06/30/2025
Long post about the build, sorry. Well I have watched lots of Forged in Fire. They always throw some wild sword, battle ax whatchamacallit at the final two contestants at the end and give them 4 or 5 days to complete. I have never made anything bigger than a Bowie, so I thought I would try a sword. I chose to make a Viking sword and I wanted to see if I could do it in 5 days’ time, not necessarily 5 days straight (I have too many ADHD projects going on) but within in 50 hours of time. So I started with a ¾ ton Dodge leaf spring that was about 9” too short and an inch too wide. After 12 hours of whacking it, I had a 29” blade shaped piece of steel with a tang. I then moved on to making a Damascus guard using my newly constructed press. I screwed up. I made it 175 layers and for something that small I should have gone with maybe 24 layers so the layers were more pronounced. That was learning point 1. I then started grinding on the blade to take some thickness out, bevel the cutting edges and add a fuller. I had never done a fuller so I made a jig, (thankyou Youtube) and it worked out fairly well for my first time. I then turned my attention back to my guard and pommel. I was concerned about weight so I did not do the traditional 2 piece Viking Pommel design and opted for one piece with a lock nut and penned screw. Then ADHD kicked in and back to the blade. I did not want to try to use the belt grinder to get it closer to finish product because I know the belt grinder can make a mistake really, really quickly. Ask me how I know. Out came the files and I sat there going back and forth for quite a while. I did not however need to worry about making a mistake quickly. I did 3 cycles of normalizing and then I was ready for quench. I made a vertical quench tank with Canola oil and got two pieces of angle iron to use as a straitening jig. Turned off the lights in the garage and passed the blade back and for thru the forge for about as long as it takes a car to drive cross Texas. Finally got it to nonmagnetic and into the quench. Pulled it out after about 15 seconds and realized it was too dark for me to see well enough to get it into my straitening Jig. Learning point 2, have a head lamp. I finally got it in the jig and went and drank a beer. After two beers I pulled the blade out of the jig and Booya straight as an arrow. I had no idea how to temper a blade that long so I got on The Google. I saw I could use a torch but I was afraid I would not get it heated on both side evenly so I opted to use my over. I have a commercial stove and the over is large enough to bake a small child. The sword at 35" in length just barely fit angling it diagonally from bottom of the over to the top. 2 hours at 375 and I went to pull it out and learning point 3 surfaced. Metal expands; the blade grew longer and got wedged in the oven. After fighting to pull it out, I now had a Banana. &*%%!!! # #$. Well my Forge in Fire watching came in handy. I took it down stairs, got my propane torch and started heating the inside curve. I slowly put pressure on the blade moving it thru the vise and after about 5 min. I had a straight blade once again. Not trusting my ability to not screw up my grind lines I once again opted not to use the belt grinder. I started sanding the blade, I thought I could use a file but it was too hard so sand paper it was. Some of my previous grind and file lines were deep so pretty much it took all day going back and forth and changing paper often. Fresh paper cuts way better. My almost 69 year old arthritic shoulders did not appreciate it but I got it done. The end was in sight. I grabbed a piece of oak fire wood trying to keep it non fancy and carved out a handle. I then finished the fit up on the guard and pommel. Stained the handle, etched my maker mark on the pommel, etched the guard stuck it together and finally done. I ended up spending around 42 hours on the build. The blade is 29” long, 2 1/4” wide at the guard, 1” at the pointy end and the weight is 2lbs 12 oz. In hind sight I could have done the traditional two piece pommel design and it would have been under 3 lbs and had better balance.
