Hello all
My name is Leonardo and I am bladesmith from Argentina. Several months ago I started to invest some time in putting together a more or less complete late roman equipment.
Therefore I have been reading, on a daily basis, lots and lots of interesting posts by the people of this wonderful forum.
At the same time I started towork in some items, always finding definitive information about everything that I had finished wrongly just the day before...
Not everything I made was exactly placed or dated exactly at the same point in history, my goal was mostly to gather together things I liked.
No more excuses, firstly the sword, an octagonal blade with a illerup based style hilt and scabbard.
The hilt is made from a tropical wood, ebony grip and two rings at the tips of the grip. Not exactly the historical style. I have also made a guard plate which I believe is not present in late spathae but only in gladii. The bronze was cast by myself because I was tired of the greenish yellow of brass. So it is tin copper alloyed.
The octagonal blade is the only thing I really tried to keep strictly historical. I believ mostspathae of that time seeming diamond cross section are actually eroded octagonal.
The scabbard is another mix of things but the only thing pissing me off is the section, I have noticed the section of everything in those times is often more in the double arc than oval. This is oval.
I put some care into obtain a good polish, I believe there is safe to consider that most blades were perfectly polished.
In order to keep this project into the hobbie limits the blade is not pattern welded but aisi5160.
But , wanting some pattern welded, I made several knives of the long hilted variety. Again with my own bronze and two with pattern welded blades.
The handles are kept more or less unfinished until I pin the style, which could be never. In the meantime I sold the ebony one and kept the maple hilted one . The pattern on that looks nice.
The nightmare was the shield. I ended doing two. One with a moderately hard wood, similar to ash. Leather cover (one big piece of leather). Both made using dura and nydam models. But soon I found that it was not so simple.
I am aware about the flat vs convex controversy and I was convinced of the convex theory. I started with a convex one. Bought thick planks and carved the pieces. It was quite obvious that the leather will affect the convexity shrinking with time. Therefore I backed the plank with linen glued with lots of polyester resin. At no avail. Once the leather was on the face I inmediately noticed it twisted and flattened the shield. A day after it was so distorted that I needed to add a bar instead a handle.
I am still fighting the thing , testing different construction methods in order to understand how it could be made. but i am convinced that it was not simple and the final shape is greatly determined by the covering. May be thats the reason why most shields are found flat. Long story and many different aspects, I 'll try to share it later. By now some pictures of the ordeal
The shield is no longer red. I found that the material I used to prepare the leather surfacefor painting was weak and I had to sand everything. The blank is now white. The umbo is raised from iron 1.6 mm thick, ended one mm thick after polishing and it has a brass edge.
But not satisfied with it I made another one , this time flat and simpler with a lighter wood ( very good and dense pawlonia , near to a good poplar) linen front, and ash handle bar. Againglues and paints weren't what I expected. The definitive cover was around the fourth one. Quite a mess. This time thicker leather for the rim and a two mm hot forged steel umbo with brass rivets. Paint with the notitia dignitatum for decima gemina.
Both planks were extensively shaved and sanded under the summer sun and some 37 celsius so i am somewhat proud of just to have survived the experience.
They are 12 mm thick at the centre, tapering to some eightnear the rim. The leather weights six kg , the flatter weighs less than five. Thick umbo, light plank, the thing handles nicely. But it is so delicate that it needed two frames to keep it straight because the linen distorts it. Since this flat shield is actually very little curved the linen , when shrinking, tries to flatten it at the borders. The conclusion I found is that if you really want the materials actually working for strenghteninh the structure you have to know exactly how to keep them in balance. Surely making blanks for shields was not a simple task, it had to be a complete craft made by experienced people who knew how to deal with moisture, wood and glues. And that means that hastily and badly made shields probably existed too, like the examples from Dura.
In fact my work with shields is far from finished even when I consider the second one completed. ( it had some more details painted after tje pictures)
I also made a baldric and a belt . The belt again is made from my own recipe for bronze and a very long leather strap used for horse saddles here. The baldric was made after a well know example. But the round original element was replaced with another style.
I grossly understimated the complexity of the tunic. I have comissioned one ( in the pinture) with the tight ly tailored style I am no longer convinced is correct. Then comissioned another one and again missed the measures. I am working in the design of the third. And this is the pattern for the third, but again i found some mistakes.
Thats all for now. I really apreciate the opinions of everyone here and I can almost hear those of the most vocals members, whom I was reading in past discussios every day for the last three months.
Thanks in advance.
Hi Leonardo and welcome to the forum! Your work is truly excellent and in addition you have chosen also the right roman period! One notification, though. The spatha blade and the handle construction are typical for a 3th c. CE sword but the scabbard belongs more to the 5th c. CE. (according to Christian Miks`"Schwertbewaffnung in der Kaiserzeit"). Did find one example of this kind of scabbard chape from the late 4th c. CE; though (Wiesbaden-Mainz-Kostheim spatha).
Thanks to everyone.
Virilis: you did notice the chape!
Yes,its later. Also the general shape of the scabbard is later, like five centuries later...
The entire concept of tanned and died leather analogous to the type we see on contemporary shoes is, I suspect, wrong. The fact that sometimes it seemes there was no leather at all points me to this type of untanned thin leather
As I said before it is evident that the cross section of the scabbards is different from later, more familiar to us, medieval ones.
And yes, the polishing takes some days. Putting three ridges into just three cm requires very precise handling. It can be accomplished only by waterstones. I strongly believe that the original ones were polished in big wheels of the type we see by first time in carolingian documents. Otherwise they had to be polished in a similarway to the nihonto.
[attachment=8843]us6.jpg[/attachment]
The only early reference we have to thevlook of pattern welded steel also suggest this kind of polish.
Returning to the leather question , I am more of the idea of an analogous system to the shield, thin untanned leather and paint. I have made a gladius with that method, this is a pic unfinished
[attachment=8838]tosco1.jpg[/attachment]
One notification, though. The spatha blade and the handle construction are typical for a 3th c. CE sword but the scabbard belongs more to the 5th c. CE. (according to Christian Miks`"Schwertbewaffnung in der Kaiserzeit"). Did find one example of this kind of scabbard chape from the late 4th c. CE; though (Wiesbaden-Mainz-Kostheim spatha).
![[Image: fectio.png]](http://s226.photobucket.com/user/sattuviitana/media/fectio.png.html)
