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This is my second rapier, which I got from Neil Burridge (from Bronze
Age Craft). This rapier you can get by participating in one
of his rapier courses.
The blade
Original
| Found: UK
Age: middle bronze age |
Finishing
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Here's the blade as I got it from Neil. |
Finished blade
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And here is the blade after finishing it. This I did using modern tools. I adjusted the angle of the point, which brings it closer to the original rapiers. I also drilled out the rivet holes, as these rapiers had fairly large rivets. The blade was then cleaned up and polished, and is ready for hilting. |
The hilt & rivets
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On this rapier I decided to make the hilt from ash wood. I still had a piece of ash that had been seasoned for 2 years, which has given the wood a nice light brown coloring. I'm using the same wood on my third Ewart Park sword, so they'll make a nice matching pair. The shape of the hilt is based on the wood hilted rapier from the museum in dublin (see my first rapier) and the bronze hilted rapier from Ambleside. The rivets I took from a bronze rod I've cast earlier. |
Finished rapier
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| And the rapier is finished! The blade has a little bit of play in the hilt, due to the slot not being an exact fit, and the rivets having a little bit of play in the holes. There is also not a lot of wood surrounding the blade, so even the slightest bit of play is felt. My guess is that they would have found solutions (such as using hideglue), so in the original rapiers this wouldn't be a problem. But this rapier turned out as a very nasty thrusting weapon. It's only 290 gram in total, so it's also a very quick weapon! | |||