Russ,
I really enjoyed the review you did of my Angus Trim ATD002 ,"The Shortsword/Dagger". I agree with you on all the points you made, it really is a fast and potentially nasty piece of steel. Please allow me to mention again my complete satisfaction with your work....as I have two scabbards from you with some time between their construction I must concur you are getting better and better at your craft. Hope to take on another project with you soon!

All the best,

Keith

It's been a little while since I've noted an update here. I've added a lot of reviews to my reviews sections but figured I'd hold off on announcing anymore of those until I get the entire backlog of them polished off. Then I'll note new reviews as I add them. Unfortunately there's still a lot of "coming soons" in the review section especially in respect to the A&A polearms.

However, this change I thought a little more noteworthy:

1) The removal of my plaque belts. Unfortunately the response to these was a bit underwhelming to say the least. I am not completely clear if it was the price that drove people away, some ahistorical aspect of the construction that I am not aware of, or what but they were simply not a volume seller. Also as it turns out they are practically impossible to find a good source of. My supplier basically told me that I was not ordering in enough volume to make it worth their while to produce them, so I found myself in a catch 22 situation. There was no availability because sales were low and sales were low because of the lack of availability. I finally just gave it up as a bad job.

2) The addition of a belt mounts section here:

http://www.tritonworks.com/belt_mounts

I've actually offered these for a while, however I did not specifically reference them on the site they were just visible in a few example pictures. I thought I would remedy that sitation. The high end bronze ones are still going to be for the serious buyer only as they are quite pricey but the pewter ones are well within reach of any customer. Hopefully a bunch of folks will consider these when they start thinking about the suspension that goes with their new Tritonworks scabbard. It's a nice way to dress things up a bit and give them that extra flair!

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Russ,
The mounts are quite attractive. I like the graph paper-like background for the bronze mounts--it helps convey size and scale.

Best,
Jonathan

Well I haven't really posted a link to a review here in a while, in fact I was hoping to get all of the ones I had pending done before I posted about them anymore, but someone was asking about the 12th century sword and was unaware that I even had reviews on my site so I thought it wouldn't hurt to put it out there as a community resource again. Here is the latest review and some pictures that I have put up:

Albion Constable:
http://www.tritonworks.com/reviews?content=re..._constable

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The main reviews section is here: http://www.tritonworks.com/reviews

As noted in the other post my reviews aren't nearly as rigorous as those that you will find on this site, (and the pictures aren't nearly as good) however I hope that in some small way they are of service to the community.

Well, it's been since like October since I posted an update to this thread, so I thought putting a few things up might be fun. It seems I've done a lot of fantasy type stuff lately...

A Jody Samson piece:
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This one was fun, with it's leaf shaped blade, the runic inscription etc.

Then there was a Tinker saber:
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A CF Ranger sword
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As ever reviews for all of these swords are available in my reviews sections...

All in all some sort of fun different pieces to do. It looks like for the next stretch I'll be doing a mass of early medieval blades... that's good too! I need to update some of my other sections.

Russ,
Great work as always. Have you made a scabbard for a Albion Valkyrja yet? If not do you have an idea of what you would like to do for one.

Hey Nick,

Thanks for the kind words! No I've yet to handle that particular Albion piece, and to be honest I haven't thought about it much. Oddly I often have no idea what I'm going to do with a sword until I have it in hand, sometimes they sort of decide for themselves what sort of scabbard they are going to have if that makes any sense... Sometimes I have to do some fast talking to get the customer to go along, but they are almost invariably pleased...

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Okay, I'm pretty excited about this latest development!

Sam Haverkamp and I are trying to do a little work that complements each other a bit. If you've been around here a bit you might have noted some of Sam's phenomenal work on various shields and parade armor. I can't say that I still understand all the details of how he does it, but I can say that it's magnificent! One thing lead to another and we've agreed to try to do some collaborations for any customers that might be interested. We've already got a scabbard for a Doge in the pipeline and in the meantime Sam has been working on his wax carving skills etc. I've added a page to my website for chapes and lockets and it's featuring some of Sam's work. These were sort of his trial pieces. As we complete projects I'll add pictures to show just what Sam is capable of.

Anyway, wander over and take a look when you have a chance, it might give you some ideas about what you want to do with your next Tritonworks scabbard!

http://www.tritonworks.com/chapes_and_lockets

Had a look and the chapes and lockets look really great. :D :cool:

Doge scabbard ! Probably the one before ME in the production cue........ but, I guess mine is getting closer with every project you finish. ;) :p :lol:

Russ,
Ok Im blushing a little. As I was sculpting a detail last night at 3:00 am, I was thinking, what in the heck am I doing? I have a normal career that Ive been at for 20 plus years and feel fairly fulfilled at. I can always use some extra income, but the time it takes it really doesnt pencil out. Still I sculpt and pound the metal, all the while smiling like some giddy school age kid at his favorite hobby up waaaay past his bedtime.
I really do aspire to do my best work for the folks out there, more importantly for myself....
I will mention that Im not charging much, so if you want custom made details for around $100 each and you have a scabbard in Russ's que or thinking about one give him a hollar.
Happy Fathers Day to all the Dads out there!
Sam

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Well this one I thought was reasonably unique and so thought that you all might like to see it...

Okay so here we are a fairly standard although unusually shaped scabbard...

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One unsheathed...

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Then for the crazy stuff:

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This is a second scabbard for the sword... and that's the sword IN the scabbard. The customer wanted something to wear at ren faires where he could show off the blade and yet still keep people from cutting themselves on it. This is what I came up with...

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All in all a most interesting project that I really enjoyed!

Hmmmmm: Yes that is " different " ..... :lol: But still an interesting way to do something unconventional. ;) :cool:

Even more " unconventional " ( In for a penny, in for a pound ) would be a transparent lexan scabbard ! All lexan or just the back !? One could make a leather " overscabbard " sock maybe that could cover the lexan one for a more conventional appearance ? Just some of my " weird " ideas. :D

I'm always trying to add options for our customers...

Here at Tritonworks we are pleased to announce two new options for our Trident Line Scabbards. From now on our customers will be able to select hand tooling and hand dying as options for their scabbards.

I've been toying with the idea of trying this out for a long time. Recently I read a book called "Knives and Scabbards" which is basically an archeological review of knife and scissor scabbard discovered in various locales along the London waterfront. There were many pictures in there that detailed the huge amount of hand tooling that was typically part of many knife scabbards in period. I then went on to read "SHEATHS & SCABBARDS IN ENGLAND AD400-1100" and determined that tooling for sword scabbards in this period was similar. Combine those two promptings with the pictures I've been looking at of period scabbards and I knew that I was going to have to start doing it. Consequently I made the capital purchase of some significant amounts of leather working tools in addition to the awls, needles and thread that I have used up to this point, and started experimenting a bit.

Additionally to this point I had resisted dying my own stuff. It's messy, it's a hassle and machine dyed and finished leather can be purchased for roughly the same prices as the natural stuff. However, hand tooling is best done on undyed leather it seems and so the dying naturally had to follow. When I was done I discovered that the hand dyed product looked in many ways much like the period pieces I'd seen rather then the often more uniformly colored and finished machine dyed products I'd been using. I guess that only makes sense after all... :)

Anyway, here is the first piece I've done using these methods, hopefully this is only the first of many such projects...



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That turned out very nicely. I agree that the less uniform dye job gives it a more period feel.