African Arms

Blade forged to final shape, now ready for annealing.

Blade while normalizing. Next I clean up the blade for edge hardening.

Blade after zone hardening by carefully pouring water along the edge.

Blade now ready for polishing.

A nice block of African Olive Wood cut to the length of the handle.

This is the chiseled down African Wild Olive after boring. Next I properly
hammer the heated tang of the blade into the bored hole for an extremely
tight fit. Then I apply a powerful resin into the bored hole and onto the blade
tang and gently hammer it back into the tight setting. The resin takes
overnight to cure.

I establish the proper circumference for the throat which I use as the basis for the
rest of the handle.

Establishing the area of the handle that will become the head. For this piece I knew I
would carve a head into the handle, but I wasn't sure exactly what style I would work
in. I left a good amount of wood for the head to have more working freedom.

Now that the style of head has been chosen I have reached a very critical point in which
one false peck can remove far too much wood from an area leaving me to make a design
change which most often doesn't work out and is often noticeable. If this were too happen
the handle would have to be split and broken off leaving a messy tang with wood and
resin to sand away only to begin the whole hilt process again with another block of wood.

Two piece guard of bubinga wood being filed to shape.

Finished hilt after days worth of treating the wood.