Frequently Asked Questions
Updated 8-24-21
Subjects:
Care and Feeding of Swords, Knives, & Tools
General Questions
Do you warranty your work?
Yes, but it depends on the piece if the warranty is limited or lifetime. Some pieces are only mild steel and have a limited warranty.
Knives, swords, axes, spears, etc., in other words high carbon steel weapons, are warranted for life, others for one year.
Read the specifics of the disclaimer here and the warranty here
Why is your work so expensive?
You might be thinking "I can go to Walmart and get a knife for $15, why would I pay you so much more?
Well then, perhaps you need to take your happy ass on down to Walmart, you're obviously in the wrong place.
For everyone else, when you buy a custom made, or one of a kind piece, you are not buying a knife or a sword or an axe, you are buying a part of my life that I will never get back. You are literally holding some of my life in your hands and on my death bed you won't be able to sell it or give it back to me.
Think about that for a moment.
How much is your life worth to you? $15? No? Me neither.
And something most people don't realize is that you are not only paying for the time I spent making that one item, you're paying for the 30+ years it took me to learn how to make it to the level of skill I did.
Do you make chainmaille?
Short answer, no.
Longer answer, I did chainmaille for years and years and there are hundreds of my pieces out there but I quit doing chainmaille not long after Y2K so it's been quite some time. Being an armorer most of what I made was from 308 stainless steel and incredibly tough, that's why I use it. It also means it's very hard to work with and after all the injuries to my hands I just can't sit down and work with it for hours on end any more. Although I have done aluminum chain for jewelry or just show, I prefer not to and charge extra for it because I'd rather make actual armor. That being said, I still occasionally make pieces for friends, but I do not and will not take any custom orders for chainmaille, sorry.
How can I make a direct contribution to support your work without ordering something?
You can make a direct contribution to support my research and work on the Donation Page.
Is there anything I need to know about taking care of high carbon steel weapons/tools?
Very much so!
This is not cheap, crappy stainless steel from India or China, if you do not take care of it then it will rust!
This scares a lot of people off thinking that it's a lot of work to maintain high carbon steel piece but actually it's easier than taking care of a goldfish!
- It's this simple:
- Anytime that you touch it with your bare hands while using it, when you are done wipe it off and oil it.
- If you get it wet, wipe it off and oil it.
- If you live somewhere humid, then about once every week or two wipe it down and oil it.
That's all there is to it.
What should I oil my weapon/tool with?
Specific instructions have been added to the Blade Care page, please refer to those.
How should I store my weapon/tool?
Specific instructions have been added to the Blade Care page, please refer to those.
What about items forged from Iron?
Iron jewelry, tools, and other items are naturally resistant to rust due to it's extremely low iron content. However, very small amounts of rust might form from time to time. Simply rub it off with a rough cloth, or even your finger tip. Once in a while, if you like, you can rub it down with a rag containing a very small amount of oil, barely even enough to be able to feel, and that will ensure it doesn't rust again for quite some time.
What if I let my blade/tool rust? How do I remove it?
In that case we recommend that you use a 000 steel wool pad to remove the rust, then oil with one of the oils listed above, repeat as necessary until the rust is removed. DO NOT use a Brillo pad! It contains a lye based soap that is CAUSTIC and is very bad for carbon steel!
For very serious, scaly rust, use a Green Scotch Brite Pad, the same used to scrub pots and pans with, and scrub the rust off, then oil the piece. Sufficiently rusted blades/tools may require the use of a wire wheel on either a drill or a bench grinder to remove.
Beware, if your blade has a high polish finish, the rust spot will leave a dark spot that can only be removed with machine polishing, so don't let it rust!
What else can I do if my blade rusts very badly besides scrubbing it off?
Having an even coating of rust on a blade or tool gives you an opportunity to create a beautiful black oxide finish by oiling it heavily with mineral oil and letting it sit for a few days. The oil will penetrate the red oxide and change it to black oxide which is not only beautiful, but rust resistant as well. Just lightly scrub the rust off with some 000 or 0000 steel wool afterward to reveal the black oxide layer. If you'd like to deepen this finish, then once the oil has done it's job and you've gently scrubbed away the crusty rust layer, then wipe the blade down with acetone or denatured alcohol to remove any oil on the blade, then let it rust evenly on all surfaces again and repeat the oil soak process. The more you do this, the deeper the black oxide finish will be. This process is known as Slow Rust Bluing and is one of my favorite finishes
Custom Order Questions
Will you make me a custom weapon?
Of course, most of our business is custom weaponry.
How much will it cost?
How long is a piece of string?
The cost will depend on many factors including how long it will take to complete, materials used, resources consumed, tools broken, etc..
How long will it take?
See the above question, all the same applies.
In addition, my waiting list for custom orders fluctuates from six months to two years before I even get started on your piece, let alone deliver it.
In some instances, I can get your order out pretty quickly, that depends on what it is and what my current schedule looks like.
Again, it's pretty variable. It can take over a year or more if workload is heavy, travel schedule is hectic, or other circumstances arise.
Will you make me the sword from (insert movie/anime/game here)?
No.
The reason those pieces are only available from one source is because that company paid oodles of money for the exclusive rights to produce replicas of that piece and if I were to copy their piece I would be in violation of their copyright and they would summarily sue me for way more money than you want to pay me to make you a sword.
That being said, I may consider making you something similar.
How close will my custom piece be to my order?
You will get as close to exactly what you order as is humanly possible. I am NOT psychic, I don't know what you are thinking unless you explicitly tell me!
If you describe an item a certain way, or provide art or diagrams for the project, that is what you will get. If there are design details you DO NOT provide to me, you will not get them!
So please be explicit in your details, otherwise I cannot deliver your vision. If major design details are left out and you mention this after the piece is finished, I may or may not be able to modify it after the fact.
Armoring Questions
Where do I find armoring tools?
Find your local tool supply catalog or website and find the "Auto Body" section. See all those funny hammers, drifts, and dollys they use for auto body work? There you go.
"Wait, what?!?!" Yep, that's right. Believe it or not, the vast majority of auto body tools are directly descended from armoring tools. Think about this; armoring was the original sheet metal work and a vast array of hammers and other tools were created specifically for that job. Auto body work techniques are mostly the same as armoring techniques that go back many hundreds of years. So there you go, all the tools you need are readily available, just stick to the most common auto body hammers at first until you know what else you need.
Bladesmithing/Blacksmithing Questions
How do I become a bladesmith?
Unless you plan on staying strictly with stock removal blades then do yourself a massive favor at the very beginning, find a blacksmith and learn your basic blacksmithing first!
If you picture blacksmithing as a pyramid of different skills then bladesmithing would be the capstone of that pyramid, trying to learn bladesmithing without learning blacksmithing is like trying to learn calculus without mastering basic arithmetic first.
Can it be done that way? Sure, but it's a massive waste of time. You're just going to be learning backwards which takes much more time than just doing it the right way, so do yourself a favor, start from the beginning, you'll be glad you did.
How can I get started blacksmithing?
Blacksmithing is still a skill that needs to be passed down person to person in a shop. You can learn a little from books and videos, but in the end you need someone who knows what they're doing to teach you. You can waste twenty years of your life trying to figure out something that a competent smith can teach you in an hour! So find a smith to teach you!
How do I find a blacksmith to teach me?
The easiest way to do that is to contact your local blacksmithing association. These local groups are teaching organizations that are founded for the main purpose of educating new smiths! They are very friendly people and very knowledgable in their craft. Just visit The ABANA (Artist-Blacksmith Associaion of North America) local affiliate page and look for the closest group to you. Some group's pin doesn't show up on the map, so be sure to check the list on the side!
Do you take apprentices?
Yes, as a matter of fact I do!
Have you read the "About us" page? No? Well, there's something I need to ask you first, how do you like sleeping on the ground? Do you enjoy
not knowing where you're going to sleep that particular night? Or not knowing where you'll be next month? Sound confusing?
Well that's because I am the dictionary definition of a journeyman smith, as in "Journey" (not the band) and "Man", I journey, I travel for a living full-time,
which means you will travel full time. There is a lot of couch surfing, camping (hence the sleeping on the ground part, which happens with shocking regularity),
even sleeping in vehicles (that are usually crammed full of sharp/pointy objects).
Sound like fun? Yeah? Well, there's a few other things too. I work with hot steel. Damn near molten hot. What does that mean for you? Well, how do you like getting burned?
No? Well, you better get used to it, because it will be your daily reality. Also being cut, scraped, stabbed, and whacked, on a daily basis. What we do hurts, a lot and often.
Watch Forged in Fire sometime and see how much blood ends up on the floor and you'll find out really quick I'm not kidding.
Still not put off yet? Well, there is one more thing, what we do is not only dirty and dangerous, it's downright deadly. There are at least three dozen ways to spectacularly kill
yourself in a metal shop and about a third of those ways will also kill everyone else in the building with you. A great deal of your time will be spent
learning how not to kill/maim/mangle yourself or others around you in the shop, once you have that down, then you can start learning how to actually do
something useful.
Still not put off yet? Good! You may be just who I'm looking for! If you have a taste for adventure, a lust for life, and a desire to learn (and don't mind sleeping in dubious places), then you just
might fit right in, so drop me a line and we'll talk about it.
All About Sword Myths and Misconceptions
It's been my experience as someone who makes and sells blades for a living that there is nothing in our culture more misunderstood than swords. I hear some of the most ridiculous things about them, but what really gets me is how common these things are, so here are some of the more common misconceptions/myths I get asked about or hear customers telling their friends in the shop.
"Blood Groove!"
The myth is that the groove down the center of some swords, properly called a "fuller", is so that the wound will bleed more, or to release the vacuum so your sword doesn't get stuck in the body.
- Firstly, a sword does not have enough surface area to be stuck by a vacuum, even if the human body were able to create a sufficiently powerful one, which it is not.
- Second, a groove in a blade will not make a wound bleed more, no matter how deep the groove is. The blade acts like a plug and the wound won't bleed util you pull it out, no matter the shape of the blade.
- Lastly, the fuller is there to lighten the blade by removing material, and to strengthen the blade at the same time by creating two elongated arches opposite one another, sort of like an "I"-beam.
"Real" Swords Weigh 30lbs!
I get this one a lot, people are very surprised when they find out a real sword is very light and flexible, not some horrendously heavy thing. Swords had to be as light as possible, while still being very, very strong. Think about how long someone would have to swing a sword on a battlefield; for hours, maybe all day! So if your sword is ridiculously heavy, unbalanced, or worse yet, both, just a few swings into a real fight for your life and you'd be too tired to defend yourself, which is worse than useless, it will get you killed. A sword should also be well balanced so it is easy use, and have a flexible blade so that it will flex with a shock, like hitting another sword, and not break.
Swords Are Cast In a Mold, Then Forged
The short answer is no, never.
I hear people say this, and see them type it in online forums a lot on the subject of how swords are made. It comes directly from movies like Conan (both the OG and the remake), anime, and comic books. I have no idea where this ridiculous notion started, but I'm going to hazard a guess that someone read about how bronze swords were made and
assumed iron/steel swords are made the same way.
Well, that is not the case at all! What you would be making at that point is a cast-iron sword, which would be useless in a fight. Cast iron is brittle, and wouldn't take temper or a decent edge.
What Is The Best Sword In The World?
What is the best tool in the world, a hammer or a screwdriver? Depends on what you are going to do with it! Swords, like all weapons, are tools, each tool has a specific job to do and you need the right tool for the job, therefore, there is no "best sword", generally speaking.
The Katana is the best sword in the world!
That's like saying the screwdriver is the best tool in the world. The Katana is a tool, meant for a very specific job, cutting through Japanese armor. Use it for any other job, like cutting into European armor, and you're going to have a bad time. See the previous question for a more in-depth explanation.
Katanas were folded ten-thousand times!
*buzzer noise* Wrong!
It is true the traditional katanas had many thousands of layers, some had millions of layers, but they were not folded that many times, that would take forever. How these high layer counts come to be is a simple geometric progression sequence.It works like this: if you fold a piece of paper once, you have 2 layers. If you fold it again, you have 4 layers, not 3. If you fold it again, you have 8 layers, then 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, etc..
So with just a dozen folds we are up to almost five thousand layers! If you were to fold it two dozen times (24 folds) you would have 16,777,216 layers! Fold it three dozen times (36 folds) and you have 68,719,476,736 layers!
You can see now how you can have many thousands or millions of layers with nowhere near as much work as people like to make it out to be.
Swords Were Razor Sharp!
Sadly not true.
Most swords, especially in Europe, were not razor sharp, as a matter of fact, during any era in a place where metal armor was prevalent you would be hard pressed to find a very sharp sword. In some places like China, India, and Japan, yes, you would find razor sharp swords because metal armor was rare.
The Japanese Katana is an excellent example of why. The Katanas were razor sharp because the Japanese did not have steel armor, their armor was a laminate of leather, bamboo, and silk. It required a razor to cut through it, so Katanas were razor sharp.
If you were to take that same razor sharp sword and attack a medieval European Knight with it, the second your sword made contact with his armor, your blade would shatter along the Hamon line (the wiggly line along the blade of a Katana is called the Hamon, it is the dividing line between the super hard and sharp edge material of the blade, and the softer, more resilient back of the blade).
In places where steel or other metal armor was the norm, like medieval Europe, then sword edges were shaped like a chisel with an approximately thirty degree grind to them to cut into/through that armor without damaging the blade edge.
This, of course, has given rise to another myth...
European Swords Were Blunt
Not exactly, but close.
Depending on the time frame and type of sword, some, like the Renaissance era Rapier, were razor sharp. During the Iron Age through the end of the Medieval Period, most swords were not sharp, you would have a hard time even cutting your hand with one if you ran it down the blade.
However, they were not totally blunt, either. A truly blunt edge is actually round and these swords did have an edge, but more of a chisel edge to cut through metal than a sharp edge for cutting meat.
A Sword Has To Be Razor Sharp To Make A Good/Deep Cut
This is very much not true!
The most common way people cut themselves very badly is using a dull knife!
People will say all the time that only a razor sharp sword will cut through Tatami Mats, or bone/people, or whatever, but this is not the case at all.
I had a customer ask me if only a razor sharp sword could make a deep cut, and being the scientist/engineer I am, I said "I don't know, let's find out!". So I got some old baseballs, which are very tough to cut through, and borrowed a razor sharp cutting competition Katana from a friend.
I then attempted to cut some baseballs in half and, as you would expect, it cut through easily and cleanly, every time.
Next, I took a Katana with a European style 30 degree armor-cutting edge and tried it on another baseball. Believe it or not, it cut just as easily, just as cleanly, every time I tried it.
So, I can say from personal experience, no, you do not need a razor sharp sword to make a deep, clean cut.
Said baseballs after chopping
My Cheap $100 Mall Sword Is Totally Battle Ready! Right?
*Ahem* No.
I hate to break this to you, but if you got your sword at the pawnshop for fifty bucks, or the mall or a Ren Faire for a hundred bucks, it's crap.
If it says "PAKISTAN" or "CHINA" or "INDIA", etc., on the blade, it's crap.
If it says "STAINLESS' on the blade, it's crap.
As a matter of fact, if it doesn't meet the conditions I specify in the next question, it's crap, sorry.
How Do I Know If A Sword Really Is A High Quality/Battle Ready Sword?
Good tools are not cheap and cheap tools are not good! And a sword, knife, axe, etc., is only a tool! So, if your sword was cheap, that should be your first indication that it's crap.
There really is only one way to be sure if you are buying a quality weapon. I don't care what the sales person tells you about how tough it is, or how battle ready it is, there are a lot of disreputable companies out there that make total crap, but will tell you all day how tough and "battle ready" their swords are, but they are lying!
The one way to know for sure is to ask them if they will back up their work with a lifetime guarantee against major damage to the blade. If the answer to that question is "yes", then you are looking at a quality piece. If the answer to that question is "no", no matter how pretty or how expensive it might be, it's probably crap, walk away.
Every manufacturer out there that makes a truly quality product, whether they mass produce or hand make each piece, backs their work up with a lifetime guarantee because they know that if it's properly made you can't break it! Companies that make crap DO NOT guarantee their work because they know that you WILL break it sooner or later!
Without naming any names, I can think of several big name companies that claim to make "battle ready blades" that do nothing of the sort! Their reputation is nothing but hype and here is the easiest way to tell: simply go to Youtube and search that company's name, but here's the trick, ignore any video produced by them or that has any of their people in it, look at actual customer videos and see what they say about the products, or better yet, watch the demo videos that customers put up, that is the REAL TEST!
Youtube is the great equalizer when it comes to product claims, don't be afraid to use it!