3D Model of the Hilt of Sword 22

3/27/2017

A 3D model of the hilt of Sword 22 (first posthere) is now available on Sketchfab. Enjoy!

Peter

3/27/2017 06:48:24 am

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Jonathan E. Feinstein

3/27/2017 08:39:44 am

Very nice!

To revisit the rivets discussion of last post, I agree with peter that on the front, at least one of the possible end rivets look like a spiral design instead of a rivet... possibly both do, but on the back they still look like rounded rivet heads to me. I doubt that means much, though. I just wish we had a scan like this of Sword 21 because when I blow the one picture we have of that up there's no spiral of this sort there, which makes me wonder if whoever introduced the rivet bumps, tried to cleverly hid the end ones, or just added the spirals in (could be done with a bit of putty on the master)

I definitely agree now that the back of the palmette base does not look like another disguised rivet in the scan, although there is still that slight bump in the front of that same area on the viewer's right side (of the pamette base). Does not have to be a rivet and might just be an imperfection that was overlooked in the original.

One more observation: the cleanup of the bivalve mold flashing is much cleaner on this piece, but still only a half-hearted attempt to clean off the mold marks. I suspect there never was an attempt to get rid of them entirely although if we ever find one on which the flashing and mold marks have been entirely cleaned off, if will either be the oldest of the lot or else have been done by the owner after having purchased the piece... At least, I know that had I bought a tourist piece like this that was otherwise shiny brass, I would have wanted want to sand off the mold marks to make the piece look more like it was finely crafted.

However, Peter might have hit the nail on the head when he said that manufacturers might have left imperfections to make the sword look more like antiquities or just not bothered to remove them for the same reason.

Peter

3/28/2017 07:13:29 am

The more I look at it, I would agree that the intent with this model may have certainly been to have a rivet look on the outside corners, but the result is just a bit less than perfect, compared to the centre three which are clear. If 22 is a copy/cousin of an early model, every subsequent model lost the rivet look a bit more as the details blurred over time.

Jonathan E. Feinstein

3/28/2017 07:43:05 am

I have to admit that I'm rather interested in the development process of these artifacts, which if probably why I keep going on about possible rivets.

On that point I went looking for possible traces that an early form of the hilt had been removed from a closer to original weapon and cut open at the base to facilitate the attachment of a blade. The base would then be riveted to attach the blade and riveted on the ends to close up the cut portion.

What I found on examining the side view of the 3D scan did not conclusively prove or disprove that so far as I could tell. Any real evidence had been obscured by filing and maybe filling (no, I saw no definite sign of a gap being filled). I did, however, note that on the right side of the base (as viewed from the front) does not fit exactly together from the rear of the cast to the front. Flipping the 3D scan over I saw a lot of smoothing over on the other side of the base.

SO, at first glance I thought my hypothesis might have held some water after all, but then I looked of the rest of the helit. The entire rear side of the bivalve cast is slightly offset from the front (I estimate by maybe 1/32 on an inch. What that means to me is that the two sides of the mold were not perfectly keyed. When the two halves of the mold were separated and the master removed, they were not put back together with perfect placement. Well a 32nd of the inch (and it might be much less) is not much and I don't know that I would have noticed had I examined the piece in person.

Interestingly enough, on looking at the scans of the California and Italian eBay swords, I do not really see that same offset. The DT sword does not either, but that's no surprise. The discrepancy might have been filed and sanded down in later models, of course, or Sword 22 might be unique in that. Without more models to examine it is hard to say.

Peter

3/28/2017 07:21:18 am

Actually I might take that last sentence back, because some but not all variants still seem to have pretty obvious faux rivet bumps on the corners, so it's not like the curled scroll look persisted but rather a bump rivet type feature would still be the casual observation. Some individual examples do however seem to lose it. In DT they really seem to be blurred.

Jonathan E. Feinstein

3/28/2017 09:12:50 am

Yes, on the front, the DT bumps might not even be mistaken for rivets, especially the one on the left. On the back they seem to have become somewhat oblong. On both side one could assume they are stones the lions' forepaws are resting on, sort of. In any case without the clear scans of Sword 22, I would have been uncertain, at the least of those bumps being rivets for whatever reason.

3D Model of the Hilt of Sword 22

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