Curved daggers

With Al Shir-ma coming up, I thought I’d try making a curved dagger, along the lines of a Yemani Jambiya:

I went for standard 3-layer sandwich, with a short core, the idea being that the curved tip of the dagger could be coreless. Here’s the block:

jambiya-block

The core extends to the curve, ending about where the pencil lines cross. Unfortunately, this meant that when I cut the blade, the amount of foam over the tip of the core was inadequate, and part of the core’s protection - a chunk of leather on each side - was exposed. So I’ll have to strip it and start again, and move the core back half an inch or so. Before I do, does anyone else have any other suggestions to make?

I’d use some scraps from a plastic barrel and cut them out so they can follow the centre of the blade. Plastic barrel is typically 3-5mm thick and it you cut a core 30-40mm wide it’d probably work very nicely.

Oh, nice source picture by the way. I think people do a much better job copying a source picture.

Another option might be to get a narrow PVC pipe and heat & bend it at the curve.

Weight, etc, are less of an issue for daggers, as their tips don’t get nearly as much momentum as a sword.

Done!

jambiya-complete

Yes, Scott taught me latexing as well. It’s very basic in terms of colour, but the gold piping hilt makes it look fancy.

Lessons learned: hot-melt glue is a bitch to work with, and very stringy. I’ll be picking it off the hilt for a while.Maybe I should have used PVA and a brush after all…

Looks great !