Forging a Copper Damascus Elven Short Sword - The Complete Video

hey folks welcome to the channel i'm excited to  get started on a new build this is one i've kind   of had in my head for a little while a fantasy  inspired short sword let's get out of the table   and take a look here's the design folks um you can  see it's kind of fantasy related but you can see   my style elements in it this one is going to  be damascus core 20 1095 damascus core with   copper over the damascus and then 1095 on top so a  little reverse from what i normally do but i think   that's going to look cool because the bevel is  going to be all damascus i started to buy copper   in this big roll here it's much cheaper this way  and then i can get any length i want all right   let's start on the dabascus and then we're gonna  weld up this billet and draw it out i'm starting   with my regular 16 layers of 1095 and 15 layers  of 15 and 20. here we're setting the weld and   getting ready to draw it out after a few heats of  just pressing it now it's ready to get drawn out i'm going to be cutting this billet up  in three to give me roughly 93 layers   so i don't really need to draw it out that much it is important to get the edges kind  of square and the billet really flat   before you do your restack that  way you don't get any cold shuts   that's where the steel folds over  on itself and creates a bad void after a little kerosene bath  it's going back in the forage   for our final forging session on this damascus same as before after i'm sure it's forge  welded then we're going to start drawing it out you can see there's a lot of steel  here i'm actually going to use half   of this billet for this project and i'll  save the other half for something else here's where i've actually cut the billet  into and now i'm drawing out the other half   to make it long enough for this project i've got the one and a half inch  by 18 inch billet that i need   so now i'm using the angle grinder  and taking off all the scale here i'm welding the final stack together  that's the damascus in the center   copper and then the sheeting of 1095 on  the outside welding this took a really   long time but you got to make sure you weld  all the seams so the copper doesn't come out   there's the billet all welded up let's  light the forage and get it in the heat so i've got this in the forge  up to just a red temperature   you don't want to overheat it  or you'll melt out the copper since this was a pretty long billet  i actually had to heat it in sections   and take turns with each section in the press i'm using the flat dyes and getting it all nice  and flat getting prepared for the aggressive   rounding dies to put those valleys in and that  puts that heartbeat spiky pattern in the copper this was a tough one to forge  it was really long and it was   hard to put it in the press and control it now i'm just using the flat dyes and getting it  all nice and flat and removing all the valleys   i also want to make sure i have the  right thickness for the billet i need so here's the billet after forging  probably the longest one i've done   maybe not quite but pretty much um it's perfect  thickness it's just a little over a quarter   so now i'm just going to take down the edges  and make sure that i got a good weld all the   way around and then i'll fit the um the pattern  on it and we'll cut out the profile and remember   folks this is a layered construction we don't  forge these to shape all that does is thin out   the core and risk you getting that cladding  on your cutting edge and we don't want that this took longer than it should have  time to change the blade on my bandsaw you'll notice i'm using the edge  of the platen it takes off a lot   more material quickly than trying  to use the whole face of the platen just like we did before i'm taking  all the scale off of an angle grinder   this just saves belts belts are expensive   doing profiles like this is where the horizontal  feature of the grinder really shines if you   want a grinder like this go check out broadback  ironworks there's a link down in the description here it is after the surface grinding the  blade is it's almost exactly a quarter inch   thick but it's quarter inch thick the whole way  which um you know i want this to be kind of a   dainty blade uh and quarter inch is definitely  too thick so what i think i'm going to do   is put the distal taper in now with the  surface grinder and what that's going to do is   i kind of want it so that like the  bevel is going to be about here i think something like this um what i want to do is if i put the distal  taper in the copper line i think it would be cool   if i don't know if you guys can see that um the  copper is now like a 16th away from the edge but   if i put a distal taper through the copper  it would be cool if the copper was like this so the copper kind of ended here and then this  was all damascus and then there's not really   it's a 1095 cladding and it's not really  that much that's going to be exposed   i want most of the exposed blade to be damascus  so i think that's what i'm gonna do uh so i   didn't film it but i took it to the uh the  surface grinder again you can see there's   a nice distal taper on it it's a lot lighter  already um so i think i am ready to do the bevels if you're curious with the bandage on  my finger that's because i cut myself   while sharpening one of the k bars for a customer  so here it is after the false edge has been put in looks pretty good i've marked out the um  the line where the bevel is going to go   and right here so this is going to be  a ridge and then this is going to get   hollowed out and there's going to be another  ridge here so this is going to be kind of a like a little swoop here you  guys will see when i do it um   there's going to be some interesting  filing and dremel work here in here   to get this ridge defined but i think it'll be  worth it okay time to put the initial bevel in this bevel actually wasn't too  bad to grind it probably took me   maybe 45 minutes in comparison i was grinding  a stainless steel chef knife from cpm 154 steel   post heat treat and that took me about three hours so so there it is after a really  rough grind not too bad screwed up in a couple places  but i'll fix that after uh   after heat treating on the final grind but um  i think it's close enough what i want to do now   is rough in these ridges actually more than rough  them in i want to get these really really close   um because i won't be able to file them  after heat treat so let's give these a shot i started here with the file and you can see  after about just a couple of minutes i decided   this is going to take forever can i  move on to a dremel with a carbide burr the one nasty thing about using a carbide  bur on a dremel is it puts these tiny little   slivers of metal everywhere they get  in your hands and it's really painful   i guess i should have wore some gloves you can see that the carbide  burr doesn't give the best finish   so now i'm on to a little sanding drum  and this cleans it up pretty nicely so here's the section of the ricasso you can see it's got some some  relief here which is really cool   and there's a ridge here so i'll refine  this a little more but of course it's   still got to get taken down quite a bit  here so that will bring this this up again   so it's definitely going to take some refining but  um i'm pretty happy with it it looks pretty cool   it is too big to go into the forge it  would be sticking out about that much   with more probably about that much and i'll  never get an even heat so what i'm gonna do is add this forge my old forge   to it and i'm gonna butt this one up  against this the first challenge is that   this shelf is preventing this one and i never use  this shelf anyway so i'm gonna cut this shelf off   and then somehow raise this one up so it's butted  right against here and we'll see if that works there we go monster forge   now i gotta figure out a way to have an even  heat across the mall once the forges got up to   temperature i use this stainless steel tube so i  can put the blade in it and have a more even heat when heat treating in the forge i always  put the blade in tang first that's always   the thickest part so that part you need  to heat up and then i flip it around this was the very first normalization  cycle and i had the forges way too hot   i had to keep moving the blade around just to  make sure it didn't overheat in one section i was terrified i was going to melt the copper out  of this thing and that would have ruined all the   work i put in so far that's why i was constantly  checking it to make sure i wasn't overheating it   you'll notice now that the forge is quite a bit  cooler than it was at first it was a lot easier to   control this way this is my last green refinement  cycle we'll be on to quenching after this i got a mild piece of steel  here and i'm heating up the oil   to get ready for the quench in case  you were wondering more viscous oil   actually cools the blade quicker that's  why we heat up the oil a little bit the heat on the blade look nice and  even no cold spots that's what we want it's best to agitate the blade when it's  in the oil that prevents any bubbles or   vapor jacket from forming around  the blade and it hardens quickly well folks it's a christmas miracle  it's perfectly straight i don't know   if it's hard yet but we're just  going to keep it straight for now so here it is after heat treat it came out really  nice i was amazed that uh it's straight and   no warps i was terrified to melt the copper out  of it in the forge and you can see i used that   tube which helped a lot so now i'm going to grind  a bit here and test it test the hardness of it   and then we'll do final grinding there's  always a little bit of decarburization on   the outside of the blade you need to  grind that off before you do a test okay let's test it i should mention this is after temper  right out of the oil the blade was 65 hrc 61. it's actually a little high all right so that one was 59 and a  half we'll average it out around 60.   i spent a little time cleaning up these  fuller areas and then onto the grinding this was certainly a tough blade to grind  one of the tougher ones i've done in a while   just with the shape of it it was hard to  get those bevels to not have facets in them well folks here it is after final grinding uh  it's still a little rough i didn't want to take it   too far it was having a hard time keeping this  bevel and not putting facets in so i didn't go   much i kind of did the bevel on 120 but it just  means i'm gonna have a lot of hand sanding um   i fix this so that these end right at the  bevel which is what i wanted again i got   some i'll fix some of this with hand sanding  these are tough to put in and get right so yeah   so here we are everybody's favorite hand  sanding this is really long blade with   um i tried to get this part to 120 but  there's still some 36 grit marks especially   down on the front of the blade  so this is going to take a while so i finally got the blade sanded to 220   on both sides and guys in case you were wondering  that's the sandpaper to sand one side of the blade   next step we're going to take this to the mill  put a file guide on this and we're going to   mill these two edges so that they're perfectly  parallel so we can start to work on the guard these areas sure took a lot of effort  here i'm using a dremel with a drum sander   after this i actually turned the dremel  off and just scraped it back and forth   just get a nice smooth finish  this took a really long time i finally have the blade sanded to 800 i got  tape on it just to protect it i'm sure i'm   gonna have to go over it one more time but um  right here at the ricasso is the important part   um that i've got all sanded down to 800 because  you don't want to have to cut the hole and then   sand this again because then you'll have a gap  here so uh this is going to be my guard material   uh you can see that it is um a piece of copper  damascus um honestly i don't remember what this   is from i'm pretty sure it's not this build but  maybe it is i'm going to find out after i etch it   so that's going to be the guard and if you saw my  last video the copper damascus pendant i will um   put a link up there in case you haven't  i'm going to bevel the edges and then form   a a point at the front similar to that i thought  that looked really cool and showed off the copper   under that is going to be a spacer made of pure  copper and this is the first time i'm going to be   doing some engraving so i'm going to be doing  some fancy scroll work all the way around the   spacer so stay tuned thursday i'm going to  give you guys an introduction to engraving   i love you i love you too honey so let's uh  let's start it out we're going to grind the   sides of this so that they're parallel and  i can put it in the mill and then we'll do   the slot i'm not going to know until i etch the  guard as to what project it was actually from time to put some layout fluid on it so i can put  some marks on it to make it easier on the mill when i mill the slot and guards i  always drill first drilling is five   times faster than milling so it's much easier  to drill and then just mill out what's left so there's the guard after milling the slot  let's tap it on so we get a nice tight fit there it is nice tight fit no  gaps time to work on the spacer   this is 3 8 inch copper that's one inch wide same process as milling the guard except you  don't need to be as precise here because it's   going to be totally hidden also use wd-40  on copper not oil it just works better of course if you don't have a mill you  can always do this by hand with files   i milled the slot for the spacer and i've just  marked it uh here so i know exactly where it goes   i am going to do some lineup pins but the  problem is the lineup pins need to go on an   angle which is going to be a bit tricky but   i'm definitely going to use those because here's  the wood that i'm planning on using i have a   oleg sending me some specific wood for this but i  found this one in my my wood stash also from him   and just look at that color i think that's going  to go perfect with the copper and it's pretty dark   which is what i wanted and it's got a beautiful  sheen to it so i'm going to try this one if this   one doesn't work out then i've got some more  coming this one does like it's an end piece   it's it's end cut and it does have a couple of  small cracks in it here i'm not worried about it   this is already stabilized and they don't go  very deep um so i'll just fill them with ca   glue but i'll try it out if it doesn't work i got  more coming the more i look at this wood and the   more i cut into it i love it i really hope this  one works out i think it's going to look perfect because there's such a steep angle at the  front of the handle i figured i would take   it to the mill and just mill a flat area  and that will let me drill it much easier   i guess i could have drilled  it before i cut it but i didn't   i asked my grandson what he thought  of the wood and this is what he said there you have it folks words of wisdom so i  got the hole drilled in the handle and it fits   after a little bit of work um with the broach  and just drilling that out heated up the tang a   little bit just to get a nice fit um but that that  works well so on the other end there's a taper the   reverse taper here and then another spacer and  then a pommel so i'm just going to use a compass   here and get the exact same angle that we have  here before i started knife making a few years   ago i hadn't touched a compass since i was in  grade school funny how things come full circle i'm anxious to grind into this handle material  because all of the shavings are very yellow so here we are so far so good got the handle piece  in there next uh and i've also put the back spacer   on next is the pommel uh and that's gonna be like  this so i'm actually going to this is a one inch   piece of mild steel and i'm going to be  cutting just kind of a corner off of this   then drilling the hole and then i'll you  know figure out the angle after the after   the hole is drilled time to grind the slot  for the all thread it's always better to   put a slot instead of just trying to tack it  on the end it'll be much stronger this way people ask me why i don't just grind and then tap  the end most times i don't know exactly how long   i want this to be so i always do it after heat  treating of course it's a pain in the butt by   then so using all thread is easier the first thing  i'm doing is working on that pommel nut here i'm   facing off a piece of round stock so i can  drill and tap a hole that'll screw into the tang i found that tapping manually in  the lathe is the best option for me   it lines it up perfectly and you still have a  lot of torque but not enough to snap your tap now i just have to turn this down to the right  dimensions that's 5 16 for the inner part   and 7 16 for the top you may  notice i'm doing this by hand   my auto feed is broken in my lathe for  some reason i need to get this fixed now to put the little finial  at the top of the pommel nut   and i should be done just do a little hand  sanding on this and it's all nice and perfect so i finally got all the pieces together we've  got the pommel not done that you saw me turn   there i might trim this down a little bit  i'm not sure i want it sticking out that far   but um we got the pommel so next  is just getting the right profile   and getting all these pieces to you know  match up and have the rights the right shape   so um that's next so first thing i'm going to do  i'm going to work this way now and i'm going to   start at the pommel and then do the back spacer  the handle and then go all the way to the front you'll notice i'm wearing gloves to  grind the copper it sure gets hot quick time to use the torch just to heat up that  guard and put a little downward curve on it so there it is after the profiling  of the handle material you see   it's coming together um now it's just a matter of  i'm actually going to start at the beginning here   and you can see they're all kind of different i'll  start with the guard now i want to do beveling on   the guard like i did for that pendant and  then i'll go to this one and then go down   here you see i'm trying to grind  the profile of the copper spacer   while it's flat on the rest this is a problem  everything on this blade from the handle back   is kind of a parallelogram so it has to  be ground while it's held at an angle here i'm correcting my mistake with the  spacer luckily it didn't cause any harm and now on to the pommel you  can't really see it here but   the pommel is kind of a bird's head shape so it  was a little tricky to get that shape in there   sometimes you just gotta go  old school and move to files so we're getting closer uh i got a bit of shape on  the handle i'm starting to match all the contours   now it's just a matter of kind of sanding  and getting all these file marks out   so let's get to it so i've sanded everything to 220  i thought i'd give you guys a peek   at the pattern in the wood uh because i need to  fill all these cracks so i need to clean it anyway i like it look at oh that's amazing i'm anxious to see what this  looks like all sanded and polished so time to fill the cracks  in the handle um i filled one   here and then realized i'm just going to  see it glue the whole handle and if you've   never seen that process i figured it would be  good to show you so i'm using this star bond   glue which i think is awesome there's  links down in the description if you   want to get some of this stuff but basically  i'm just going to coat it on i'm going to rub   it on with my finger and that should fill all the  cracks and then i'm going to go back and sand it   smooth so i'm back down to wood in all places  except where the cracks are because those will be   filled with ca glue this is pretty simple process  uh let's give it a shot i'm gonna take this off you do have to do this a bit  fast this is the medium one   um but you don't want to linger too long i'm gonna hit it with a bit of  the accelerator just to dry it out all right i'm gonna let that sit for a  bit and then we're going to sand that down i want what's called a museum fit here which  is a slight bevel between all the fittings   so that's what i'm doing just putting a tiny  little bevel on the edges of all of them so it's time to do the engraving on the copper  fittings so this is originally what the pattern is   that i i kind of came up with turns out this is a  lot more complicated than it looks the problem is   if you screw up one of these little curves and it  goes off a little bit it throws the whole pattern   off so even this is too complicated what i decided  to do was something a little more like this which   is a little more my skill level and it's just a  bunch of curves so so that's what i decided to do   i tried a bunch of methods to um i watched a  bunch of videos on how to transfer this i wasn't   very successful i tried it with this is parchment  paper um problem is i have an inkjet printer and   not a laser printer so i think that's most of  my problem so kind of gave up on this i'll do   a video on transferring at some other point what  i ended up doing was old school felt tip marker   and just drawing it on i can focus the camera here   so just drawing it on and then i sprayed this  with uh hairspray just so that i could touch it   it wouldn't rub off so that's what we're gonna  go with uh i did a test piece here kind of   basically in the same shape because it's all  well and good when you're um engraving on   something flat like this i wanted to make sure  i could do it on something curved like that all   right this is pretty nerve-wracking folks but um  let's give it a shot i hope i don't screw it up the first one was a little rough  and choppy but the second one is   a little smoother and i get better as i go time to put my maker's mark in  right before we move to the edge okay we are ready for the final etch on  the sword i have got it sanded to 1 000.   i was talking to dakota wilson if you  don't know who he is uh go check out   his work on instagram i'll put  a link down in the description   um he gave me a couple tips on the ferric solution  and how to stop the copper from bleeding so much   and that was to add a third of the solution is  actually muriatic acid so we're going to try that   so i always like to get it wet first  then we're going to go in the acid all right fingers crossed we'll leave it in  there five ten minutes and then check it out   i'm buffing the guard pommel and pommel nut  because they're going to go into a hot blackening   solution because i want them jet black buffing  them beforehand just makes them look much better here i've got my salt all heated up i'm moving the  pieces from the cleaning solution into the salt the pieces will sit in this salt solution  at about 290 degrees for about 15 minutes now it's time to pull them out and  immediately immerse them in clean cold water okay so here are the parts  after they're cooled down   nice and black i like them you can still see the  copper so very cool and if you're curious this   was using epista black 400 um and you can order  this online and you definitely need the cleaner   and this is what it sits in before it goes in the  salt um and just follow the instructions all right   let's put it together and we'll  give you guys the glamour shots you

Channel: Tyrell Knifeworks

Views: 2,650,147

Keywords: Copper Damascus Elven Short Sword - The Complete video, copper damascus, cumai, forging cumai, elven short sword, forging a short sword, short sword, elvish short sword, fantasy short sword, forging copper damascus, tyrell knifeworks, knife making, knife engraving, hot blueing knife, hot blueing, ca glue finish, ca glue knife handle, ca glue

Id: w9nMdPAjWkE

Length: 40min 37sec (2437 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 23 2022