- I'm Matt - I'm Kerry
We are the Stagmer brother's of Baltimore Knife and 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
Thank you to Goodgame Empire for sponsoring today's episode,
now available for download online and in mobile format from the App Stores
A great sword is often the symbol of power for a king
In this case we're gonna be building the sword from Empire - Fury's Blade
It'll be forged, folded, we'll do some casting, some gemstone setting, we'll do some inlay,
we'll do some engraving and it will show the strength of the King as he builds his Empire
In Empire, Fury's Blade has a lot of pretty cool complicated elements,
whether it's the carving in the pommel or the forging in the hilt
But the blade has a pretty straightforward
classic design and since it's said to be made by legendary Smiths of old
we figured we were going to complicate it a little bit
We're gonna make it out of pattern weathered steel better, known as Damascus
We're gonna take some 15N20,
which has high nickel bearing content will be our bright,
and some 1095 which will etch darkly giving us a really nice and beautiful
contrast on the blade
So the first thing we got to do is stack it up, alternate the levels
So when we forge weld them together
they give us a beautiful pattern. Illya is gonna do some folds, and then he'll draw out the blade from there
Once the billet is completely up to forge welding temperature
Illya is gonna move to the flat dies underneath the power hammer and do his Forge weld
He's then gonna hot cut and fold several times
resulting in a 400 layer billet that he can then draw out into his blade
We're going to do a sculpt in epoxy clay
of the pommel for Fury's Blade in the Empire game
The guy's are going to be sand casting this so we're going to do a really basic
version, avoid any heavy undercuts so we get a really good casting the first time, then we can go back in
and finish up some of the detail on it once it comes out
Now that he's drawn-out his length,
he can turn the billet around, grab it by the point section and start defining his tang area
So we've gotten a good basic sculpt, it's really smooth
We're not going high detail yet because we have to be really careful about
undercuts, we have to be careful of the curvatures and the lines on this
so that when we do the sand casting we get a nice clean
impression and don't pull the sand back out. You can see I've started to cut in the mouth
But I'm only cutting that in on the profile sides not the front
We'll do that later and do the final detailing in the metal
Pre-form of the blade is now complete
Illya purposely left it slightly narrow, so when he forges the bevel, it'll give him his desired width of the finished blade
It's important to note while forging the bevels, you're not pinching the material out
you're actually driving the material into the center,
flip-flopping from side to side to make sure you don't get any twist in the blade
Alright we got the blade back from Illya, he's done forging
As we said before, this is pattern welded
He started with 25 layers, he did four folds so he went 25, to 50, to 100, to 200
and resulting in a 400 layer blade
It's my job now to basically grind through the scale and reveal that pattern
But first I'm gonna start along the perimeter of the blade,
remove some of the hammer marks that naturally occur when you forge bevels,
then I'll establish the sharp, central Ridge up the center of the blade and then we'll be ready to heat treat it
When making a blade this long with really straight edges, sometimes it's nice to take a file before heat treat
and skate it along the edge
making sure it's nice and flat, removing any of those little bumps that we might have missed on the grinder
At this point the blade is now ready for the heat treating process
Illya is gonna place the blade into the long heat treating furnace
adjusting the propane and the air carefully to make sure the blade is heated evenly
Once he's satisfied with that temperature, he's gonna remove the blade and quench it in the oil
We then move straight to the vise
We have a few seconds to play around to get it as straight as possible
and then clamp it in the vise and leave it to cool slowly
Now that we've successfully hardened and tempered our sword blade
it's time to move on to the finish grinding and then on to the polishing
Now one unfortunate thing that did happen during the hardening is we got a little sabering to the blade
You can see that it's curved just a little bit to this side, so what I'm gonna do is
I'm gonna take a little bit off the point here,
a little bit down here by the shoulder, make everything nice and straight again and then move on to the grinding
I'm using silicon bronze that requires 2100 degrees to be flowing smoothly
Once the material reaches this temperature I'll take it out of the furnace,
pick it up using the shank and pour it into my mold
Now that the sand and the bronze has cooled sufficiently
I'll be able to break it out, pull the piece out, clean it off and we'll begin to finish this pommel
To forge the pre-form on our guard for this sword, Illya's gonna use a series of top tools
He has to create several offsets before drawing out the tines of the guard
This guard actually has a lot of tricky form to it
Illya's gonna have to utilize just about every part of the anvil to get the job done
He's gotta take his time 'cause both sides have to be exactly the same
Bill's gonna go to the sander and begin to rough grind the guard
we've got some rough forging here
and it's a little out of whack - it'll have to be straightened
But he's gonna true up the general surface so that we can see what needs to be done
and then Illya will take it in the furnace and straighten it back up
After heat treating we're gonna be tempering this blade
Illya places the blade into hot canola oil
He's gonna be watching as it creeps up and reaches 400 degrees
He'll hold it at that temperature for a couple of hours before we take it out, let it cool and begin the grind
Using a small radius wheel, Matt now cuts the ricasso into this blade
This is where we're gonna do what we're gonna call habaki
It'll be laid over that surface and brassed as well as the guard
Illya now engraves King Leopold's crown upon this guard
John applies heat to the guard and then uses a solid brass wire wheel to lay brass onto the surface
Alright, with our blade now polished and our ricasso area scooped in
the next step is to go ahead and put our initial etch onto the blade itself
We got a little habaki type fitting that fits underneath the guard right in this section
It would make it a little more tricky to try to etch it afterwards so
let's go ahead and get a sneak peek
Go ahead and take a look
See the pattern? Just random, beautiful
I'm just using a Scotch Brite pad to scuff the surface
Then we're gonna stick the blade back into the etch - ferro-cloride etch
for about an hour, it's pretty cold out so it'll take a little longer than normal
And then afterwards we'll be ready to mount it up
One of the very last tasks we have to do before assembling this sword
is to go ahead and set the red gem on the forehead of the lion pommel
Kerry's gonna use a special tool and carefully bend over the prongs, capturing the gem in place
I'm really pleased with the way Fury's Blade turned out
Making something like this in Damascus and forging all of the items,
casting the pommel and setting the gemstone, is much like it would be done on a historical counterpart
It's quite a weapon and now we can see how it works
Thanks to Goodgame Empire and Empire: Four Kingdoms for sponsoring this episode
Make sure to check out the game and look for a chance to win the sword in the upcoming Battle for Fury's Blade event