Firstly, apologies if this is a) in the wrong section of the site, or b) completely irrelevant and doesn't belong here. If so, I'll happily remove it.
Something I do on the sidelines of making bows is customising medieval swords, and I thought it might be interesting to put one of my latest projects up on here. This is the first time I've built a sword from scratch, so it's been a bit of an adventure for me, to say the least!
Firstly, the blade - I'm not a blacksmith, so I had no other option but to use a blade already made and build the sword around it. I chose a cheap Windlass blade from a sword based on the German Erbach sword, dating somewhere in the late 15th Century. Looks like this (the original)
Now, the pommel and crossguard are completely wrong for the period I am building the sword around (early 15th Century / late 14th Century) so I needed to find something that used a similar blade style that came from that period. I used this beautiful 1400s find in the Metropolitan Museum of Art
So first step was to get the cross and pommel milled for me as I have no way of working so precisely with steel just yet unfortunately. I drew up blueprint designs of the cross and pommel that I wanted, being very careful to make up mock designs using card, and weighting them exactly so that I could check balance points with the blade. I eventually came to my final design, and gave them to one of my guitar students who offered to mill them for me. The results were excellent - clean and precise and pretty much exactly matching my designs.
These needed to be refined a bit - the hard edges need to be taken down with a file and emery cloth, the steel needs to be aged and weathered to look well used and beaten up, and the tang slot (the hole that slides down over the metal tang of the sword blade) was slightly too large, so would have to be packed with something to ensure a solid fit.
The cross was pushed over the tang, the pommel slipped onto the end and everything checked for balance and appearance.
At this stage I wasn't sure if the sword was going to be a single-hander or hand-and-a-half, but with the length of the cross the proportions were slightly out for a single hander.
The pommel and cross were smoothed and rounded, and soaked in a solution of vinegar and salt to age and rust them. The process was repeated about 5 times over the course of a day, wiping the solution off and checking the greying metal, then soaking again until the right finish was achieved.
The cross was loose at this stage, so I packed it with small wedges of ash and epoxy glue and hammered it into place to set hard. The grip was made from salvaging the original Erbach replica grip and epoxied onto the tang.
At this stage the tang had to be annealed in heat, so that it was soft enough to work and peen down onto the pommel. This was done the ultra-modern way... with a gas ring.
Once the tang was glowing red, it was left to cool in the air so that the steel was softer and wouldn't be brittle when worked with the peen hammer.
The pommel was slotted back into place, and the whole assembly checked one last time for balance and look.
The pommel now had to be peened - the tang had to be hammered with a ball peen hammer to squash and flatten over the end of the pommel to hold it in place. To stop the pommel spinning I filed a small oval in the end which the peen could grip and prevent from rotating. I did make the oval too large unfortunately which resulted in the gaps being visible each side of the peen but hey ho. We learn as we make mistakes!
Now the grip had to be given it's first cord wrap. This helps to strengthen the wooden grip pieces, and provide a strong gluing surface for the leather handle.
I also added some risers made from the same cord but twisted Flemish-style to add extra grip and a historically accurate appearance.
Right. What a long post. So at the moment it just needs a thin vegetable-tanned leather wrap stained with coffee and beeswax to be soaked and pressed over the handle, then wrapped again tightly in cord. This will come off once the leather has dried fully, and the top layer of cord will leave a nice impression in the leather which is found on most genuine medieval swords and helps add grip.
Hope this was of some interest to some of you! I'll post pics of the finished sword when the leather is done.
