[Regia-NA] Gotland Sandstone Axe Whetstones

[rmhowe]

Ben Pyles wrote:
> So what was the concensus for the finish obtainable with the stones?
> 
> rmhowe <mmagnusm at bellsouth.net> wrote:A while back we Manx had a discussion of blade finish and hand
> stoning blades.

Darryl Markewitz who runs the Wareham Forge in Canada, and does
work for the Canadian L'anse aux Meadeux site said he had ground
his blades both with human powered wheel and with electric belt
sander of the 6x48" variety.  The man powered one being about half as
fast as the electric powered belt sanding machine.
He was asking if anyone had honed a blade surface by hand.
I do so once in a while, and in that I mean
I do the whole blade, usually badly rusted or some such.
I don't have the Gotland stone but I do have two other axe
stones I do use. I do have a pair of small whetstones from
a Norwegian quarry. But I haven't used those much.

The last thing I did by hand was a very, very old blade with some
writing and designs visible under the rust that turned out
to be either a very old form of medieval Greek or a Cyrillic
variant. A man I know who works with a government think tank
is going to try to translate it. The blade was probably
500-1000+ years old.  I thought at first it was one of
those Polish damascus-backed decorated blades from the 12-15th C.
when I looked at the design under the rust. It turned out
to be an etched design instead. I actually used diamond
hones for that as I wanted to be minimally abrasive on the
written area and have a few extremely fine hones that
have worn smooth over the years but still cut fine.
The diamond is nickel plated onto them in varying degrees
of fineness.

I bought it from an antiquities dealer (who had over a
hundred knives from the ancient to renaissance times with
him that day in various boxes and a bin full)
and it is now good enough to rehandle and use at table.
I have about sixteen ancient to renaissance knives and
blades for such from whittle tang to folders of varying
sorts, they are easily come by here or on eBay. In fact
they cost less generally than period arrowheads. I recently
bought a book on archaeoligical artefact conservation as
I believe I need it. Some of these things are a bit flakey.
Since I have plating equipment it can be minimally invasive
to get the rust out. Tightly wrapping rusted artefacts with
aluminum foil and immersing them in pure water you can
actually reverse some of the rusting process according to
the book as the oxides in the rust will begin to bond
to the aluminum and the iron revert somewhat to it's original
form. It is an electrolytic reaction between the steel and
the aluminum in which the aluminum is the loser. The book
says it is an initial process to begin with.
As an mwtca.org member I have been to a lecture about using
baking soda, water, and a battery charger to derust steel
and iron. I kept the notes on it. They were a handout.
The man had even made a 90° bend trough out of cpvc pipe
to do old framing squares with successfully.

I bought another blade last night from Ancient Caesar and
as it is similar to some folding blades I already have
if it isn't nearly through I may just hand polish that
back to usable condition and rehandle it. Ran me about
$11-12 dollars with shipping. I normally leave them as
they are when I buy them but I have an urge to make one
usable again. Besides, it would add interest to similar
ones in our display cases at demos.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7330505671

Anyway, I have a large number of options available to me
but depending on what I am trying to do have often used an
axe stone with water. They cut fast, have fine and medium
or coarse sides and you probably wouldn't have seen really
high polishes like we have now in period unless it was a
blade similar to Sutton Hoo or a high noble.

I probably have
somewhere around 50 stones from siltstones for razors and
various slipstones for carving tools [up to a 2 x 72" Wilton
Square Wheel Grinder fitted out for knifemaking. It is possible
to buy non-woven abrasive and leather polishing belts for these
things. So I could take things to a high shine if I desired.]
I also have diamond hand hones and discs for a rotary machine I
sharpen my gravers on. I can even sharpen carbide edges.

The axe stones cut as fast as diamond would by hand.
I've used various sandpapers up to extremely fine as well.
A Japanese Water Stone finish I have yet
to try, although I should at some point.

Looking at a very large dagger I first made twenty-three years
ago from a 1903 Enfield bayonet that was rather deeply pitted in
places I have used only hand work on and recently got to the
bottom of the last pits with axe stones I can say I can sort
of see my reflection in the surface, which appears to have
about a 4-600 grit finish along the length of the blade.
This one just happens to be beside me. And while it lacks a
high polish probably looks pretty damned good for period
blade finishes.

24 years ago (nearly) when I first started doing the organized
medieval stuff you couldn't buy daggers, knives or swords in
the medieval fashions unless you had been stationed in Europe
so I took an old Wilkinson Enfield bayonet which had a double
edge blade, but a short blocky tang of about three inches or
less. I had to desolder the guard and take it entirely apart.

It had rust over a good part of it and had a number of black
pits where it had etched rather deeply into the blade. It had
a fairly dull and rounded point which has now been reshaped
to a really nice and thinner one along the front half. After
removing everything but the blade I took a 5/8" x 1 1/2"
thick bar of brass and sawed out a guard which had to be
slotted and filed extremely close as Enfield's have very
little shoulder on the tangs where they meet the blade, maybe
.020" at most. This thing is very nearly a press fit.

For a pommel I drilled and tapped a brass chunk about 1 1/4"
across and put a cut off bolt into it, chucked it in a
Shopsmith and turned it to shape with wood scrapers as you
would use in wood turning. A bit like being in a swarm of
angry bees as the chips are quite hot when they hit your
skin. It looks a bit like you have hives when you're done.
...................
I've cut enough metal with skill saws, and table saws, that
I kind of dread the chips. Skillsaws will through it down the
back of your neck. Happy, Happy! Using abrasive blades as
opposed to carbide triple chip blades is much easier on
the skin by far. I have cut 3/8" steel plate and rod and
cable exceeding 1 & 1/4" on table saws.

When I get it reasssembled I should be able to cut steel on
the 300-5300 fpm bandsaw I am rebuilding [about 50 years old
and geared]. Above 4000 fpm you can cut steels quite
easily. They make special tapered bladed for such things
but ordinarly metal cutting blades will work. The principle
is the steel is constantly in contact with the fast moving
bandsaw blade which only has a tiny section in contact at
any one instant, so it doesn't heat up. The more carbon
in what is being cut the faster it burns. As stainless
steels melt instead of burn I am wondering how it will do
with that. The grease in the gearbox and bearings (all of
which are in great condition] was like dried mud in them.
Due to the high speed I have to really glue on the new tires
for the thing or the centrifugal force will throw them off.
..............................
The 5" long guard was filed and polished mostly by hand. It has a
long D shaped curve to it. Once I had fitted it on I brazed
a slotted bolt to the little rectangular tang of the Enfield
and encased it in wood shaped to fit the guard and the pommel.
It fits my hand exactly, and probably has the best balance of
any knife I own. The only problems I encountered was the pits
in the blade and that when the guard and pommel tarnish it
is apparent that they have different alloys as the pommel is
a bit redder [possibly a light colored bronze]. I polish it
a bit by hand from time to time. I stitched a leather cover
on the handle. As it is getting a bit worn I have bought some
to recover it. I may just engrave it one day.
Years ago I had many offers to buy it.
Now you can buy a wide variety of daggers in fantasy to
more real reproductions and there are far more knifesmiths
out there. Obtaining swords is no longer a problem either.

I recently put edges on the rather dull damascus sax and
dagger blades I bought from sussen on eBay and I used hand
hones on those too. Both had substantial areas of the edges
to take down. He buys these from India. I'd say they have
forty to seventy layers in them and the pattern is rather
bird's eye maple-ish. I have yet to begin the handles or
sheathes for them. Seems like I asked Regia about the
accepted blade/knife lengths in Regia as they have them
only in sizes larger and smaller than the proscribed
size range. Only I have not had an answer about it back
from the authenticity officers or anyone else. I saw it
stated once on line but my computer dropped my whole inbox
last December.

This is demo season for us locally and there are five public
demos at schools and libraries this month.
The theme for the year at various schools and libraries
is knights and the middle ages.  This afternoon
a friend is coming by to pick up quite a lot of things
for one of the displays, period artefacts included.
My modern reproductions, some of them, will be in there as
well including some of the skeletal materials stuff like
the animorphic bone spoons, a number of dress pins, needles
and needle cases, a large engraved and punched design
pennular brooch I made from solid metal I intend to recast
one day. I did silver solder the bosses on it though. It
has about ten dogs and two dragon heads on it between them.
Before my muscles got so bad I used to carve all manner of
things in metals too. But I have gotten some pneumatic
engravers to remedy that. I just preferred to do hand work.

We'll be gone for a week or more, leaving this afternoon.

Magnus