Hi, it's Tod of Tod's Workshop and Tod Cutler here and
Today, we're just gonna have a quick chat about a Albion moat sale blade that I bought and have re-hilted for a friend moat sale
blades are
Seconds that for whatever reason have gone through the Albion factory and are not up to their standards
So sometimes there's a bit of a problem with a grind or a bit of warping in heat treat or something like that
and they sell them off at good prices and
Depending what the issue is. Sometimes you get basically mint or very nearly mint blades that you can use for your own projects
So for those of you unaware Albion swords make it's an American company and they make fantastic production swords
So they're not custom they are production, but the quality is exceptional and they're designed by the very famous. Sword Smith Peter Johnson
Now this one is an Albion Soldat...
...sort of.
So this came to me as a blade which had some chipping here, my guess with it is that it had been dropped during?
manufacture, which was a shame because the
the blade itself is
Absolutely fine. There was nothing wrong with this boat at all. It's been hardened. It's been tempered
it was semi assembled with the guard here or the the Nagle and
The actual guard itself not the pommel. None of the grip that hadn't been done
And indeed the rivet that rivets Nagle on is also
Hasn't been dressed back yet. So this is not what you would see on an Albion sword, but these chips here
Meant that the blade was a second. So what I did was I ground out some of the chipping so
maybe
sixteenth of an inch one half two millimeters
I took the blade down and actually it's not really enough to see just looking at the blade that I've re-profiled it slightly
If you look along its edge you can see that it dips down slightly
but this was done for a friend of mine a guy called Mike who does all my shooting and my editing or a lot of
it
Fantastic friend known him for 20 odd years or more and this is just a gift for him. Really
So the messer itself it
Grosse Messer means a big knife, it's German and
the reason that it is a Messer and not a sword or a Falchion is that
The tang here goes through the two handle scales and that's how you construct a knife. It's not how you construct traditionally a sword
So that makes this a Messer a knife
It's a big knife, but it is a knife
the Germans loved antler, so
Albion use, I think it's walnut, that they use as standard and
For a productionize item. That's the sort of thing you need to do because obviously
antler is is grown on a beast and
It's very difficult to go through antler
and find the right section you want and then to deliver it to the right dimensions that a productionized item needs
Didn't have that constraint, of course
So I could choose a piece of antler that fitted and actually fitting antler is really difficult because it never quite does what you want
Especially red deer antler because then you've got quite a thin wall and and a big pith in the centre
which you don't want to break into if you can help it and
that gives you a very Germanic look they
particularly in the
the 15th of the 16th centuries
German swords and hunting swords daggers knives and so forth very often had Antler handles
It's er, I don't know a German thing. They seemed to like it
Then the pommel itself
It's relatively simple. The one on the Albion Soldat is slightly more complex, but this is a very standard kind of Messer pommel
And then just steel rivets on there. So we've just ended up with a sword that, or a Messer rather
That is a nice piece. It's a little bit different to the Albion pieces
So I put the sword together cleaned up the blade a little bit and needed a bit and there we have it
So that's the Albion Soldat...
Or the NOT Albion Soldat I should say, Albion-Tod Soldat? I don't know
And then I made a scabbard for it because you know
My belief is that a sword is on its own is only half of a thing
It's just it's not a complete unit without the scabbard
So I made the scabbard for it fitted it with a bronze chape and this has got a poplar core
Now what is difficult it's always difficult with a curved sword is
You have a curve on here and it's broader here than it is here
and that means that if you made a scabbard that fitted it perfectly as if it were a
Sort of normal kind of long sword blade you'd never get the the blade into the scabbard. So what you need to do is
you effectively plot the widest point of the blade on the scabbard wood and then you gently just pull it a couple of inches you
Mark it again. And you mark it again and what you'll find is it's not necessarily
Let's say what's that two and a half inches 60 millimetres
It doesn't have to follow that thickness all the way because actually as it comes out you can move the blade slightly and that
Changes the thickness that you require here, so depending on the curved blade
Sometimes it ends up being more than the 60 mil here
Sometimes it'll be end up being less and we've got a bit less here. It's oh
What's that two and a half inches, maybe a little bit more just under 60 millimetres here
So it helps to give the scabbard a bit of life
because one of the things I hate with with reproductions a lot of modern reproductions is
That it looks like it's been machined and and if you end up with a scabbard that is
60 millimetres here and it goes beautifully parallel 60 millimetres here
It ends up kind of just not looking right and it just doesn't feel like the ones you see in the museum's
So I paid quite a lot of attention to that
I've then put a very simple scabbard harness on it just a couple of risers here and then just riveted on a
couple of belts which pass through the back of the scabbard leather
but then they're left free on the front here a little bit of embossing and then I fitted it with
This is obviously an early 16th century weapon. I didn't say so, but it is and I didn't have an appropriate
Buckle, I must say but I've got a mid to late 15th century buckle
That was very nice. And it's not to say they wouldn't recycled things. So
These buckles come off the Tod Cutler range and they were based on a piece I saw in Spain if I remember rightly
In a museum there, a little local museum I went to
And again, they're bronze, very nice, late 15th
And they just set the whole thing off very nicely. So that's it. It is the
Tod-Albion Soldat hybrid
for my friend Mike