Reconstruction Sisak pugio

[Titus Aetius]

Hello Jurgen,

You already sent us some pictures of the work in progress, and from that moment on, I was longing to see the result of much, much hours of work to come. I shall follow this topic with a great interest! And of course, one of my first questions on our next events will be: "where's your pugio"

All the other words witch express my appreciation will be in Dutch when we meet one another because my English isn't as good as it should be today... :roll:

Grtz,

[Quintilianus]

4) Making the enamel cups:

This I had to experiment a bit with. I needed cups with straight rims and a flat bottom. Eventually I did it this way: I used a carpenters nail 6 mm thick to hammer a piece of brass plate (0,3 mm thick) trough a hole in an iron beam 6.6 mm wide. The brass needs to be annealed several times and the nail has to be smooth. I turned the nail regularly while hammering. Hammering must be done gently or the brass will tear. There is also a limit to the depth of the cup 3 to 4 mm and then it will tear even wile hammering it gently. I will need 16 cups in total, but only tree for the dagger alone without counting the sheath.

[Quintilianus]

5) Assembly

I was really looking forward to this. After all a project like this takes quite some time, especially when you have only the weekends to do it.

OK, I had 8 different parts to assemble. Everything comes together using iron rivets. I used 3mm thick nails to make them.
I used a drop of glue to make the bone stick to the grip parts and then I drilled the holes already in the grip parts trough the bone, this has to be done gently.
Not all of the rivets go all the way trough. The two holes in the pommel do and also the ones in the guard, but there is on in the middle of the front grip and two in the back grip which only go past the tang of the blade.
So I first put a mushroomed nail trough the tang in the middle hole and riveted the back grip to the tang using the two holes. Then I put the front grip with the bone over the rivet sticking out in the middle. Then I first riveted the guard and then the pommel.
The pommel and the middle rivet need enamel cups, so I put them on first. The middle rivet needs to be done last and with much care since the end of the rivet rests on bone and the back grip inside the assembled handle.

http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/2/21/ ... IM2395.JPG

http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/2/21/ ... IM2396.JPG

[Quintilianus]

The bone cracked in some places, but after the first fright, I decided to fix it later.

Time to file the exes from the rivets off and sand the grip. I sanded it to a satin finish. If I keep it clean after every use I can keep it shiny I think.

The cracked bone stays in place, but there are some small holes and I decided to make a mixture of bone dust and hide glue and fill these up. This way I also secured the cracked pieces of bone

Part one of the Sisak pugio is finished. This weekend I start with the sheath.

Pics of the finished dagger:


http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/2/21/ ... IM2398.JPG

http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/2/21/ ... IM2414.JPG

http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/2/21/ ... IM2415.JPG

http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/2/21/ ... IM2417.JPG

I only regret that I didn't place the pommel rivets closer together. But it is certain it wasn't especially ment on the original either, since the rivets come out at the back in totally different places.

http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/2/21/ ... IM2416.JPG

The rivets at the back are visible, I could file it down a bit further, but the original shows them all, at the front and back, so I left it.

http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/2/21/ ... IM2419.JPG

http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/2/21/ ... IM2424.JPG

When compairing it to my old Deepeeka, the difference in size becomes quite clear, the Deepeeka also looks kind of grotesk. (Sorry for the bad pics).

OK, I'll start working on the sheath now... :? D

[Magnus]

Excellent tutorial!

[LUCIUS ALFENUS AVITIANUS]

Very good, Quintilianus!

Very excellent pugio-makers, the belgians!

[Caius Titius Verus]

WOW truly Great work Jurgen! Can't wait to see it from up close! Will you let me hold it? :oops:

Especially the handle must have been hard to make! Now this is something that looks like the real stuff! Let us know how the inlaying is working out. It makes me want to throw my old deepeeka 'pugio' in a very dark corner ;-) )

Cheers,
Tom

[Quintilianus]

I am sure, I will give you the same sort of comments on the new shield you're making in a short time.