What an interesting thing!

Did you make the blade as well? Is it a camp hatchet as well - if so how does it work?

Oh yes! The coustille is very much its own thing. It's rather long for a knife, but is quite handle-heavy, so it doesn't feel at all like a (very) short sword. It's got a weird "neither fish nor foul" feel about it. I don't know as I'd explicitly recommend it, but if that's the kind of thi...

PUPPY!!!!!!

Poor thing.

Thank you gentlemen. :) Ursus - happy to! Since I'm by no means an expert at actually using swords though: can you talk some about what hilt features are important from the standpoint of realistic use and woodland carry? For example, is it meaningful that the guard in those examples is a relatively ...

Out of curiosity, what do you guys think of this general concept as a default book-lore "rangery" blade? Imagine an Albion blade (Yeoman) with a brazil nut pommel (Reeve) and plain norse-ish (Jarl) guard.
Possibly etched or engraved Numenorean-ish art?

Hunh... You know, Fourth Age or Third - even in a poor economy, even if the commissioning itself was done by mouth rather than written word, I could easily imagine either a roster scroll or book into which each man wrote his name (or made his mark). In fact I'd be surprised if both the Dunedain of t...

I was wondering where that image got to! I had a vague recollection Mr. Mohan did an illustration of Rangers and couldn't find it. Interesting drawing! For what it's worth, Matt Easton just made an interesting observation on his youTube channel, echoing much of what you just said Ursus: hypothesizin...

Oh my word, that is a lovely thing! You went all out.

I'd never thought about an eating pricker doubling as an awl. Makes a lot of sense..... hrmm....

Thank you Iodo. Less research than somewhat-historically-informed bloviating, but now my brain's buzzing on the topic and I want to do some sketchbook thinking. :) I've taken "in fashion like Anduril but of less lineage" to mean that Boromir's sword was similar in form and structure to And...

To expand a bit… Since then, like many of you, I am sure, I have been intrigued by swords, and thought a lot about what the swords of Middle-earth might be like. So, I am curious.... what comes to YOUR mind as the swords of Middle-earth? Ever since you asked, I've been pondering this question quite ...

Welcome! If it's fidelity to the film version you're after, short of going custom I don't think you could do better than the Christian Fletcher Borderwatch: http://www.christianfletcher.com/swords/heroic-line-swords/borderwatch/ Most of the same visual tells as Lyon/WETA/Peter et al went with, but m...

For magnesium, it looks like a similar story: Magnesium was first isolated by Sir Humphry Davy, an English chemist, through the electrolysis of a mixture of magnesium oxide (MgO) and mercuric oxide (HgO) in 1808. -https://education.jlab.org/itselemental/ele012.html To go further - I think we can fai...

Hrm... I'm not a chemist, but skimming cerium's wiki page it wasn't isolated until the 19th c., and the process utilized electricity at that. Which means unless we're also speculating dwarves had developed primitive electrical technology, I'm inclined to doubt it. Cerium was originally isolated in t...

I got a big ol' box of English flint flakes from "Neolithics Flintknapping Supplyhouse" http://www.neolithics.com/flakes-1/ You can get a lifetime supply for hardly much at all. A pound of flakes had - for me - a number of fair-sized easy to hold chunks and and lots of little - but perfect...

Cool! Looks like they're gonna be getting some good use.