I recognized last week that I had never produced one of these composite twist blades before. Although I'd done the research and believed I had a solid theoretical understanding of the process, nothing teaches like actually doing.
So, rather than make the blade for Ealdric a "learning experience" I decided to make a dagger of the same kind of construction. That way, I reasoned, I could capture the "lessons learned" and apply them to the larger blade (also, of course, if I really screwed it up the number of hours lost would be significantly less.)
I'm glad I did this. I ended up throwing away a bunch of steel as I figured it out, but I now think I have a solid working knowledge of how to create these blades.
So, meet "Son of Ealdric."
I didn't take many WIP photos of this one. I was too focused on figuring things out. I will take a bunch when I build the sword blade.
The two top photos are of the dagger after grinding and polishing. The last photo is after etching.
