Scabbard Required

Hello sword owners.

Do you keep all of your swords in appropriate scabbards?

While most of mine are properly sheathed, there is, unfortunately, more than one blade still waiting for a decent scabbard. Ironically, getting a good scabbard is harder than getting a good sword these days.

Almost all of the scabbards I own I have made myself. So I am aware of how much work it is, in particular regarding the wooden scabbard core. Carving one that is both functional and elegant is a very demanding and time consuming task. I can perfectly understand why one would shy away from it.

So today I will introduce you to an alternative method of constructing a wooden scabbard core. Find a link to an extensive tutorial below.

I hope you will find it useful.

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Let there be Wood!

In most cases, when a sword was deposited, it was in its scabbard. So we are relatively well-informed about the composition of medieval scabbards. The core invariably consisted of wood, sandwiched between a lining, and one or more layers of fabric and/or leather on the outside.

Linings were either of fur or textile. Fur was more popular in the Early Middle Ages while high and late medieval scabbards were often lined with fabric. In the image below you can see remnants of some rather coarse textile still clinging to the exposed inside of a 16th century scabbard.

I made the illustration above a while ago (here is a higher resolution). As you can see scabbards were of a laminated construction. Lining and facings could vary. However, there always is a wooden core.

For your own scabbard, you could either carve the halves that make up the core (which is authentic but hard – take a look!) – or you could make them like the two examples in the image below, namely from prefab materials for modern model making.

I have compiled for you an extensive step-by-step tutorial with many images. If ever you do make a scabbard, please send me a photo if you do not mind.

Go to tutorial

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Scabbard Leathers from York

There are many publications on historical scabbards, most notably “Covering the Blade” by Marquita Volken & Olaf Goubitz (Zwolle 2020). The book is included in this list of 100 titles compiled by Tomáš Vlasatý.

The list also includes the title shown above which contains finds of discarded scabbard leathers. To see them, all you need to do is download. The section on scabbards and sheaths starts on p. 3354 (that is p. 185 of the PDF).

Get the paper

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So, that's it for today. Take care, and keep your blade in a proper scabbard.

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Yours,

Roland

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