How to Make a Sword

I have always been mildly interested in swords and knives. I've never been a collector--the only knife I've ever owned that I slobbered all over was a Victorinox swiss army knife--it had about 30 different tools in it, including a saw blade and a magnifying glass. But, I've never bought a sword or any other big purchase like that.

Needless to say, when I began working with metal (welding, shaping, etc.), I saw the potential to make a neat sword with some scrap I had laying around the shop at work.

Sooo, I decided to make a two-handed sword. I knew that a Samarai katana was out of the question--I have neither the blacksmithing knowledge nor the materials handy to create one of those. BUT, a claymore-like broadsword was possible--if nothing more than to look at. Like I said, I didn't have blacksmithing knowledge at the time.

This first attempt is rather crude, but it was fun and didn't take tons of time (which seems to be a real commodity right now for me). I had to learn the parts of the sword--which my boss at work was so generous to impart upon me. In the video below, you'll see my relative lack of knowledge shine through when I keep repeating the term "hilt" when I talk about working on the tang. Also, something I didn't know was that the crossbar (used to protect a swordsman's hands from an enemy's sword) actually "floats" below the blade--meaning, it isn't attached via a weld or other fastening device. These crossbars were often made of a softer material than the blade--to hopefully grab the opponent's sword and offer a chance to rip it from their grip.

Either way, I made a sword and it is pretty neat to have.

Oh yeah, and here's the "how-to" video of the sword-making process. (I apologize for the choppy transitions--I uploaded it to metacafe, and it got a little wonky in the output.)


Make a Sword .... How-to

****Please note: this finished sword is not really finished. In order to complete it fully to combat-readiness, you would need to fire it in a forge and temper it.

My next project is to build a small forge and begin creating hunting knives. I'll drop a line here periodically to show you what I've done.