How To Make Swords (v1.28)

First

Why do you want a sword? do you just want something long and shinny to carry around or to hang on your wall, do you want to use it, stage fight with it, cut things with it? In other words, do you want it to be a working sword, or a decorative sword, and how much of each do you want? If all you want is a sword shaped chunk of something shinny, then you are going to have a much easier time if you want a sword that will keep a sharp eadge, or if you want it not bend (to soft), or brake (to hard, and brittle) when you hit something with it, then you are in for a lot more work, so learn aboutannealing, hardening, and tempering too. Reply

Metal

Now I suspect you want this sword to be made out of some kind of metal, right? So if you are serious about making a sword then learn as much as you can about different kinds of metal, and how they work, what they can do, and how they are used, learn what high carbon steel is, and how to work with it, and how to ruin a perfectly good piece of it. Reply

Time

A number of people who ask me about making a sword, act like they will be able to learn how to make one over night, if they are just given that key piece of information, that might be true for some people if you already have a vast knowledge of steel, and how to work it, and use the tools to work it... in other words, if you already know everything you need to know to make a sword, other then the experience of really taking the time to make one, I would guess that then you could make one in just a few years, maybe even a few months. In my mind you will need to have experience in black smithing as a start, knowing how to draw out steel out, straighten it, shape it, know if it is important to hit each side of the blade the exact same number of time with similar force. If you don't know what it means for steel to have a temper or to be tempered, or what happens to steel when it turns that blue color when heated, th en find out. learn how to make your own tools, and jigs, find out what the different options are, and just for the hell of it, find out what a Trip Hammer is. I am not trying to discourage you, learn this stuff! it's the kind of stuff that can be fascinating to know. If you already have a vague knowledge of metal, and the tools you might use, you might still spend (many) years making failed swords, before you get an ok good one, or you might turn out to be really lucky, and have some mad skills that your not telling the rest of us about... There is a reason Swords are seen as such prized objects, and the people who craft them are highly respected. —Ryland Reply

Tempering

Verb To harden or strengthen (metal or glass) by application of heat or by heating and cooling As Charlie so kindly remined us boys and girls, steel is normaly either to brittle, or bendy to work as a sword, even if you don't want it to hold an edge, most people want a sword that is going to be light enough to hold without the aid of a crane. To do this it first needs to be thin, if you have a long thin piece of steel that is soft, it is going to bend like a twist tie or a piece of licrish, and you are going to look rather silly, if you heat steel compleatly evenly in a fire till it starts to glow cherry red, then quench it in the proper liquid (depending on the grade of steel, you might use pure water, salt water brine, or an oil) by doing this you can harden your soft steel, the steel will end up being hard, and brittle, if you do this step wrong, it might crack and break in to little bits, or just end up so brittle that the slightest bend to the blade, will snap it like an icesical. Now is the fun part! Tempering the steel, that is, making it a happy medium between to soft, and to hard, and how hard or soft is controled by how hot you heat the steel this 2nd time, so what you want to do is find a way to heat your steel to around 350-450 degrees I beleave... the exact tempatur I am a little fuzzy at, partly becuase it depends on the steel you have. Your next step is to polish your newly hardened piece of steel, then to give it a spring temper (for very thin swords, like for fencing) you heat it just enough that it turns a very light straw color, your steel will get a colored oxide, so learn what the colors are that it will turn and what they meen, some people say that you don't even want it to get to a straw color for spring temper. For a knife (what will keep an edge the best) temper my books seem to say you want a medium to dark straw color, (if you get it turning blue, you have to re-anneal it, re-harden it, and re-temper it, if you have to do that to many times you might ruin the steel by burning the carbon out of it, if that happens you can easly toss it in the scrap bin) then dip it to cool it, or some steel you can just let it cool slowly from there, and it will be right, the hotter you heat it in that last step, the softer it will be, the softer it is, the easyer it will be to sharpen, and the less springy (more easly bent) it will be, and the less likely it will be to crack, break or chip. sounds easy right? now the question is, how do you heat a piece of steel that size that evenly? you have to get the whole freaking thing cherry red, perfectly evenly, or it will not harden right, then you have to get it heated to the right color of straw, or it will not temper right! then, on top of that, when you are heating it, and cooling it, and all that junk, you will most likely have it warp, and twist! and if you have to straighten it to much once it's cold, it will most likely crack! and suddenly your scrap pile has gotten bigger again. so if you figur out a way to do all of that, I would love to know how. —Ryland Reply

Comments and Questions

Ahem! It's easy. Take metal. Wrap one end in leather. Make other end pointy. Sword! —Victor Reply

The alloy, folding, and tempering give the sword strength and flexibility. Ordinary steel is either brittle or bendy, and doesn't hold an edge well. All the work Ryland's talking about actually pays off. —Charlie Reply

Hire Ryland to make you one! -FionA

Does it really matter what type of steel your using to make a different model of blade? Like, for instance, Would the type of metal have to vary if you were making a Katana versus an Excalibur?-Anonymous Reader Reply

I would imagine that a Katana would be Damascus steal traditionaly, so you would rely more on the steal being a blend of differnt types of metal, Damascus is as I understand it (correct me if I am wrong) is basicly a number of differnt types of steal, and sometimes other metals like copper mixed in there, all folded and welded together over and over again and streached, untill it has a fine grain developed, so you have a mix of steal that keeps a edge well, mixed with one that is springy, with one that is more forgiving, making it very tuff, and very exspensive.

for an Excalibur... I would imagine that it would be one type of steal, maybe two, and relying more ~purer tool steal that is then hardened, and temperd so it is springy/hard/good edge, insted of having a mix of metals that each do their own thing. At least that is my best guess at a hacked together answer from my knolage of history, and metal working, if anyone else has a better idea I would be open to hearing it. —Ryland Reply

From what I've heard of the vikings using damascus tecnigues in their swords, there is a softer, but springier steel in the core of the sword, and a hard edge on the outside, where it needs to be sharp. This makes sense somewhat, since damascus sounds somewhat roman, and I could imagine that the romans or romanesque celtic tribes gave damascus it's name. But none of that is back-upable, it's based in obscure fact and mostly speculation. As for the katana/excalibur argument... I don't know that much about katanas, but I do know something about excalibur. Katana's, I would agree with ryland were rather complex (the good kind, anyway) It think they had to be folded over 12 times at the very least to be concidered a katana, and many more times to be worth anything. Excalibur comes from arthurian legend, as wel all know, and his character resides in the 6xth century, so he probably had a celtic broadsword, which I think was just one kind of steel, no damascus involved. But the people who really took off with the idea of arthurian legend, were the minstrels of the 14th century, who had quite a bit longer swords, which were probably forged quite intricately. —Josh

Making swords reminds me of the story of Wieland the smith when he made his fabulous sword named Wittige. He was in a contest with the royal armourer, and if he could cut through the armour that the armourer made with the sword that he made he would win. Wieland went to work and made the most fabulous blade that was ever seen and took the king out to the river and stuck the sword into the water and threw a piece of cotton into the stream and cut the cotton in half. The kind said it was the greatest blade he'd ever seen and that he wanted to keep it. Wieland said it wasn't done yet and took it back to his shop and filed the blade down to nothing and fed the shavings to the chickens. He took the chicken droppings and melted them down and made another even better sword out of them and once again took the kind down to the river and this time he didn't even have to move the blade to cut the cotton, the current of the stream was enough to cut the cotton cleanly through the middle. Again the kind said it was the most fabulous blade he'd ever seen and that he wanted to keep it. Wieland took the sword back to the shop and repeated his process and went back to the river bank with similar results and similar words from the king. Then he went back to this shop and made an exact replica of his sword and hid the real sword, Wittige under his bed and give the kind the replica and won his contest. —Josh Reply