A new yataghan

delor · 26th December 2011, 12:41 PM

Hello,
I recently made a new yataghan and asked to Jim McDougall whether I might show it here, as I would appreciate feedbacks about my work, especially from all of you being used to real antique weapons. Jim answered that I was welcome to post this piece to promote observations toward historical discussion, so..here I go !
This commission is based on characteristics of real antique yataghans (most of my documentation I got from Ethnographic Arms and Armour Forum, and also from Artzi Yarom Oriental-arms site galleries). Nevertheless, some of the characteristics differs from traditional technics, because of today's constraints, or because of the commission itself. This I would greatly appreciate to discuss with you. So, first of all, here are the main characteristics :

the blade is made of wrought steel, 1200 forge welded layers. I was asked to make it as bright as possible, with a very low-contrast pattern, so I choosed two different steels which took bright / light grey colors, so that it finally looks like an ancient blomery steel,
as the yataghan was to be shipped to US, I decided not use walrus ivory for the handle. I asked to the US customs services, but never had a 100% guarantee that there will be no problem with walrus ivory, so I used mammoth ivory instead,
the scabbard is made of sculpted wood with leather coverage,
all the fittings are made of silver plated casted bronze. This was one of the main issues as my client did not want those fittings to be made of embossed / chiseled metal as usually, and asked me to make something that looks more "strong" and "heavy". Mainly, I had to forge the blade with a thiner base, because the blade fitting was thicker than usual ;
the fittings patterns have been drawn from antique yataghan pictures ;
the blade has been acid etched with a turkish sentence I picked up from an antique yataghan ;
yatagan length : 76 cm
blade length : 60 cm
yataghan weight : 900 gr
scabbard weigh : 700 gr

Some photos :

26th December 2011, 12:41 PM	#1
delor Member Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Marseille - France Posts: 73	A new yataghan Hello, I recently made a new yataghan and asked to Jim McDougall whether I might show it here, as I would appreciate feedbacks about my work, especially from all of you being used to real antique weapons. Jim answered that I was welcome to post this piece to promote observations toward historical discussion, so..here I go ! This commission is based on characteristics of real antique yataghans (most of my documentation I got from Ethnographic Arms and Armour Forum, and also from Artzi Yarom Oriental-arms site galleries). Nevertheless, some of the characteristics differs from traditional technics, because of today's constraints, or because of the commission itself. This I would greatly appreciate to discuss with you. So, first of all, here are the main characteristics : the blade is made of wrought steel, 1200 forge welded layers. I was asked to make it as bright as possible, with a very low-contrast pattern, so I choosed two different steels which took bright / light grey colors, so that it finally looks like an ancient blomery steel, as the yataghan was to be shipped to US, I decided not use walrus ivory for the handle. I asked to the US customs services, but never had a 100% guarantee that there will be no problem with walrus ivory, so I used mammoth ivory instead, the scabbard is made of sculpted wood with leather coverage, all the fittings are made of silver plated casted bronze. This was one of the main issues as my client did not want those fittings to be made of embossed / chiseled metal as usually, and asked me to make something that looks more "strong" and "heavy". Mainly, I had to forge the blade with a thiner base, because the blade fitting was thicker than usual ; the fittings patterns have been drawn from antique yataghan pictures ; the blade has been acid etched with a turkish sentence I picked up from an antique yataghan ; yatagan length : 76 cm blade length : 60 cm yataghan weight : 900 gr scabbard weigh : 700 gr Some photos : Attached Images Last edited by delor; 27th December 2011 at 12:08 AM.