RomanArmyTalk

Hello!

I'm making another pugio. It's one based on some finds of Vindonissa, with a very narrow blades.

The new is that, finally, i have atemped succesfully to do real silver inlay to ornate the handle.

The pictures are not quite good...





The blade is made by myself, too.

Pretty cool Cesar. The thinner blade is an interesting change.

That would be a very handy sidearm!

It's based in some pugiones like the one in the picture, this one with an original replacement handle:

Very nice, Cezar.

Do you think the 'guard' would be so much wider than the blade? I was under the impression that the width of the handle and the blade at the top would have been more or lessthe same?

Wow, very nice job, again. Good to see a pugio with a proper width.

Quote:Very nice, Cezar.

Do you think the 'guard' would be so much wider than the blade? I was under the impression that the width of the handle and the blade at the top would have been more or lessthe same?

With the wider blades, its as you says. But if i want to put a same width guard to this blade, the guard will be very little to be used...

I'll study the possibility of cut the extrems of the guard, and probably will be more "armonious".

Of course, if anybody knows a litte width blade associated with a handle, let me know, and i'll try to amend my pugio.

Well, i have found some examples with the guard wider than the blade:





Probably only a little wider...

The blade is tail tanged. You can see how it's peened:



and a picture a little better:



Yes, i know... It's a little coarse... but it's real inlay.

Shouldn't the guard be about the same width as the hand? After all, it's not guarding the blade, but the fingers. By that I mean, if the blade is narrow, the guard shouldn't be shrunk to match the blade's width.

In the pugio in the earlier picture that's been rehafted with the grip like a gladius, I wonder what the pommel looked like. Might have been wood, and therefore long gone. But the guard seems to be more or less the same width as the guard on a "regular" pugio...maybe a little wider.

I understand, however, that Romans didn't always do the thing that seems to make the most sense. As Matt Amt once pointed out, "We're dealing with people who put metal hinges on leather straps."

Quote:Shouldn't the guard be about the same width as the hand? After all, it's not guarding the blade, but the fingers. By that I mean, if the blade is narrow, the guard shouldn't be shrunk to match the blade's width.

EmDem - a voice of reason as always.

Actually guards do vary somewhat in width but as is usual with these things the range os not very wide. It is normal however for the guard to be wider than the shoulders of the blade. This allows the guard to rest on top of the sheath, which must necessarily be wider than the blade, without appearing narrower than the sheath. It might be reasonable to suppose therefore that, as we can be sure that some pugiones at least were made to go with their particular sheaths and vice versa, we might be able to gain a reasonably reliable idea of how wide a (missing) guard would have been based on the width of a surviving sheath it would have accompanied.

Well done by the way Frater Cesar! That looks VERY nice. How did you do the inlay this time?
Laud point justifiably given my friend.


Crispvs

Thanks, Crispus!

This time i have made channels with a engraver, pass a thin engraver to made the lower part of the channel wider, put the silver wire and hammer it.

I have to do some remarks:

-It's important the depth of the channel, if it's very depth, the silver don't cover it properly and tends to go off. If it's scarce, the silver goes off too :lol:

-It's important the point where impacts the hammer point. It's like rivetting, the better way is to impact in the borders to force the sides of the channel to catch the silver.

And i have discovered another thing. If you can, use soft iron (only FE), instead steel. Soft iron is a lot of easier to carve than steel.

Now i have to make the scabbard. I'll make the one from Vindonissa, with the birds. It's very nice, and it's very narrow, too. If anybody have pictures, are welcome. I don't know if all the inlay os silver, or if the borders are made in brass.

Erik Koenig made his reconstruction of this sheath plate with brass wire for the boxes/frames and silver for the rest of the decoration. I have no reason to doubt this reconstruction, as he follows the Obbmann book exactly!

:wink: Thanks, Peroni!