Blade Makers' Challenge - SDC Blade

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Nice... but an hoplite helmet can either be macedonian (Alexander The Great), athenian or also corinthian ! not spartan only.

If it's for a soldier, the perfect team mate, yeah spartan.

If it's for someone that has a complex of superiority, obviously macedonian hahaha

If it's for a manipulator of the cerebral kind, athenian

If it's for someone who wants to assert his independence, a "free bird", corinthian

Sorry just tickling ya lol, I've been studying ancient greek language and history at University some decades ago so I'm always a bit obsessed by anything greek related .
 
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Music&Ping;342818 said:
Nice... but an hoplite helmet can either be macedonian (Alexander The Great), athenian or also corinthian ! not spartan only.

If it's for a soldier, the perfect team mate, yeah spartan.

If it's for someone that has a complex of superiority, obviously macedonian hahaha

If it's for a manipulator of the cerebral kind, athenian

If it's for someone who wants to assert his independence, a "free bird", corinthian

Sorry just tickling ya lol, I've been studying ancient greek language and history at University some decades ago so I'm always a bit obsessed by anything greek related .

Nice to know, but I think you have to ask Der which one he is. Probably all of them, depending on the day of the week 😁

 
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I was gonna post the finished blade but I will have to delay it a bit longer. Not trying to create suspense, it's just one final detail that's missing to put it all together.
 
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Ok, let's get this cat out of the bag.

When Der set the requirements for the blades an Innegra outer composition immediately came to mind. I haven't used I-C with Koto before so I thought it would be a good opportunity, I just needed a softer medial ply to tame the speed a bit and improve the feel. So I settled on Koto / I-C / Ayous / Kiri and aimed for 5.8mm. As for the handle design I knew I had to make something with a military/warrior theme, just not sure what exactly. I also had promised to use Ebony, so I had to fit that in the design somehow. Whenever I look at the TB ALC handle I see sort of a mask, so I went from there and tweaked it a bit to resemble a a warrior's mask. By putting the Ebony in the lower part of the handle I could get an even lower balance. This is the design I came up with:

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Then it was "just" a matter of putting it all together.

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I don't have an habit of naming my blades, but I thought this one deserved it. I called it SPARTAN

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I will be posting the finished blade in my main thread.

Great work!Nice handle!

 
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Ok, here she is finally.

To me the biggest challenge in blade making is to deliver exactly what the customer asked. Sometimes it's not possible to have everything in one blade, but in this case Der's guidelines were very reasonable and compatible, so I tried to stick to them to the best of my abilities. Sometimes the customer has a clear idea of the handle design, but others, like in this case, they leave it up to me. So this is where I left my creativity loose, my self imposed challenge within the challenge. In that regard I'm very happy with the result and was able to give life to my idea.

But I will be totally honest, I'm not entirely happy about the handle shape. It turned out the handle cups were too heavy so, since hollowing of any kind was strictly forbidden, I had to add a light layer on the bottom and remove some on top to see if they would lose a couple of grams. It does feel good, and I still got the 87mm circumference as asked, but it turned out a little flatter than what I initially intended. However regarding what really matters, the blade, and how it plays, I'm really satisfied. Every layer was selected to maximize feel and spin, down to the weight of the core and way that is cut, so I hope Der will like it too.

Composition: Koto / I-C / Ayous / Kiri / Ayous / I-C / Koto
Weight: 104.9g
Thickness: 5.8mm
Freq.: 1380 Hz
Balance: 1.5cm (Very Low)

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You've really gone all out on this blade and added a few things I haven't seen before from you (e.g., the metal tag on the butt of the handle, the lettering on the blade face) - great stuff! Such clean lines too - the blade edge looks fantastic, and I really appreciate the cleanliness of the chamfer on the butt of the handle (I know what a pain that can be to get right).
 
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Sergio sure got him a story, a story within a story, and some serious skillz. Goon Squad gunna have to look for another target, they are NOT gunna get Segio on this day.
I do NOT envy you, Der_Echte...you've gotten a lifetime's supply of blades out of this little challenge of yours - the amount of time and money (spent on rubber alone) to test them all is going to be substantial!
 
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