We’re Scylla and Charybdis, you really don’t want to come between us.
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Not much more to say about the build that wasn’t covered in my original scimitar post except some differences in materials.
The design is identical to the first scimitar, but I followed through on the 1/4" thick pieces for the handle scales. This was a mixed bag, because zebrawood is a jerk that likes to both fight back and char.
Blades are 2 layers of 1/8" baltic birch plywood. Crossguard is 2 layers of 1/8" cherry hardwood with a layer of maple veneer sandwiched between to make a bright stripe.
(Baltic birch plywood, bloodwood, zebrawood)
Trying out different arrangements as I think about how to wall mount these. The pins are actually fake pins this time around – instead of dowels I just cut rounds of the bloodwood and glued them in place. This was necessary for a few reasons, but the end result looks pretty sharp so I regret nothing.
(Baltic birch plywood, bloodwood, zebrawood)
So this detail on the handle is where we can talk about zebrawood. The amount of charring I saw was almost unworkable, and I had to take the pieces to a disc sander in order to get clean butt joints in handle. The edges were just too inconsistent and unstable to do it otherwise.
(Baltic birch plywood, bloodwood, zebrawood)
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So, final thoughts:
Bloodwood, like padauk and redheart, makes a massive mess when you sand it. Be prepared to get dirty. Also, you go through a good bit of sandpaper, because if you’re not careful you’ll smear the red color into any light colored woods nearby. (Look closely at the detail of the handle picture, and you’ll see a red cast to the plywood layers. Unavoidable to a degree.)
Cleaning the zebrawood edges down with a proper disc sander allowed me to get very clean 90 degree faces, I’d just gently sand them until the char was just barely gone. It worked really well, but it was a hassle and wouldn’t scale well if I wanted to make many of these. In reality the handle and crossguard designs need to be altered to be simpler and easier to finish, you could cut the build time dramatically.
So. Next time, I’d use woods that take a laser better. Bloodwood was great, but it’d be better to pair it with something that’s an easy cutter like maple, walnut or yellowheart.
I’m pretty happy with the end result and will move on to figuring out a wall mounting system next.
