Rondel Dagger

[sjaqua]

Well, it's been a long winter. My real world job kind of went crazy in November. I haven't had much time for important things like making knives. In any case here is my first offering after a bit of a dry spell. I've just got three more weekends in the shop before I have to be ready for Knife Expo 05.



What we have here, is my latest work inspired by 14th and 15th century Rondel Daggers. The blade is a 33 layer, 3 color ladder pattern weld or 1095, 15N20 and Nickle foil. The billet was made way back on Holloween Evening (we don't get trick-or-treater's on my street. Something about it being all dog kennels)

This is my first attempt at an asymmetrical dagger grind. I really like how the offset bevels show off the ladder pattern in both a single and double edge variant. The handle is Bolivian Rosewood and the fittings are just plain old brasss

(edited on 01/30/05, replaced photo with clearer image and my first attempt at a Photoshop mosaic.)

[VSMBlades]

Is the back of the dagger flat? Most of the Rondels I have seen have been triangular in cross section. I believe this was due to the difficulty of healing of triangular wounds. Even though the Rondel was normaly used to dispatch incapacitated knights in armor, hence the large round pomel to facilitate pushing it through.

Very nice work, I have always wanted to make one of those myself.

[sjaqua]

Joe,

No the back of the blade isn't flat. That was one of the compromise modern elements in this knife. For the most part a modern knife buyer balks at certain historic elements. So I gave the blade a dimond cross section, added a ricasso and a choil (sp?) cut. Also historic makers marks (when a blade had one) are normally smaller and in a different orientation.