The Armour Archive

To everyone who's ever made -or attempted to make- a steel sword:

WHY did we start on something so hard???

We're always dissapointed, half the time we give up anyway. Why didn't we get smart and start on something simple -like a mace! After a few years I'm only just now getting smart and working on things that don't take buggering alchemy to get right.

We've had a few new guys in here recently, asking about swords, and it got me to thinking. If I came in here and asked about swordmaking -and I did- and someone sat down and listed all the difficulties and how probable it is that I wouldn't be as happy as I immagined I would be with my result, and suggested I'd have a lot more luck on other medieval weapons... I wonder if I would have listened. Would you? It certainly would have saved me a lot of trouble in the long run.

What say ye, fellow attempted swordmakers?

I agree that warhammer/mace/lance are all easier to make, wich make sense that in old days sword was not soooo common

but i did not listened to other,ive forged a katana blade...and it broke because not tempered correctly....but the next one will be better! or broke....and the following one will...

kind of imitation of the castle in swamp from Monthy Python and Holy Grail:P

Over on Anvilfire we get this questioon so many times that the Great Guru ("Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!") has posted a somewhat cynical but accurate article on it:

http://www.anvilfire.com/21centbs/armor ... making.htm

Sort of "tough love" for the swordsmith wannabe!

I tend to refer folks to his article, my history of swords article ( http://www.anvilfire.com/21centbs/armor ... words1.htm ) and then send them over to Sword Furum, which has a nice beginners page ( http://www.swordforum.com/ ).

He11, I'm still trying to perfect methods for making spearheads hilting existing sword blades, making knives, and pounding out an axe from time to time!

I am just now starting bladesmithing. But the first thing the local SCA laurel for metalworking taught me how to do was to make tent stakes. And I'm thankful he didn't let me start with a sword or a knife or any blade. With a tent stake I can learn most of the basics for making just about anything!

I am a new bladesmith myself. Metalworking is a skill I have always desired to learn. But the first thing I did was ask what I needed to learn in order to learn how to make a weapon. It does get slightly perturbing when so many come on just wanting to make a sword. Either by stock removal or on a forge. I just want to say to any and all who ask this question that the first thing you should do is learn how to make simple items. Then make weapons when your actually ready to do so. Your not ready yet. And won't be for some time in all honesty.

Bjorn Swiftaxe

The first project I ever made was a cold chisle in a grade school metal shop. It was where I learned how to do the basics. And the cold chisle started me on this mad path. It is still in use to this day almost 20 years later. I gave It to my father and last time I checked It was still in his tool box. I can pattern weld like a champ. I can make one of the best knives you will ever own. Let me tell you though, a sword is still a collosal pain in my patookus. So many things can, and do go wrong. So as wiser men say START SMALL.
START SMALL, START SMALL!!!!!!
Keep pounding,
Bryan

I must say, I don't care for the tone of most of that Anvilfire FAQ. Seems needlessly harsh. I don't frequent Anvilfire (don't have a buggering forge that works) so I dunno, maybe it was necessary.

Other than that, I'm with you! It's a lot harder to screw up an axe.

Destichado wrote:I must say, I don't care for the tone of most of that Anvilfire FAQ. Seems needlessly harsh. I don't frequent Anvilfire (don't have a buggering forge that works) so I dunno, maybe it was necessary.

Other than that, I'm with you! It's a lot harder to screw up an axe.

I agree it's harsh, and I would not take the same tone; but a lot of the inquiries were pig ignorant and downright nasty when you couldn't give them what they wanted. Sort of like Thulsa Doom!

"The secret of steel, Conan is..." ...gurgle, thunk bumpity bompity bump...

The reason we want to make swords and not other weapons is because swords are infinitely cooler then any other weapon made prior to the Colt .45.

Modern men want to create swords because the history of the sword and it's associated imagery runs deep and swift in our very veins.It is our heritage,a link to a time when men delivered themselves and their families from harm by the strength of their own hand and needed no intermediary save for keen steel . A man's sword was the protector of his life and his country.The sword unlike many other period weapons was almost exclusively an implement of war. For these reasons and a few others, we modern men strive to connect with our ancestors who fought and bled of old for life and honor. Some do so by sweating at the forge to give form to their yearnings while yet others,no less devoted, strive to revive the manner of using the blade in a historically-accurate manner while strengthening their hand at the hilt. It's in our blood.

Man.

I've been a long time supporter of Jock and the Anvilfire gang. But! My first project, (winter of 88) was a sword. I neither then, or now meet any of the sterieotipical D&D discription. And I've made hundreds of blades, (not all or even half of them swords) since. And! If that had been the first anvilfire article I'd read, it would have been the last. I'd never have made it past the "Mr. Smarty Pants" attitude, to get to the real meat of the article. Back then, when I was 28-29, I damn near worshiped anyone who had ANY knowledge, and yet being talked down too, especially after leaving the Military, has always been a stickler. I guess if I'd have been approached by as many idiot's as them, I'd react in the same way, but,...that kind of schtic get's my dander up a bit. I guess there just comes a point when the teachers want a certain kind of student? Or else, as I've often surmised; were all a very strange genre of artist's?

I think that when this thread has developed a little more I'll forward it to Jock for his further contemplation.