I've been a blacksmith armour
for over thirty years.
I've created weapons for over two hundred feature films. This is Man at Arms.
The Buster Sword is absolutely ridonkulous. The blade is six feet long,
twelve inches wide.
I'm doing a cutting edge of a steel blade
with 1075 spring steel.
That'll be inserted into the blade and riveted down.
This is a plate of 6061 aluminum that will be plated
milled out to shape here. This will all be wrapped in a band of bronze.
I'll do a technique called chasing repousse.
Hammering out these little squiggly lines. Just a simple little sword.
I got a piece of three eighths of an inch thick 7075 aircraft aluminum.
I have six feet by twelve inches. Chopped off one end of it to give a triangular tip.
I brought Bill in. We call him 'William the Elder.' He's a retired foundry man machinist.
I had Bill machine a slot an eighth of an inch wide by over an inch and a half deep
into the side of the plate.
We have a bolster or a hilt that's made out of
one-inch thick aluminum. We milled a three-eighths slot
three inches deep into it.
Because this sword is so ridiculous it just needs a longer handle.
We have eighteen-inch long handle on this made out delrin plastic.
Took a rough ingot of bronze and forged it out to the pommel and ferrule.
Bronze is a little tricky.
You're not supposed to forge cast ingots,
but we didn't have the time to cast the pommel
with lost wax casting
so I'm going to take a big chunk of bronze and forge it into a ball for the pommel.
And I'm going to take a smaller chunk of the ingot
and forge it into the tube for the collar.
That'll be used for the front of the handle.
I had my assistant Brian turning
the bronze ferrule and pommel on the lathe.
Then I took the rough trimmed pieces to the belt grinder, trimmed them up,
then used a scotch bright belt to refine them.
I took the vice off the vertical milling machine and clamped the sheet of
aluminum up there and used a ball endmill
to mill in decorative lines on the blade.
We have to heat treat a six foot length of eighth inch thick by three inch wide
1075 steel.
Grind it out a razor sharp edge.
Then set that into the milled slot on the edge of the blade and rivet it down.
Due to the size of the Buster Sword, I couldn't bring it over to the mill
or the drill press when it was fully assembled.
So we had to use a portable drill.
We burned up three drills trying to hand
drill through that solid block of aluminum.
After we had the whole Buster Sword assembled, we hit it with the chemical to
darken the aluminum to patina it to give it a dark steel appearance.
I'm a pretty strong guy but just carrying the Buster Sword out of my
workshop pretty much wrecked my back and arm. The thing probably weighed
seventy-five, eighty pounds.
This has got to be one of the most ridiculous,
huge, sword blades I've ever made.
I'm pretty pleased how it came out.
I don't think i want to do another one.
I can mark this in my baby book that yeah,
this one's done.
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Tell me in the comments what weapon you'd like to see you next.