Process of Sword Making

"Master Steve, I have six months now. Can I stick around and assist you for another six months?" Alan asked.

Steve smiled, "You've already become my unofficial apprentice, lad. Anyway, I received an order for 200 basic swords from the Academy yesterday, and I need to make them within five months. I have a few ready, as it's a common order every year. These swords will be for this year's new academy students, including you."

"Let me start teaching you the process of sword creation. Learn the basics thoroughly before proceeding further. I usually get a couple of blacksmiths from the outer area as helping hands. Boy, are you ready to toil in this smithy for the next two months? Mind you, you might have to work extra hours," Steve asked.

Alan was ecstatic to hear that he would be learning the process of crafting weapons. He nodded vigorously.

Steve planned to start the process the next day and asked Alan to set all his affairs right and be ready to sleep over at the shop itself.

Alan went back to the mansion, informed Williams and everyone else about his apprenticeship with Steve. George was surprised, "How did that old man agree to take you in, my boy? He is not easy to work with. I've seen many young men run away from his smithy after a few weeks of work."

Alan smiled at this.

Next day after practicing his weapons and combat skills he cam to the smithy and saw Steve getting ready for the work

Good, come let me tel you how the process works lad, Steve started his lecture.....

Refining a sword involves numerous steps and meticulous craftsmanship.

The most important thing to make a good sword is the **Material Selection:** you have to Choose high-quality steel, often a combination of hard and soft steel, to achieve the desired balance of sharpness and flexibility.

Next comes the **Heating of the Metal:** Heat the selected steel in a the forge to a critical temperature. Maintaining the temperature and knowing when to take the steel out is also critical. And remember different metal needs different temperature to make the metal malleable.

Once The iron or steel is heated to a right degree we will **Shape it on the Anvil:** to get the heated steel into the required size and shape blade,different size of hammers are used in different part shaping, including the point, edge bevels, and tang.

Once an appropriatesize and shape is acheived we will apply a technique called "differential hardening" by selectively heating and quenching the blade to create a hard edge and a more flexible spine.

For fine blades and high quality swords, we use Clay Coating. We apply a layer of clay to the blade, varying the thickness to control the cooling rate during quenching. This contributes to the differential hardening process.

After that we take the blade and put it in the water or oil as you already know this one It is called **Quenching **. Here we submerge the hot blade into water or oil for rapid cooling, solidifying the hardened edge while leaving the spine more flexible.

Final process is called **Tempering:** Here we heat the hardened blade to a specific temperature to relieve stresses and enhance durability without compromising the sharpness of the edge.

Then we do **Polishing:**. Where we carefully polish the blade using various grits of stones and polishing compounds to achieve a mirror-like finish, revealing the distinctive temper lines.

"Hilt Construction" is where we attach the hilt components, including the guard, handle wrap, and pommel, with precise attention to detail.

"Fitting and Assembly" ensure a secure fit between the blade and the hilt components, checking for proper alignment and balance.

Once everything is ready, we have to Conduct a final inspection of the sword, to examining the edge sharpness, overall aesthetics, and balance.

If you fail in any one of the above process you sword can never be considered a good one. Atmost I might call it a practice tool. Or a piece of metal in the shape of the sword.

Alan was listening to the process with wrapped attention. And nodded his head in understanding.

Now, here comes the real test lad. Let me show you how to select the metal to start with.

For our work we will use basic iron and stell but that doesn't mean you should do the work carelessly.