Method of Silvering the Wooden or Bone hilt?

[Kendrick]

At this roman coins page, right below the popular Tiberius sword is another sword with a hilt which is completely silvered. I was wondering how this could be done. Even if the method is unorthodox, I would like to be able to do this or have it done. I'm currently working on the hilt of a Mainz and the shape of it is in that style. The handle I made is of bone. The handguard and pommel will be of aged yellow poplar. I've completed most of the wood and bone work at this point. It's not that I don't like the look of the bone and the aged and quartersawn wood, but that the silvered style of hilt is very attractive (and not just to magnets).

I scoured the Reconstruction forum here, and found a lot of discussion on tinning and silvering pieces of metal (armour), but I am unable to find much on the subject of tinning and silvering wood, let alone bone.

And I came across this, which may be my ticket to silvering the wood.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Magnus]

Maybe some thin metal sheet?

[Celer]

Salve Kendrick,

The original Sword of Tiberius has no hilt remaining, it was just organic and has all rotted away just leaving the blade and most of the scabbard. There is a silvered hilt from Mainz which was wooden, and covered by silver foil, thought I don't know if the entire hilt was covered by one continuous sheet, or whether each individual component (guard, grip & pommel) was covered seperately. There are also hilts partially covered by metal decoration, the Hod Hill Sword was one such weapon, while the newly published Herculaneum Pompeii-type gladius had silvered iron decorative bands overlaying the wooden pommel and guard.

Hope this helps,

Vale,

[Kendrick]

Thank you Celer and Magnus, that does help. It sounds like the method the silver is applied then is with a silver foil. Since it appears to be seamless, it must be melted and smoothed out some how; even where the handle joins the handguard.

Although I'm sure I'm ready to try it yet on my actual hilt yet. I guess I could experiment with some tin foil and a soldering iron.

I know that it would not be inaccurate to leave it be as a completely organic hilt, but it would also be accurate to silver or tin it.

I wasn't planning on adding metal fittings other than coating/foiling to the mainz hilt. It seems like extra metal fittings would've been rare or non-existent for that era of roman gladii.

Edit: I think I'm on the right path when I google for a string like --silvering paste wood conductive -- There's definitely product out there like this but it seems difficult to find it at the retail level. I would definitely prefer quicker route of a premade solution than to mess around with Spencer's method of silvering wood. Edit 2: Found a retail version here. Still unsure if this would work. I will read about it a bit more.

[Doc]

Julian,

Would you happen to have a picture of drawing of the Herculeneum-Pompeii sword hilt? I would like to see the decorations you mentioned.

Thanks

Doc

[Celer]

Salve Doc,

The Herculaneum sword details are in the latest Ancient Warfare magazine.

Vale,

Celer.

[Matt Lukes]

At this roman coins page, right below the popular Tiberius sword is another sword with a hilt which is completely silvered.

That's the Rheingönheim sword- but be aware, apparently the handle is heavily recosntructed and may bear little resemblence to the original form anymore; the pommel end nut is a complete replacement using a much later style so is completely wrong and overall this piece is probably not a good choice to recreate. There are a number of others that are sheet (not foil) silver that are made in multiple pieces folded over or soldered together at a seam. They're relatively simple being just a top and bottom, meeting at the raised midline rib. Presumably there was a wooden core. It's just a matter of shaping the sheet metal by raising- requiring some skill, but not terribly complicated a procedure.

[Kendrick]

At this roman coins page, right below the popular Tiberius sword is another sword with a hilt which is completely silvered.

That's the Rheingönheim sword- but be aware, apparently the handle is heavily recosntructed and may bear little resemblence to the original form anymore; the pommel end nut is a complete replacement using a much later style so is completely wrong and overall this piece is probably not a good choice to recreate. There are a number of others that are sheet (not foil) silver that are made in multiple pieces folded over or soldered together at a seam. They're relatively simple being just a top and bottom, meeting at the raised midline rib. Presumably there was a wooden core. It's just a matter of shaping the sheet metal by raising- requiring some skill, but not terribly complicated a procedure.

Thank you for the reply. I tend to not be too strict when it comes to my own sword, but I am all ears to the alternative and more accurate metal coating you and someone above mentioned. I think when it comes to the shape of things, there's still a lot of room for speculation, and room for creativity. You can't go wrong with an exact replica of course, but regardless, I like to branch off into the speculative in this sort of hobby.

Are there any images you know of, or other materiel on this that you have in mind on the foiling? I haven't actually done too much searching for that, but I couldn't come up with a 'How To' that had the word foil in the title, in a quick search.

Forgive me, I'm still a bit confused at the otherwise very helpful explanations in this thread.

Thank you very much for information on the silvering of a hilt. I just hadn't read anything that suggested how it was heavily modified. Also, the silver products I was looking into are really expensive, so I haven't invested in any yet.