Ravenreave Hand Forged High Carbon Steel Medieval Glaive | 62 Inch Overall with a 24 Inch Blade | Reenactment Display Gift | RK-1373

A long glaive with a blackened blade, brass langets and a dark hardwood stave. The blade is twenty four inches of 1095 high carbon steel, single edged and deeply swept, finished in black oxide with the ground bevel left bright so the edge reads as a line of light down the whole curve. Blades of this length on a pole were the heavy end of the glaive family and they went by different names in different places, the fauchard in France and the couse in the low countries among them, but the working idea is constant: put a falchion on the end of a stave and let reach do the rest.

Forged, heat treated and finished in our shop in Memphis, Tennessee, hardened and drawn to 54 to 58 HRC. It ships with the fitted leather blade cover shown, free anywhere in the United States, and it can be engraved with Elder Futhark runes or a Viking pattern before it leaves the bench.

Specifications

What the spine does on a single edged blade

The reason a twenty four inch blade on a pole does not flop about is the spine. A single edged blade only has to be thin on one side, so all the material saved on the back can be left thick, and that thick unsharpened spine is a beam. It resists bending in exactly the plane the cut loads it, which means the blade can be long without being heavy and stiff without being clumsy. A double edged blade of the same length has to be thin on both sides and either flexes or has to be made much wider to compensate.

There is a second benefit that shows up the moment you handle one. The spine is a safe surface. You can rest a single edged blade against your own forearm, lean it on a shoulder, or block with the back of it, none of which you would do with a blade that is keen on both sides. Period glaives often carry a small hook or lug on the spine for exactly that reason, and where they do not, the plain thick back is still the part the user learned to trust.

Why 1095 high carbon steel and not stainless

Every plain steel piece in this group is forged from 1095, a simple high carbon steel with roughly one percent carbon and very little else in it. That plainness is the point. A steel with nothing but iron and carbon to argue about moves predictably under the hammer, takes a clean quench, and comes back to a hardness a smith can actually hold to. These are hardened and drawn to 54 to 58 HRC, which is deliberately a touch softer than a kitchen knife. A head that has to survive impact wants to bend and rebound rather than chip, and 1095 in that range absorbs a bad hit instead of losing a piece of itself.

Stainless alloys buy their rust resistance with chromium, and above about thirteen percent that chromium ties up carbon in carbides that make the steel harder to forge and more brittle at the edge. On a small folding knife that trade is fine. On a head that lands with the weight of a haft behind it, it is not. The cost of choosing 1095 is that it will rust if you leave it wet. Wipe it, oil it, and it will outlast you. There is more on that trade in our guide to Damascus versus stainless.

The hardwood haft

The haft is close grained hardwood, turned to a slight taper so the hand finds the same place on it every time and sanded through the grits before it takes its oil finish. Dense hardwood is chosen over a softwood for a reason that has nothing to do with looks. A dense stave carries the shock of a heavy head into the wood rather than letting it stop at your palm, and it holds a ferrule or a langet tight for years instead of shrinking away from the fitting after one dry winter.

The finish is oil, not lacquer, which is a deliberate choice. Lacquer looks perfect until it chips, then water gets under it and you cannot fix it without stripping the whole handle. Oil wears gradually and is repaired by wiping more oil on. Once or twice a year, a thin coat of boiled linseed or a proprietary handle oil, twenty minutes to soak, then wipe off what has not gone in. See wooden handle care.

Engraving, runes and your own design

Use the rune converter on this page to turn a name, a date or a short phrase into Elder Futhark and we will cut it into the steel or the handle. If you would rather have a Viking pattern than a rune line, choose your own design in the engraving option above the add to cart button and tell us whether it goes on the blade or the handle. Where a piece already carries an engraved design, your chosen engraving replaces it rather than sitting alongside it.

Engraving is cut by hand after the piece is finished and before final oiling, so keep the line short and let it sit where the eye already goes. Names, dates, a line of a poem, a maker mark, a unit or a crew number all work. If you are unsure where a line should sit, send us the text and we will suggest a placement before we cut. Full details and examples are on the engraving page.

Care and sharpening

Carbon steel rusts. That is the only demanding thing about owning it. Wipe the steel down after handling, because fingerprints are salt and moisture and they will etch a bright surface in a week if you let them sit. A thin film of mineral oil, gun oil or paste wax on the metal is enough to keep it stable indoors. If the piece lives on a wall in a room that swings between damp and dry, check it every few months and re oil. Left alone in a garage or a basement it will spot, and once it spots the mark is permanent even after the rust is removed.

The edge is finished sharp from the forge and does not need attention until it stops biting. When it does, a coarse then fine whetstone, kept wet, held at the angle the bevel already carries, will bring it back in a few minutes. Do not take a powered grinder to it. Our guides cover steel care and sharpening with a whetstone in more detail.

Forged in Memphis

This is made in our shop in Memphis, Tennessee. Nothing in this listing is drop shipped from an importer catalogue and nothing is bought in finished and re labelled. The steel is cut, heated, drawn and shaped here, the heat treat is done here, and the fitting and finishing are done here by the same small crew. That is also why the lead time is honest rather than instant. Pieces in stock ship within two to three business days. If yours has to be made, or if you have asked for engraving, allow two to three weeks before it leaves the shop. We will tell you which it is when you order rather than after. Shipping inside the United States is free.

A note on handmade variation

This is hand forged. It is not machine made, not cast and not bulk produced, so what arrives will not be a pixel for pixel copy of the photograph on this page. The grain of the wood, the tone the steel takes from the fire and the oil, the exact run of a pattern, the precise curve of a profile, all of it shifts a little from one piece to the next because each one is worked by hand from natural materials. Two hafts cut from the same board will not read the same. Two etched blades from the same billet will not carry the same swirl.

What does not change is the specification. Dimensions, steel, hardness, fittings and build are the same every time. The character is the part that is yours alone, and it is the reason to buy something forged rather than something stamped.

Frequently asked questions

Why is the blade black and the edge bright?

The body is finished in black oxide, an iron oxide grown into the surface, and the ground bevel is left bare because sharpening removes any finish anyway. The contrast is deliberate and it is how a great many period blades looked.

Is it sharp?

Yes, the full twenty four inches is ground and honed. This is a great deal of live edge on a five foot lever, so keep the cover on it until it is mounted and store it somewhere nobody walks into it.

Can I have runes engraved on it?

Yes, and this is the best surface for it in the whole range. A blackened blade takes a cut line that comes up bright against the dark, so runes and Viking patterns read at a distance rather than needing to be found.

Will mine look like the photograph?

The blade profile, length and fittings will match. Black oxide varies from charcoal to deep blue black between batches, hardwood varies board to board, and brass arrives at whatever brightness it was last polished to.

What is the difference between this and the polished glaive?

This one is longer in the blade and the haft, finished black with brass langets and a dark stave, and it is the heavier of the two at five and a half pounds. The polished glaive on ash is lighter and faster in the hand.

How long does shipping take?

Two to three business days if it is in stock, two to three weeks if it is being made, blacked or engraved. It ships braced in a long carton and shipping in the United States is free.

What is in the box

• One hand forged blackened glaive in 1095 high carbon steel
• Dark hardwood haft with brass langets, rivets and turned butt ferrule
• Fitted leather blade cover
• Care and oiling notes for black oxide finishes
• Forged and finished in Memphis, Tennessee

Explore the range

More in glaives and polearms, halberds, falchions and viking weapons, and read the guides.