Well, here is my first finished sword, a Newstead spatha with a mammoth ivory handle. The handle is the A25 in Miks, the blade is A526. Pommelnut is copper alloy. Scabbard to be made by the person who commissioned it.
The handle was carved by Monica Tielens of Bikkel en Been http://www.bikkelenbeen.com, she also found the top quality mammoth ivory to make it from.
I hope to now be posting different types of swords in the future, next in line is a republican Fontilet spatha, which could also be classed as a Hispaniensis.
As far as I know, this has not been bleached, it is this color through and through. I saw the rough pieces she had. But like I said, she looked for top quality .... and found it
Some of the ivory from frozen Siberian mammoths is not brown. The brown stuff is near fossilized, as much of the original material has been replaced by other chemicals during its long stay in the earth. At least that's what I heard/read somewhere. Same sort of thing eventually happens to wood left underwater--like the wood pilings in Venice.
That is very, very nice indeed, Robert! Congratulations; I hope you are pleased with your efforts (and Monica's).
Moi Watson
Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, Merlot in one hand, Cigar in the other; body thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and screaming "WOO HOO, what a ride!
Ave,
What a GREAT job!!!!!!!!!! I hope mine turns out that well. Any idea what sort of Vaginae (Scabbard) you are going to make? Keep up the TERRIFIC work.
Best wishes,Salve,
Vitruvius......aka Larry Mager
Excellent work. A real beauty. It looks like the actual word on its first day after production during the Roman period. Not modern AT ALL.
You can see the piece is not bleached and not every piece of mammoth ivory is dark. In fact it completely depends on how it was found and what part was used of the tusk.
One of the best cavalry spatha reproductions I have ever seen.
"You have to laugh at life or else what are you going to laugh at?" (Joseph Rosen)
Excellent work. A real beauty. It looks like the actual word on its first day after production during the Roman period. Not modern AT ALL.
You can see the piece is not bleached and not every piece of mammoth ivory is dark. In fact it completely depends on how it was found and what part was used of the tusk.
One of the best cavalry spatha reproductions I have ever seen.
"You have to laugh at life or else what are you going to laugh at?" (Joseph Rosen)
Thanks, all. It did turn out rather well :-). Doing the rhomboid was my main worry and then the peening of the tang over the ivory.
Mammoth ivory is mainly found on the vast tundras of Siberia, there is an active search for it these days and prices are rising rapidly for the top grade material due to demand from China and Japan.
@Patrick Much depends on what kind of blade you want. Difficult to give a ballpark figure. Blade of this one was € 375, but a reticular cross section blade would have been less, as that is less difficult to make. Then there is the bladetype itself. A late Roman Esjbol has about dubble the amount of steel of a Newstead. The handle material and design also makes a lot of difference for the end total. As you can imagine, the handle on this one was significantly more then the blade itself.
Beautiful job Robert. I was thinking of doing some ivory hilt hardware but mine would be made by making faux ivory from polymer clay. The real thing of mammoth ivory must be quite costly mate. Really nice piece of work you have there. Well done!
Did some searches and it is really quite expensive. But then any ivory is expensive as it's getting rarer and rarer. If I were a nosy person I would ask Robert how much he paid for that ivory but lord knows I wouldn't be nosy ;-)
Thanks for the kind words and I just sent you a PM with the answer to your nosy question.
@Doc You are right about the look, which was created by handsanding the blade after first running it on the large sandstone which runs in water. It is a tedious proces, but it gets a really great and very authentic finish. The blade is sharp, as are all my blades, but may be blunted by sandpaper glued to a piece of steel. I do my blades sharp because of the balance, a very blunt edge can increase the weight of the sword by as much as 30 %. This blade not only looks nice, it also is a very servicable tool.
Thanks Robert, my curiosity was getting the better of me lol. I checked Monica's site out. They really do a lot of interesting lines. Fantastic quality.
