But then what is so special about this knife? Well let's talk about it.
Hi it's Tod of Tod's Workshop and Tod Cutler here and today we're going to talk about
this rondel. This is a reproduction that I've made, Tod's Workshop reproduction
of the A726 Rondel dagger from the Wallace Collection in London. This thing is a beauty,
I absolutely love it, but it's also a complete beast, it's 12 mm/ half inch thick at the hilt,
it's got a 15.5" / or 39 cm long blade. It is an absolute beast and I think as a completely iconic
knife, I think that this is one of the absolute classic rondels that makes us think that they were
always really long, but this is another Tod Cutler piece here. They're both rondel daggers, both from
around about the same time, actually early to mid 15th century and they are completely, completely,
different in length; but this is the one we're talking about today. I'm going to explain to
you now why this particular knife has come to be. I had a customer called Christian Cameron,
he happened to write books, he's an author. I'd never read any of his stuff and one day he said
"well here are some books of mine, sending them free in the post, read them". You know, I'll be
honest my heart fell because I'm just gonna have to read them, I'm gonna have to pay attention,
I'm gonna have to say nice things to him because he's a customer and all that kind of thing.
So I read the books with a little bit trepidation and I loved them, I absolutely loved them
and what really spoke to me was the series called the Chivalry series, that he's done
about a character called William Gold at the start of the hundred years war and then his adventures
really beyond that and into Italy under John Hawkwood the leader of the White Company. I just
love the books, I love the way he approaches it, I love the way he writes, I love the historical
accuracy of both the material culture and fighting. Brilliant, brilliant, not a great
surprise because, I might have this wrong, but I think he used to be in military intelligence,
so he clearly knows how to find facts, but also he's a HEMA fight instructor. He instructs people
how to sword fight, he puts his armour on and he treks across the Canadian wilderness
for two weeks to find out how the inside of his thighs get chafed or whatever. You get a level
of detail that is brilliant. But anyway enough of that, gonna come back. So he asked me for the
launch of his latest book and I was you know very happy to do it, to make this dagger. He's running
a competition on Twitter I believe it is. What you need to do is, there's a link in the notes,
go to his Twitter page, say that you want to win, share the post, I don't know the
rules are all there anyway, you need to then evidence the fact that you've bought the book,
but that's all you need to do and this absolute beauty of a dagger
could be yours. But the other bit of hot news that I want to share with you is that under Tod Cutler
we will be producing this knife, so give it a few weeks, couple of months, I'm not sure exactly
when, the Tod Cutler version of the Wallace A726 is going to be on the shelves, so if you want
to find out, if you want to be the first person to get hold of this, because it is going to be,
for the knife you get, is going to be a bargain price, I promise you that they always are.
But sign up to the newsletter and we'll let you know as soon as they're in. But then what is so
special about this knife? Well let's talk about it. I think what really speaks to me about this
piece is it has everything in my eyes that a rondel should have, so it's the archetypal
early 15th century man at arms, low grade knight, utterly business, doing the job, dagger. Nothing
fancy, nothing flash about it. Now I'm going to talk you around the different aspects of this,
but the first thing I am going to do, because I've just said there's nothing flash, nothing
unnecessary about it, I'm just going to show you the hilt. Now it's a very curious construction,
so you've got two boxwood grips there, you've got these bronze plates in between, decorative bronze
plates and of course you've got these decorative flower bronze rosettes on there as well.
Now I specifically said there was nothing flash, nothing unnecessary about this,
well you could argue that those are unnecessary, you don't need those to be on the knife.
But actually this is a knife, but it's also a status symbol, it's also a statement of who you
are, it's also an indicator of your wealth. All of these things are really important and
they're bound up in this, it's a symbol of your knighthood or of your good status as a man of
arms because a low guy wouldn't have this, so part of that, part of that functionality of this item
is its decoration as well. So although that bronze is not strictly required to do the job,
it is definitely required when it's sitting on your hip to make you look cool and that is part
of the job of this. So that aside you've then got on the grip here, you have these ribs here
see where the box wood sort of overlaps a little bit? Now what that does is it allows you to feel
where your edges are, you know the orientation of your blade in your grip because you're familiar
with this weapon, so those little ridges there matter all right? They matter. Now again you've
got these rondels, now you might think that they're solid, but in fact they're not, they're
beaten out of a sheet. I don't know if we can just see that there? and then they are brazed together
right, so they're stuck together. What that means is that you end up with the
big guard that you want so it protects your fist, but it's relatively lightweight
of course that's what you want in dagger you want to be able to move it quickly and swiftly
with that in mind you've got yourself a 15 and a half inch/39 cm blade, but it's hollow ground.
Nice strong back on it, it's funny little chamfer there. I think that probably is a little for
decoration, as indeed is this cut out here, which also incidentally, that cutout, I don't know if
you can see it? Even that cutout is hollow ground in there. Just a little bit of fanciness I suppose
and then the blade itself. Nice and stout so at at that point there, it's about six mm something like
that so a quarter of an inch just under. You know what's that two inches up 50 mm from the
tip so it's a strong, strong blade and then plain undecorated rondels, except in this case and this
is where I have to confess the original,
the original from the Wallace Collection, does not have that decoration on the end there,
doesn't have it, but time immemorial like so many craftsmen before me, I messed up when I
was painting this and I put a great big ding in the top, so I thought how can I hide that ding?
I know, bit of texture in there, everybody did that kind of stuff I swear it. So there we are
that is definitely different to the original, but other than that the A726, "Hawkwoods Sword"
by Christian Cameron and a beautiful dagger coming soon from Tod Cutler and if you ever get to London
take yourself to the Wallace Collection please; you will not regret it. Thank you