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I'm Matt. I'm Kerry.
We are the Stagmer brothers of Baltimore Knife & Sword.
We're gonna be building some of your
favorite weapons. And some weapons that you've
never seen before.
This is Man at Arms Reforged. So we're going
to be making Excalibur, King Arthur's sword
from the new game King of Avalon
done by FunPlus. They sent us some
really detailed images. Ilya had to do
a few minor adjustments to make it
really on steel, but for the most part
we're gonna work straight from
their designs. The first thing I got to do
is trace these two central plates here and here.
We'll cut those out on the plasma
everything else will be handmade
forged or fabricated. We could just trace
this all the way through, but we know
that these pieces are symmetrical
so we'll just mirror it over. Now we can cut
two of each of these, they'll be stacked
on top of each other
to create the central portion of the guard.
One of the really cool things about this
whole project, is that this sword that we
make will become the sword in the game.
Can't beat that. This Excalibur is gonna
have a lot of engraving. So i choose 1045.
This is the same steel I make my hammers out of.
What I know about this steel is that
I can engrave it fairly efficiently and
it responds very well to my cutters.
Let's make the blade.
I'm gonna start by breaking down this large 1045 round stock.
It's gonna draw out to a bar
and then begin the blade forging.
Ilya's first goal is to turn this round stock to square.
Every once in a while you'll see
him turn it on the diagonal to true it all back up.
Then over turn to the flats and
continue drawing it out.
Now that he's got his desired length, he's gonna
cut off the handle, draw out the tank
and define his shoulder area.
The crossguard for our sword is gonna be
made out of five separate pieces.
The forged middle section and then four
separate overlays, two on each side.
John is gonna move the plasma cutter
and get those overlays cut out.
Billy is then gonna lay in a whole ton of
hand engraving work on them afterwards.
Now that the blade is forced to shape
it's time to start laying in the bevels.
Ilya is gonna use a hand hammer
and hammer those bevels in. He's gonna be
really careful to avoid the area that
has to be engraved and he'll hand it off to me
to start the grinding. Ilya is
gonna heat up very specific portions
of this blade because it's so long.
And work his way from the tip
to the shoulder making sure his bevels are even
on both sides or this blade will just curve.
Arthurian legends and stories
have been told in a hundred different ways
and Excalibur comes in a ton of different forms.
In this case it's a beautiful
two-handed longsword with a
ton of engravings, that's gonna happen
in this panel that I drew with a sharpie up here.
I don't want to go anywhere near that
when I'm grinding. I'm gonna just
bring that edge up and taper it in
right here and here. But first I'm gonna grind in the fuller.
Here's a tip for anybody out there
trying to make swords himself.
Anytime you're gonna hand grind a fuller in,
do it before you grind your edges.
That way when you grind your edges,
you can taper that fuller all the way to the point
like I'm gonna do or just fix it
if it wanders a little bit.
So that's where I'm gonna start. I'm gonna go to
the 2 inch wheel and I'm gonna strike in my
fuller all the way down the center,
then lay in my edges. And by doing that I'll
be able to taper that fuller narrower
and narrower as we get closer to the point.
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The plates for Excalibur's guard are ready.
One is already set in pitch. This is gonna be
the overly plate that goes like this.
And on this back plate that is already
set and finished, there's not much engraving.
But every little bit little bit, as you will see in the end,
contributes to the whole.
I'm gonna be doing bright cut engraving
and it will have a little bit
background texture but not much.
You usually see me doing Eastern and
Japanese engraving and this is closer to
Western European as well as picked up
by the American School of engraving.
However I still use my old trusty tools.
I'm gonna be mostly using this hammer.
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Now that I'm done engraving the bottom plate,
it's time to pry it off and start
with the top plate.
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So I have most of this blade run all the way
through the grits.
I just have to do the one side here on the fuller
and then clean up the flats afterwards.
Normally you see us polish a blade
after heat treating. In this case it has to be before
because this fuller has some
engravings in it. Also the flat down here
has to be nice and clean so Ilya can
engrave the dragons. I'm gonna go
diagonally on this soft larger wheel.
You saw me strike that fuller with
a 2 inch wheel, but this wheel's nice and soft
and I'll be able to just kind of go
at an angle and really jam in and push in
and force that standing belt to the shape
of my fuller and it'll polish it out
all the way down. I'll change my angles
a little bit and then I'll finish up
the polish on the Scotch-Brite wheel.
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Matt has ground the blade and brought it to
a medium polish. I don't want to polish
too high otherwise the light will
shine in my eyes preventing me from
seeing my design and mess with my depth.
First I have to apply the basic sketch
to the surface. Then I'm going to be
refining the pattern as I'm getting
deeper and deeper into my cuts. I'm going
to start first with the design that
depicts the dragon breathing fire onto the anvil
and once that side of the blade is done,
I'm going to flip the blade over
and start the design that depicts
two dragons locked in combat.
According to the King of Avalon lore,
the blade of Excalibur was hardened using
dragon's fire. And that part of the story
is emulated on the rear engraving that
depicts a dragon reigning fire down on the blacksmith's anvil.
I'm going to be turning the basic form for the pommel on this sword.
We're going to do this all in one piece.
We got some free machining steel here.
I'm going to take it down to an inch and three-quarter.
There's also a gemstone
mounted on the top.
I've got a fairly large piece of rutilated quartz.
We're going to cut in here.
We've got to cut to the size of the stone,
we're not going to recut the stone.
So we've got a full inch here and
then after all this engraving is done,
I'll cut a small series of cuts on the bottom
of these prongs. They'll be bent in and
will grab around the stone.
As a boy to save his own life from
sacrifice by his King, Merlin foretold
his kingdoms fate by interpreting the
meaning of an epic battle between two dragons.
This battle is represented by
the two entangled dragons on the front engraving.
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We got the artwork that Ilya is working from.
This is the basic layout for the sword guard.
Just taking some silver coins that we've purchased.
This is what he's going to engrave from.
So the dragon is going to be
engraved here in the center.
We're going to create this entire thing
from free machining steel. It's going to
allow us to do this detent work around the outside.
Just with a chisel we'll work it out.
We're going to cut into it for an inside diameter
that's gonna hold this silver coin.
Then I'll be able to go in with
a boring bar and increase the size of that
until my coin fits.
For the center medallion that goes in the
middle of the guard, I've flattened out the
piece of coin silver but only on the edges,
never touching the center.
You can still see part of the logo right here.
The center dragon, after it's finished,
will go right here and will be captured
with the bezel that Kerry's working on right now.
Now I'm going to proceed drawing out my
dragon design by scribing it.
The technique I'm going to use is going to be
a combination of Engraving and Uchi-Dachi.
The reason for that is: I need to produce
the maximum depth out of this coin.
And the depth has to work very well together
with the depth I achieve on the blade engraving.
I'm going to use a tool known as a liner.
What it does it just pushes
the material back creating a crease.
After the liner, a simple flat bottom chisel.
As you notice I'm working from the outside in.
what I'm doing is creating a wave and
gathering some material as well as pitch
at the bottom of the coin up to the center
creating more height.
You're gonna notice that Ilya's going to
anneal the central medallion several
times during this process for two
different reasons. One, softer metal is easier
to move around and two, we don't want it to crack
after it gets work harden when Ilya is hammering on it.
To anneal silver, you just heat it up
and quench it in water.
The opposite of what you want to do with steel.
Ilya uses a heat gun to heat up the pitch
and removes the medallion.
For the guard on this sword, Ilya is going to
start with 1018 steel. It's one-inch square
He's going to get its length then he's
going to go to the iron cast
to create the form.
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OK, so I engraved exactly one-quarter of
the crossguard for the sword. I have to
do it once again right here, symmetrically.
And then twice more on the
obverse side. So I have to do it three more times.
Then you can see already how the silver
is a different color than the steel.
Silver is naturally warm in its
reflection and then steal is naturally cold.
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I've used blue tape to protect the engraving,
while I got this on the mill.
I've marked out how the tank is gonna sit,
measured the thickness of the blade,
measures the size of my cutter and I'll begin
to take the cut on the gorton milling machine.
I first do a recessed area where the blade will sit.
And then I go back to the center
and cut all the way through where
the tan goes down through the handle
When cutting lettering you actually have to
be much more careful.
Rather than being able to go back
and redefine and show edges,
you've got to do your break cuts on the first run-through.
Ilya's going to take his time,
mark this out and make all his cuts.
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I've soaped the engraving for the purpose
of protecting it from the scale that develops
during the heating process.
I heat up the tank and the thickets portion
of the blade, known as the ricasso, first.
And then flip over the blade and stick it back
in the heat treat forge. That way it will gain
the extra heat that is necessary
to accommodate the thicknesses
between the tip and the base.
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Looks like the quenching went well.
I didn't develop almost any scale on my engraving,
which is great because no damage
was incurred during the process.
Now all I have to do is temper it
and give it to Matt to polish and grind.
I don’t know about you guys but that heat treat made me nervous
Ilya spent so much time on this carving.
It’s the first time I really got to
see it up close. It’s now my job to go ahead
and refine the edge and you can see he left
it nice and thick before heat treat to
play on the safe side. After that, I run
it through the polishing grits and we can put it together.
Gotta be really careful not to
touch any of the areas that he's engraved.
And when I polish the fuller out,
I'm going to completely avoid the area
that he has the lettering done.
I'll just add some little more distal taper to it,
sharpen it up, we're ready to go.
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it's now time to start assembling the
many layers of this guard. Ee don't want
to risk ruining any of the beautiful
detail work that Ilya has done by welding them together.
So we're going to drill and pin
each section to the central
portion of the guard.
Now that the base of the pommel has been turned on the leaf,
it's time to start adding in our detail.
Ilya is going to start on the narrow wheel in the sander
and just sculp some of that in.
He'll then later go on and engrave
the rest of the design.
We're usually hesitant to take on Excalibur.
It's such an iconic sword, but this design
was wonderful and it really highlighted
Ilya's engraving skills. I believe this is
the finest sword that's ever come out of our shop.
The King of Avalon is ready for battle.
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Thank you to King of Avalon for making this episode possible.
If you want to check
out the game, click the link in the
description
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