Rugged As Iron Works

Making a sword display plaque because I'm cheap.

I went shopping for a wall mount for my custom military officer's sword and was astounded at the price, with most in the $250-300 Cdn range!

Well, I wasn't about to spend more on the wood plaque then I did for the raw steel, so I opted to make one. I had a rhomboid-shaped slab of black walnut that was 40x14x1-5" leftover from a batch of axes with black walnut handles. So after using a table saw, chop saw, 2x bandsaws, jointer and planer, I managed to turn it into a plank and two uprights....and a small mountain of sawdust and shavings. Some careful drilling, band-sawing, routing, screwing and sanding later, and I had a complete wall mount that was ready for some coats of boiled linseed oil, and more sawdust.

I put some extra thought into it and routed in screw eyes in the back for both 16" and 24" studs, and made the uprights to act as feet so it can free-stand on a surface as well.

Total cost to me, $4, to pay the kids to clean up all the sawdust, and lots of time:)

And once the metal blackening solution arrives for the scabbard I'll find an appropriate place to display it all.

Making a metal scabbard

Surprisingly one doesn’t need a forge to make a metal scabbard or its fittings, but a hydraulic press is quite helpful.

First I took a metal pipe, 1/16” wall and 1” outer diameter, and squished it into an oval using a press. My first attempt using my flattening dies left dents, so I sandwiched the pipe with two hardwood blocks and it worked reasonably well.

Then I cut out the tip guard and welded it on, . There’s a few different styles of tip guard, from violin body to squared oval to bumpy to choose from, but I had an idea. There’s also a fighting style unique to metal scabbards, where the scabbard is held in the offhand and is used to parry. Well, why stop there. I put a thicker tip guard on the scabbard with some extra bumpy angles and now it’s also a functional club.

Next was turning two rings in the metal lathe and with copious use of the welder, I built build up the metal, shaped them and drilled holes to fit rings in the future. Then I solders them onto the scabbard.

Lastly I machined, milled and carved an oval mouth for the scabbard, and filed it carefully to fit the blade. Some judicious use of a rubber mallet to aid insertion and the scabbard was pretty much done.

The last step will be to cold blue the scabbard so it matches the sword better and isn’t quite so shiny, but that’s for another day,

My answer to "What did you do over March break?" is, I made a sword!

Funny, I did that during the holidays too! Oh well, it's a good trend.

This sword is a 1897 Pattern Canadian Officers sword, the common sword design for the Canadian Army and British Infantry Officers.

These are thrusting swords, with a 32.5" blade, 1" wide and 1/4" thick at the guard, with a fuller for half (or more), giving it a barbell cross-section that transitions to a wedge until the spear-point. These sword have a three-quarter basket hilted design (the guard), a pommel with integral backstrap and a shark or ray skin bound handle. Most are for display or ceremonial use, with stainless or medium-carbon steel unsharpened blades with scroll or floral engravings, and stamped sheet metal/brass fittings, with a price tag of ~ $1400,

I decided to make a distinctly un-ceremonial sword.

This sword, as noted in previous posts, has a Damascus, blade with a mix of 256-layers of 1090 & 15N20 high carbon steels, a longer fuller to move the balance closer to the guard and has been sharpened for the first 12" of the edge and 4" of the false edge. I have elected to leave the typical scrollwork engravings off the blade as I find the half-random, half-ladder Damascus pattern integral to the blade far nicer.

The guard is made from wrought iron that is well over 100 years old and has been forged to shape, curving both vertically and horizontally for extra toughness. This was challenging to do, and I ended up forge welding two pieces of wrought iron together to get enough good material...and it took FOUR attempts! I may pierce and carve the guard later, and will also etch it for a few more days to pop the grain pattern.

The handle is stingray skin over oak, with a Damascus steel retaining band, The backstrap/pommel is also wrought iron, hand carved into a stylized snake - a snake being the animal associated with the medical profession.

This sword is for my personal use, and while I could have bought one, making a better one was more satisfying and cheaper!...if you don't count the hours :O

Next up, a scabbard.

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Doing the boring part of forging Damascus steel.

Not all forging is exciting, and when you’re working with $700 of steel, that’s probably a good thing. This weekends work was drawing out a 10” billet of Damascus into a 37” blade, with a taper and a partial fuller. As well as forging out and grinding a knife from a third of another bar. There was plenty of Damascus left over from both as well, which is the stack of random pieces seen in the photo.

I made a fullering die for the press with the intention of pressing in the fuller, with mixed results. It worked well for pressing, but things got briefly exciting. Pressing in the fuller went well, but widened the blade from 1” 1/16 to 1.5”. Pressing the blade back to 1 1/16 width ended up distorting the blade and it took a lot of back and forth with the straight and fullering dies to get it straight and the right width and thickness again. At the end I had a straight blade with an imperfect fuller that was 3” longer than before, hence the cutoff on the pile.

I think the fullering dies have a place with wider blades like the Viking sword, and not as much with narrow blades like the 1897 pattern British officers sword I’m working on.

So yes, I’ll take boring but when working with Damascus steel vs exciting anyday.