Hello guys. I am starting this topic to help both educate those of you who are interested in making a sword yourself, but also to get ideas and suggestions from you.

Rather then have to type it all over again, I am just going to copy and paste it from another thread:

For those of you who don't know what that is, the Katana is only one of a whole series of swords. The most common are the Katana (standard length) Uchigatana (shorter, faster, more maneuverable), Tachi (longer "reach out, touch me" sword) and the shirasaya (plain, guardless sword that looks like a long banana when sheethed)

These 3 swords ARE NOT the 3 swords that are usually found in Japanese sword display sets. Those 3 are USUALLY a Katana (largest), Wakazashi (medium) and Tanto (smallest)

Actually, it's fairly common to find Uchigatanas as the largest of the 3 swords in 3 sword sets of display swords, but most people wouldn't know the difference. The Uchigatana and Katana, to the untrained eyes, are pretty much the same (only different by 2-4 inches of blade length.

The Uchigatana was very popular among the Samurai because they could be drawn quickly, used single or double handed, and more mobile overall. You might say that the Uchigatana, in many ways, compared to the Katana the way the M-4 Carbine compares to the M-16.

In the media, the most well known example of Uchigatana usage I know of comes from the Playstation 3 video game: "Gengi: Days of the Blade", where the main character uses Uchigatanas (or Katanas the way Uchigatanas were used).

I went with an Uchigatana because, when I was in to martial arts a decade ago, my sword of choice was the Chinese Dao, but I still liked the Katana for it's defense-offense balance and techniques that revolved around actually making contact with your opponents sword with yours (most swords are not meant for that) and the Uchigatana seams to be the idea sword to achieve the best of both worlds. It's competitor was the German Messer sword. I originally started looking at just a simple Katana with a slightly shorter edge, and my friend eventually turned me on to the Uchigatana, which is consistent with the path I was already headed down.

I am using S-7 steel. The RC hardness is slightly less then homoginous, but it's wear resistance and ability to take a beating far surpasses even genuine Samurai swords. As I said, it was a great idea for the time, but obsolete today. I already had it heat treated and am in the final stages of construction. It is like a rock with gummy-like resistance to grinding but it's flexibility reminds me of an ugly stick. There's allot of supposedly cool new and fancy stuff coming out all the time, but ask around and you'll find that the most esteemed sword smiths tent to stick to S-7 due to it's tried and tested durability.

While it's a very bad idea to try heat treating it yourself, http://www.metalscience.com will heat treat it for around $100, though you better know what you're doing before you send it in as it can crack and split if prepared improperly. Their therma cycle is everything they say it is from my experience. I have handled Japanese swords from various eras (from the 1400s to the 1940s) and a variety of different qualities, including a couple real Samurai Swords (you'll know THEM when you see them) and so far, I have yet to see a historical Japanese sword that I have anywhere near the confidence in that I already have in the S-7 sword I am building. The one disadvantage that S-7 has to real Japanese samurai swords is that it's very flimsy and will flex on impact more then a Japanese sword will.

The Katana sword that Mythbusters used to try to cut a gun barrel and other swords (two different episodes) in half with was made out of S-7 and heat treated and therma cycled by the same company that I used to heat treat my sword.

Anyway, the sad thing is that I am starting this thread WAY late. This project was started LAST summer, so it's about a year and a half in. Normally, sword smithing won't take that long, but I have had ALLOT happen in that year and a half which has restricted me from being able to move along faster. So far, I have ROUGHLY about 120 hours invested and somewhere in the neighborhood of $300 ($100 for the sword, $92.50 for the heat treat +$25 S&H, $55 for cocobolo wood, $30 for various grinding belts, sharpening pads etc.) I still need to get more brass, hi-temp soldering materials, more belts, leather cord etc., so the costs of making this thing are not done increasing.

I am sort of a: "It's better to have it and not need it then to need it and not have it" kind of guy, and as some of you know, I tend to become the victim of ugly circumstances that no one else on the face of the earth seams to have to worry about. Getting in to a real sword fight in my lifetime actually sounds like a reasonable possibility, not because I see it coming, but because things that bizarre happening are quite normal in my life, and people defending themselves with swords seams to be getting increasingly more common.

Likewise, I chose to go with a sword that isn't JUST sharp, but can also take a beating as well. Most people who make custom swords today are using straight (solid) bevels for maximum cutting power. While I have seen this bevel on some REALLY OLD (usually medieval) GI swords, I have never once seen this on an actual Samurai Sword. To put things in to perspective, when it comes to quality, comparing an old Japanese infantry sword to an actual Samurai sword is sort of like comparing a Llama 1911 handgun to a Kimber.

All of the real samurai swords that I have seen had one of these two bevels:





The first of the two seams to be the most common, but after discussing my concerns and interests with a friend who is a professional sword smith, I decided on the second one. Fortunately, if I decide I don't like it as much as the clam shell bevels that I have grown so fond of, I can easily convert it to one.

Finally, on to the actual making part. I ordered some S-7 flat stock in a 5/32x1/4 configuration and I used a regular hammer and anvil to pound the lower half of the metal down. This has 3 effects. First, it gives the sword the curved shape you want. Secondly, it makes the metal it's self wider and lastly, by making it wider, it makes the area that will eventually be the bevel thinner, which means that you won't be stuck with as much metal to grind down later.

Unlike many other metals, S-7 is perfectly OK to cold forge, but keep in mind that un heat treated S-7 is extremely soft and will bend easily, so try to keep it straight.

Then you will be beveling the blade. You should probably start by just beveling the entire piece of flat stock (on one side) down to about 1mm thickness at the tip of the edge. DO NOT bevel it to a complete edge as it will crack during heat treat and even if i survives, you will be spending the rest of the smithing process at risk of getting cut. Again, the bevel should go all the way from end to end and this should be done BEFORE you cut the tang (handle area) for reasons I will later explain.

In order to make sure that everything is smooth and in line, look down the sword from the back at an angle to make sure that everything is fluent and not out of shape. Here is a view of the sword I am working on taken from that angle:



That photo is over a year old and reveals one serious problem which obviously no longer exists on that sword. Look closely and you will see that the bevel is taller on the blade then it is on the tang. This is because I decided to raise the bevel even further after I had already cut the tang. A correctly made tang is the reverse. The bevel should get taller and slimmer towards the back so that the Habaki (collar) Tsuba (guard) etc. can slip on to a perfectly tight fit. If any of those parts have to slip over any areas of the tang that are thicker in dimension then the seating area, it will result in a loose and therefor weak fit. So the Tang should continually get thinner as it goes back. Also, don't be crazy about making the tang full length. Though longer is better overall, anything past 2/3 to 3/4 tang is probably overkill.

Before having the sword heat treated, you should drill at least one hole in the handle. It's hard to explain where, but look at photos of stripped Katanas and you should get the right idea. One final thing to remember before sending the sword in for hear treat is that the machine marks on it should be no finer then 100 grit. Also, try and tape it to a flat board when you send it in. Remember, S-7 is very soft and bendy prior to heat treat and it can get bent in shipping.

When dealing with Metal Science, they can do a regular heat treat on demand, but their therma cycle only gets run once every month or two from my experience, so you might want to either time out your shipping or be ready to wait. Their therma cycle is a heat-cryo process that takes 3 days to complete and dramatically increases the wear resistance of the metal. You don't want to skip it. Metal Science is a branch of the Angel Sword Forge, so don't be at all concerned about whether or not they know how to deal with swords. Swords are their primary occupation and they understand them better then you or I ever will. They themselves also make swords out of S-7, so they are quite familiar with how to deal with heat treating it for maximum results.

When you get it back from heat treat, it's going to look uglier then it ever has yet. It will be a charred black color and probably covered in a mild rust that built up during shipping. Don't be alarmed by any of this. That's just part of the process.

Now that it's been heat treated, you can finally finish your blade, but there are some new things to watch out for. Therma cycled metal doesn't loose it's integrity from sharpening or grinding, but it can by overheating it. If it gets hot enough to change color, you will have stripped some of the integrity of the metal away, so it's extremely important to keep the temperature mild. I try to keep a sponge in a bowl of water nearby to cool it whenever I need to. It will pick up mild rust spots now and then, but they are nothing to worry about. Anything like that will be long gone and far out of the picture by the time we give it it's final polish and sharpening.

Well, I have more info to share at the moment, but it requires photos. I have them, but I have misplaced the cord I need to get them off my camera, so we'll just have to leave things here for now.

More updates soon!

This post has been edited by brigadier: October 20th 2009 12:05 AM