First attempt at a sword.
The setup
>>1013426
How long did it take?
>>1013426
looks shitty tbqh familam
>>1013426
First attempt does not give a pass on piss poor work.
It looks awful
If you would have put more than 20 minutes work into the blade guard and handle, it would look immensely better, even without finish work to the blade.
You cant actually be proud of that
Is it an orcish weapon?
>>1013426
nice
fuck the haters, that is impressive given the minimal setup you have
>>1013426
What was your raw material? Also you should touch up the blade polish everything before calling it a first attempt, your shits only half done son
>>1013426
Looks like shit but I couldn't do any better if I tried so.. congrats?
why don't you grind it into a more uniform shape and buff it into shiny?
Not a very nice looking sword. Save materials and practice your finishing skills with smaller blades. Look forward to your next attempt. Oh don't use electrical tape (really looks shitty)
>>1013426
Now get out your file and start cleaning up that surface mister. If you're going the minimilast route, by the looks of it, you are...
get that blade supported underneath by something sturdy.
Clamp it down.
Draw file to get the surface nice and uniform. The longer and more uniform the better. Ideally you'd get the whole blade in one long stroke. But if that's not possible work on overlapping sections.
Then work on your bevel.
Your edge will come out at the bevel grinding stage. Don't try and force a uniform sweeping edge. It will come out on its own as long as you draw filed the blade to a uniform thickness first, then draw even matching bevels. You can bring the edge in towards the spine by draw filing the bevel some more in that area. Make sure that you feather in this work as its easy to let it run away from you.
Personally, when I work my knives by hand I like the use my arms to apply the pressure, and my waist and torso to pull the file. It makes it very easy to get a nice, even, and repeatable draw on each stroke.
A handmade caliper, or a cheap digital harbor freight one can be used to check for uniform thickness as you work. the cheap digital calipers are nice because they're wide enough the gauge whether your planes are parrelel as you go.
Hammering out a blank is child's play when you're working out a knife. The real nit-picky work comes in the finishing of the steel. Working it to a uniform thickness, getting that perfectly sweeping bevel, etc.
Do not move onto the next step unti you have completely finished the current one. Get your spine flattened out. Get the faces of the spine ground, uniform and perfectly parallel. Then work on cutting your bevel. Cutting a bevel on an imperfect spine sucks ass. So get it perfect.
Once you have the surface finish you want put your primary edge on it, heat treat it, etch, polish, and sharpen.
>>1013426
Pretty good for first. Now make ten more.
>>1013427
I see you folded the steel for the handle.
Did you fold it a thousand times?
>>1013439
>You cant actually be proud of that
Yes. Yes he can.
>>1013426
Next time start with a thicker material so you have more left over after shaping. This will let you grind away any hammer marks without making it to thin.
Also a "U" shaped fire pit rather than a bowl will let you heat up the middle of long pieces easier.
>>1013580
Hah. No
>>1013583
Sure I guess, I mean people can take photos of how big their shit was and be proud to have demolished their toilet.
Doesnt change the fact that OP obviously took a lot of time and effort to forge the blade.
Why then would you haphazardly take 10 minutes to electrical tape 2 planks of wood together and pretend its a handle. And then just a bent up piece of scrap metal he used as a guard.
Its laziness, dont make a thread and expect people to just be OK with it.
It looks better than my first attempt, but needs work finishing and fittings-wise.
I'm also curious about what stock that is, the tang makes it look like folded sheet metal.
>>1013427
Oh shit don't tell me those are briquette's you're using
>>1013439
>first attempt does not give a pass on piss poor work
yes the hell it does. is this your first time on /diy/?
>>1013427
where did you get the rail road rail anvil ?
>>1013426
No pommel
No beveled edge
Clip tip. Literally why on a sword?
Tip and blade in general looks dull.
electric taped handle. Couldn't afford hockey tape?
That crooked crossguard.
How's the temper on it?
What kind of steel did you use?
Honestly though, with your setup, you should have just made a fucking bronze sword
>>1013426
>Electrical tape
>Bent hand guard
>Not polished/shiny
3/10 to be honest
All you haters should post your own before commenting.
I like it. Hope you have fun with it OP
>>1013773
>haters
lol
>>1013426
I can resume all the problemes in 1 words. Lazy.
You started that sword with no knowledge on sword and only a few in smiting.
BUT at least you tried and that the most important.
follows a few of these tips and you should improve in your next work :
1. Start smaller. Do something like a knife or a dagger.
2. Read documentation on sword. A real sword is not just a piece a metal with a kind of sharp edges.
3. Improve your forge, this one can't give you the needed temprature to forge something.
4. keep making knew stuff.
I realy hope that you will not give up and improve yourself. Good luck
>>1013426
I've been on-off doing cutlery and various sharp objects for about 20 or so years and I don't bother with swords- they're a shit! :)
There's some really good advice here in this thread though from >>1013540 >>1013919 that I reckon you take note of, everyone starts somewhere and for the most part its not with long blades, try some small utility knives, maybe the odd tomahawk head and stuff like that. Much easier to learn on and cheaper on materials, so if you screw up its not a financial setback as well.
Not OP, but have some questions.
I'm from /his/, and I was interested in making swords out of bronze in sand molds. I've made adequate forges before on a smaller scale, I'm more worried about making the mold:
Will Plaster of Paris make an adequate, reusable stone-type cast for bronze? How would I go about making a mold from sand, if not? Surely it'd be suitable for aluminum if I wanted to make one from cans for shits and giggles. I'm pretty new to metallurgy.
>>1014006
Sandstone was the traditional mold material but if you wanted something with reliable for bronze I'd use a high temperature cement, there's +300C or so difference between the temperatures of alu and bronze
>>1013426
I have a feeling that's going to kill you if you try to hit something with it.
>>1013426
Nice "puberty face" finishing on the blade. I cannot really tell which surface is for cutting, but you tried. Also marvelous sheet metal guard. My only complain is the railroad wood handle, but maybe you can carve a new one out of your palm callus after cutting branches at near by woods with that piece of shit what you call """""""sword""""""".
>>1013426
Nigga
Don't start blacksmithing by making swords.
Make knives, forks, leaves, scrolls and shit like that so that you end up actually knowing what to do with a hammer and an anvil.
C for effort
That rat tail tang would break and likely get you injured desu
>>1013439
>someone's first attempt at something wasn't as good as I wanted it to be
While we're posting beginner's stuff, here's the second attempt I had made at making a 1084-15N20 blade.
Only a few layers to practice and to see if my propane forge was getting hot enough. Got a little careless on the sharpening stone.
>>1014390
Get yourself some 1095, it sticks to 15N20 like shit to a blanket and will pattern weld really well.
>>1014447
Thanks, I'll try it out next go.
これは、私の最初の剣であります
私は10万回の上に折りたたまれて、私は猫のウィスカよりも薄いエッジを磨き前にそれを10万回を打ちました。しかし、私はそれを呪ったかもしれません。一人ひとりのスイングと私は邪悪な意図に言葉を話した可能性があるため、私がダウンして私のハンマーを振ったとして。 *バン*殺人*バン*死*バン*首を切ります。私はこの偉大な剣の力のが怖いです。これを読むことが誰にも、私はあなたの頼みます。剣に手を触れないでください!
>>1014453
If you want to try something pretty pimping, you can run the 15N20 across the top of the blades spine and forge weld at length of of 1095 in between them, so when you do the bevel it'll have a hamon along the blade edge.
You'll have Ninja's and Samurai trading their daughters for something like that :)
>>1014455
Sounds a bit like I tried to do, or moreso accidentally did (fucked up the alignment), with the pictured knife. I forged a 1085-15n20-1085-15n20 billet (no extra fold-overs), to match the width of my 1085 stock bar, cut it in half, then sandwiched a fresh piece of 1085 between them. Of course, I'm pretty sure I fucked up the orientation, hence the asymmetry.
Thanks for the advice dude
>>1014006
Plater of Paris will do great
I doubt it will be reusable, but you probably will have much better results with plaster lost mould than with homemade greensand anyway
>see thumbnail
>not a katana
dropped
>>1014462
No probs
Mate and I spent the better part of 3 weekends figuring this shit out and oh damn, we beat on that fucker like it owed us money.
Thinner steel when you're starting out and don't have a hammer monkey to bash on it might also be a bit easier too, like even go down to about 1/8th" (3mm) or even thinner layers in the billet.
>Generally 4-5 layers, weld together with a steel sprue on it for the tongs- Forge weld together
>Draw out
>Square up
>Fold
>Repeat again and again... and again
>Fall down due to heat exhaustion and dehydration
etc
Worth it once you get the hang of it though, its pretty magical when it all just works
>>1013773
look, they don't try to be mean
they want to point out what you should do to improve your work
if you just wanted compliments, you'd have better results if you posted it on facebook
honestly, for a first attempt it's alright, I didn't do much better
>>1013529
Words of wisdom this man speaks. To what he says you must listen.
>>1014472
If someone was intent on using Plaster of Paris then they should mix a fuckton of Sand into it to increase its porosity and just use the Plaster as a binder.
Plaster isn't porous enough to let the heat through, and you can't really fire it adequately to remove the chemically bonded moisture.
You can get steam explosions just pouring Lead into closed Plaster moulds. The Surface of a Bronze cast would be shit, full of Pinholes where the gas can't escape.
I'd just cast with a greensand mould. Either Sand, Bentonite clay and water. Or Sand and Red Clay dug out of the ground, and water.
You can make a semi-permanent mould from Sand and Clay by increasing the amount of clay. Leave it to dry, then just bind the two halves together with wire and bury it into sand before you cast.
>>1014454
Aaahh.
Chinese food i like vely much
>>1014512
Since I've posted last:
I used a plaster of Paris/sand mixture, making the mold in the mix using a template I cut out with foam. I made the mold, but haven't gotten enough metal to fill it up yet.
I'll post pics once I get home
>>1013580
>>1013597
Filthy baka gaijin
>>1013737
>No pommel
not a defining characteristic of plenty of single-edged swords - in fact, from the thumbnail, I thought they were trying to make a messer. no pommels on them.
>No beveled edge
again, not a defining characteristic, many are un-beveled sabre grinds.
>Clip tip. Literally why on a sword?
Type 3 messer/falchions are all clip-pointed. so are several malay/indonesian types
>Tip and blade in general looks dull.
agreed.
>electric taped handle. Couldn't afford hockey tape?
tape full stop is pretty shit.
>That crooked crossguard.
>How's the temper on it?
>What kind of steel did you use?
These are the three points that are remotely valid of your post.
>Honestly though, with your setup, you should have just made a fucking bronze sword
far more complex.
>>1014597
sensiblechuckle.jpg
Crossguard could've been better.
>>1014454
bing bing bong?
Come on guys its enough of this thread. Please help me with this:
>>1014885
>>1014588
Just with your molds, make sure its entirely dry like giving it a good cooking in the oven at 100C for an hour or so.
Any moisture in there could be 'catastrophic' and molten bronze will burn a hole clean through you
>>1014126
fuckin kek
>>1014888
Kill yourself, preferable with OPs ugly dull sword
>>1014454
yes his raw materials where way better than your horrible tamahagane.
>>1013426
not sure why you're so proud of this. I mean it has potential, but looks incredibly half assed. If you spent even a little time on a grindnder, sanding belt, or with a file you could have made this look significantly better. Gad you cleaned up the cross guard, not made the handle a solid rectangle, or used what looks to be fucking electric tape. Like good job making something but its still to early to really be content on showing it off.
>>1014454
Maybe if you hit it 9999999 times instead, it wouldn't have been so pig shit brittle.
>>1013427
it looks like you started off with a hammer that is just too big for you as of now, try getting your hammer blows straight with the ball peen hammer on smaller things like knives and such to practice. And put a little bit more effort into your crafts, they don't look like you really tried desu. They reflect your character.
>>1014454
This is my first sword
I folded on top of the 100,000 times , I hit 10 million times it before polishing the thin edge than the cat whiskers . However , I might have cursed it . For swing each and every and I there is a possibility that spoke words to the evil intent , as I shook my hammer down . * Turn off the van * murder * Van * death * Van * neck . I am afraid of the power of this great sword . Who can read this also , I beg of you . Please do not touch the sword !
holy shit cursed sword
>>1013426
Get a flatter, sunshine, that'll stop your blade from looking like arse. You dun goofed on the hilt, if you wanted a messer you should do a full tang rather than a narrow tang. Straighten the spine out.
Best sword I ever seen op nice work some fucking Hattori hanzo shit right there
Looks pretty good for aluminum foil
>>1013426
are you some kind of gypsy?
>>1013426
Its actually pretty good for a first sword, specially at this size. I won't lie, I think you could do better for the handle as it improves your sword so much visualy. Anyways, nice job, looking forward to se more. Im still building up courage to build something this size with my setup.
>>1017984
Also, im not familiar with folding the extra material on the tang like you did, maybe it is just better to cut off the excess, don't you think?
>>1014171
/thread
