Woodworking
Hickory Waster
Status: Finished 22 May 2004.Photos
Entire Waster
Not perfect, not pretty good for a first project.
Blade
The camera exaggerates the taper.
Pommel
This is pretty rough still, but I chose to call it "good enough" so that I can use it.
Discussion
This is my first attempt as something that, for me, is fairly ambitious. I'm flying completely by the seat of my pants, not knowing what I'm doing. However, I'm having a lot of fun in my ignorance.
I like to fiddle with things, and thought that instead of paying somebody to do something that looks interesting, I'd give it a go once or twice.
I have a nice longsword waster from Wooden Weapons. (Note: As of 2006 Wooden Weapons is defunct. According to ARMA members that I've spoken with, New Stirling Arms makes some terrific wasters, and their customer service has been good.) It's very well-made and robust. Two things that I would like to change:
- The blade is fairly heavy.
- The pommel doesn't have much weight.
I thought that I'd copy the basic design of the WW waster, and try doing two things:
- Bevel the edges of the blade so that it has a diamond-shaped cross section.
I'm leaving a 3/8" blunt edge on it.
Note that the I do have a concern regarding whether this will focus too much energy into too small a cross-section during normal practice? In other words, will it be too hard on humans during practice? - Use a method of creating a weighted pommel (lead-filled) employed by a fellow in our ARMA study group.
Material
I went to a local mill and had them make two 2"x¾"x6' boards of straight-grained hickory. One board is enough for one waster.7 May 2004
- I traced out the basic shape of the body of the waster onto the wood using the original as a guide.
- I used my jigsaw to cut out the basic shape of the hilt and pommel.
- I messed up the pommel shape a few times. After several rescue attempts I ended up with a fish-tail shape that's kind of symmetrical.
- (Don't laugh.) I put 50 grit sandpaper on my belt sander and started sanding the edges of the blade so that it had the right taper looking down on the width of the wood.
- (Don't laugh.) I used the belt sander to shape the hilt. Here I was flying by the seat of my pants, frequently checking how the handle felt in my hands. I thought I'd try putting the waist on the hilt to see how I like it.
- (Don't laugh.) I used the belt sander to give the blade a diamond cross-section. (Picture.) This was done mostly via long strokes on the end of sander, eyeballing the angle and pressure to attempt to keep the centreline straight and the blunt edges 3/8" thick centred on the sides. Not bad in my mind, but very rough.
- Round off the blade corners.
Result: This waster has a bit of a better feel to it than the WW waster so far, simply due to the fact that there is a little less mass to the blade. The difference is not very profound at this point, but noticeable.
8 May 2004
Cross
- I traced out the original cross onto the remaining 2' piece of hickory.
- I used the jigsaw to cut out half of the cross.
- I used this to trace and cut the other half.
- I used the belt and disk sanders to round the edges a bit and try to match up the pieces.
- I used the jigsaw and chisel to hollow out the place where the cross surrounds the ricasso. I one is pretty tight, the other fits well, but isn't really tight. Part of the centre broke off on one, so I used the disk sander to match them up.
- I used wood glue to join the two halves together.
- I used the sander to try and match the halves some more. They're still not perfect.
Pommel
- I used the jigsaw to cut a 2"x2" piece of hickory.
- I used the jigsaw to cut this down the ¾" side so I have two 2"x2" pieces that are 3/8" thick.
- I traced these pieces against the pommel and used the jigsaw to cut them to the right shape.
- I used the sanders to round the edges.
- I used a ¾" boring bit to create a hole through the pommel. This hole, along with the caps, will end up being where the lead will be poured.
- I used wood glue to attach one of the caps. When I clamped it, I didn't notice that it slipped. I tried to remove it without damage (ha ha), but split the cap. I need to make another pommel cap now.
8 May 2004 Photos
Click for large images.
The entire waster.
The cross.
Looking down the blade from the point.
The discoloration resulted from normal waster-on-waster banging.
One of two caps for the side of the pommel.
These are not countersunk yet.
14 May 2004
Ran ¼" dowell through the cross to ensure it doesn't get knocked out of place and into my hands.I finished assembling the pommel. It contains roughly four or five ounces of lead inside so it will act as a propper counterbalance.
In addition to wood glue, I tried using brass screws to secure the caps. I don't like brass screws. The metal is very soft, and thus they break easily. I used the Dremel to take off the screw heads.
I went to the park and used it in solo exercises. It handles very nicely. I'm quite pleased with it, except for the sliver in my finger. Ow!
The centre of balance is roughly 5" from the crossguard, which is nice. Finishing the blade may push it back some, but I don't want the CoB to be less than 4" from the cross.
Pictures
20-22 May 2004
After receiving some fine advice from many people on-line at Woodworking.com, I've been able to "pretty it up," and finish the waster. It is not perfect, and given more time and effort I'm sure it could be better. However, to quote from Frank Herbert's science fiction masterpiece, Dune,Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife -- chopping off what's incomplete and saying: "Now, it's complete because it's ended here."
20 May 2004
Finished shaping and sanding. I threw 120 grit paper on the belt sander, and used sandpaper on a long wooden block to straighten the blade as much as possible. Earlier errors made some depressions too deep for me to want to grind down to, so I simply sanded those spots by hand. I worked my way down to 220 grit sandpaper, which was smooth enough for me right now. (I'm anxious to see this done.)- The edges are pretty straight.
- The spine still has a bit of a curve, but not really noticable except near the point. The extreme distortion of the camera (below) shows the curve quite clearly.
- You can see the depressions near the centre, and on the lower right edge.
Laid first coats of boiled linseed oil. Lathered it in oil, and let sit overnight.
21 May 2004
More linseed oil coats. Lathered it in oil, and let sit overnight.22 May 2004
Final (sixth) coat of oil.Today I did some good sparring with the waster. Observations:
- The fellow I sparred with is not as experienced as I, and is prone to making edge-on-edge parries, so it chewed up the edge of the waster a little.
However, the damage was surprisingly minor considering our speed.
(No, this was not full speed, except for a number of deflections on my part.)
- I also noticed that the section of the hilt by the cross was very dark from the black leather glove on my hand. Some of the discolouration has worked itself deep into the surface of the wood.
- The reverse hand portion, by and on the pommel, was pretty clean. I wasn't wearing the black leather glove for this hand. (We were at a park. I put the glove down on a picnic table, but didn't notice that I put it on a big glob of mayonaise somebody left behind.)
I'd call this a successful project. The waster:
- is well-balanced,
- has held up very well to initial moderate abuse, and
- looks fairly nice. (Imperfect, but nice.)
