenticular blade?
Date? Weight? etz.?

[Shane Allee]

The blade length for my lenticular is 27 3/4" currently, might change slightly when I adjust the shoulders for the hilt. The width is 1 11/16" at the base. Don't know the weight, but it will be light.

There is a fair amount of variation in the lenticular blades, but two more common groups stand out. The first are wide blades, on the shorter side with a good deal of profile taper in the last third of the blade. The other group are longer blades, from about the 27" mark up to 30 plus inches, and not much profile taper. The wide blades of course have a flatter lenticular shape and I would say on average are a thinner blade, although I have noticed some thicker ones. in my opinion these would have been more of the big butcher knives made to cut flesh. The longer blades seem to run a bit on the thicker side and you get the more fat lenticular shape. These I would image would pack a punch and seemed to be made for a particular purpose, maybe more of a shield buster or a way of dealing with increases in armour. I really need to translate more of Gournay, but it seems there was a transition over from the wider blade style to the longer ones. I want to say the wider blade fall in the la tene II and you start seeing the longer blades as the period ends, maybe Nate has some thoughs on the time period.

So how does my blade fit into this...*G* I could have shortened the blade, but I just didn't have the width to do the wide blades. Started looking at the longer ones and some of the shorter ones of the group still retained some profile taper. So I choose to base my profile taper on these blades. Guess you could say it falls somewhat between the two types, but there was enough examples that I give it a go.

At some point I do want to do at least one blade to represent each of the two types. People tend to overlook them today, but they were without a doubt a reason the celts used them. In the Land of Forgotten Blades, Rick has one that tempts me to make it into one of the long fat lenticular blades. Don't know what it was originally going to be, but it is long beafy and has the start of a lenticular tip. Guess I should ask about it one of these days.... Might be the fear from my arms just thinking about having to hold it up to roll the shape on the slack belt.

Anyway...

Shane

[Nathan Bell]

Hey guys,

Well, depending on how you look at it, I see about 4 types....

The first type, kind of broad but with a fairly swiftly tapering point, basically mimics the Late La Tene I/La Tene II(A) transitional type, just the cross section chnages from a strong diamond cross section or raised midrib to a lentoid, emphasizes the change and trend toward a bit more cut emphasis

....Then it seems like we begin to have a longer, slender type, a very classiuc La Tene II typewith a slow graceful profile taper that accelerates in the last third. These are usually quite slender, so I am guessing that the lentoid section is a bit thicker. Navarro is full of these...the pic below is this type, very similar taper style to both mine and Shane's blade, more are as slender as Shane's or more so. Some have sharp points and some don't

Then there seems to be a type that is broad, mainly parallel with a fairly broad point, can be blunt or sharp but broad. Seems that this is contemporary with the long slender La Tene II, but seems to be either same length or shorter. These seem to be a flatter cutting cross section, also see these with a flattened diamond, very slight "lazy" flattened diamond
an example being this one made for Steven Peffley recently.


The last type seems to be an evolution of one of the 2 La Tene II's. Either the broad mainly parallel type just kept getting longer, or the slender type got less and less taper and got broader....At any rate the broad lentoid with mainly parallell edges, short point seems to carry over into La Tene III and get both longer and broader...

Just what I seem to see happenig, sevceral choice options with the mighty lentoid.

[Folkert van Wijk]

Hm...
interesting these lenticulars.
Nathan Is this image from the Navarro book?
Can you tel me the sizes of these swords? These tangs are really long aren't they?
What kind of hilt's would suit these swords best?

Folkert.

[Kenneth Enroth]

[Steve Grisetti]

[Nathan Bell]

Hi guys,

The image of the longer, slender lenticulars is not from Navarro, it's from a basic general "survey" type book, so I do not have the stats on them. HOwever, Navarro has many, many swords like this in his book, I just don't have a scanner, and none of those photos scanned.

However, an overall length of these swords, around 85cm overall or a bit more or less hits the general size.

These are not hand-and-a-halfs. The relatively long-looking tang is typical for the several blade styles from La Tene II. As I stated somewhere else before (maybe higher up in this thread?), the general trend for La Tene swords was for the tang to lengthen gradually from La Tene I through to La Tene III. Navarro makes a point of this as an identifying feature(one of several) to distinguish between the time periods and does some numerical analysis in one of the appendices.

The tang lengthening trend continued into the late La Tenes, where you begin to see some with tang length even of 8-9". Now some of those, Steven Peffley speculates that those might be hand-and-a half (with bladelengths similar to later medieval hand and a halfs, up to 34-35 inches or so). I don't know whether they were hand and a halfs or not, I have my own opinions there.

My opinion on tang lengthening generally, is that the more the swords move away from a thrust emphasis, and toward more cut-and-thrust, to pure cutting, the longer the tangs seem to become...My opinion is this reflects a difference in fighting style, to allow for more variation in grip, and allow for holding the grip with the more extended "handshake" style rather than a locked "hammer" grip which is more condusive to thrusting. I also would speculate that the longer tangs indicate more shifting of the way the sword is held during use, "choking up, shifting back, etc generally modifying how one holds it during the cutting.

This last bit re: styles and grips is all purely my own speculation, take it for what you will The main point is that tangs demonstrably lengthened throughout the La Tene period.

[Nathan Bell]

I forgot to add,

Almost seems to obvious to say, but Shane's lentoid blade looks to be very similar in character to the slender, subtly tapering lentoids like the picture above. Shane's will be a little broader and flatter than I think those type were, but very similar to the picture from the "survey" book.

I got to handle Shane's blade, and it is going to be very nice, very fast and responsive, with a tons of cutting potential---almost like a "fencing blade" with the emphasis instead on quick desisive cuts. Well, it will also have a bit more power, so maybe not so much a fencing blade----but very quick, anyway



N

[Shane Allee]

I'm not sure how well it will hold up to forum traffic, but I have set up a website to keep people informed of what I'm working on and have plans to make. It is just a geocities site at the moment, but I may move it somewhere with better bandwidth.
http://www.geocities.com/shanealleeswords/

Shane

[Folkert van Wijk]

This is great Shane!
Good work
You will have me as a regular visitor.
Your bookmarked now!

Folkert.

[Shane Allee]

Thanks Folkert

Shane

[Nathan Bell]

It's here!

The sword is reborn and in my hands!!!!

http://www.ironagearmoury.com/natesfinishedsword1.jpg

http://www.ironagearmoury.com/natesfinishedsword2.jpg

Light, fast, agile...very nice blade. More in a few days.

[Steve Grisetti]

[Patrick Kelly]

Congrats Nathan. That's a beautiful sword!

[Aaron Schnatterly]

Outstanding piece!

Nice as the pics are, I'm sure it is really something in person!

[Shane Allee]

If anyone happens to make it to Roman Days this weekend, make sure to look out for Nate. He will be running around and should have this one on hand, most likely his Barta, and several other cool things. Just look for the loud looking barbarian guy with red hair.

Shane