i've been a blacksmith armorer for over
30 years i've created weapons for over
200 feature films this is man at arms
i'm making gimli's axe which is the
bearded axe it's one of the five axes
that he carries it's the smaller one but
uh it is more traditional it is closer
to a viking bearded axe that has the
longer down end on there it's almost
like a goose wing axe
i've always been a fan of gimli other
than my height i am a big kind of hairy
looking dwarf
you know dwarves working with metal and
mining gemstones and stuff i definitely
have an affinity for
i bought the united cutlery license
reproduction replica and you know it was
nice
but i knew i could make it nicer so i
decided to raise the bar making that
damascus steel
the damascus is actually pattern welded
steel i'm starting with 37 layers of
dissimilar metals i'm starting with a
layer of 1075 spring steel
old band saw blades from the lumber
mills up in oregon which is made out of
15 and 20. it's a high nickel alloy and
then pure nickel from electrically
deposited record masters for pressing
the vinyl records so those are kind of a
rarity nowadays
each different layer of metal has a
different look to it so it's going to
look like wood grain little swirls and
stuff going through there which is the
main purpose for adding the nickel to it
gives it a real bright color
i cut each piece of metal to 10 inches
by an inch and a half clamped them
together on the welding bench and tig
welded the seams together so they were
tight and put them in the forge and fuse
it into a solid bar of steel
cut that in half and fold that on itself
making 74 layers
and cut and fold it one more time
afterwards giving it 148 layers
148 layers it looks like one
i use a magic flux which basically is a
oxide barrier it facilitates the welding
of the metal just basically anhydrous
borax it's like 20 mule team borax
that's have the water
melted out of it i also use boric acid
which is roach killer and then i use
ammonium chloride which is a constituent
of building explosives so anytime i fly
if i'm wearing clothes or shoes that
i've worn in my workshop i'll be pulled
into a dark room and
interrogated
these are fullering dies there's a
compound curve both this way
and that way
and when i take that i can make the
metal move the direction i want so i'm
going to draw the beard of the axe down
a little bit longer with these dyes
went over to a local hardware store
grabbed a shovel handle ground it down
on the belt grinder until it was
octagonal that would be the handle for
gambling's hacks i've got an eighth inch
wall thickness tube i'm going to forge
it down to an octagonal shape to fit
over the hickory handle
and then that'll have etched bronze
elements attached over the top of that
i had elizabeth who works for me who's a
very talented artist redraw the artwork
for the bronze overlays on vellum and
transfer that to
a polymer silkscreen that we used as a
resist for electrochemical etching the
bronze
so we've got 148 layers of dissimilar
metal got it all forged together and i'm
polishing up the blade when i'm finished
polishing everything i put it into a
bucket of ferric chloride which etches
away all the details so you can see all
the swirly patterns
this was my favorite build out of this
season i really enjoy working with
damascus steel and in fact gimli zax was
not originally made in damascus it was
just aluminum and resin for the films
raising the bar and making it out of
pattern welded steel made it much more
fun for me
this axe was real not only was it pretty
but it was effective the weight and
balance on this axe was phenomenal and
it seriously packed a punch
thanks for watching man at arms be sure
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what weapon you'd like to see next