The Idea:

This holiday season I wanted to break the mold with what I got my partner as a gift. I didn’t want to do anything cliche and wanted to put a bit of myself into the gift. I wanted to make something that said “I respect you as my equal. Let’s go fight the King.” So I settled on a sword. Now this is the 2nd sword I’ve ever made, the first being a sort of straight saber at around 3 feet long. This one I wanted to make something more akin to a broadsword. I also wanted to try my hand at making a scabbard for the first time.

This idea excited me and really got the creative spirit flowing, however all this was under the watchful gaze of another sword of the Damocles verity. I had 2 days to make this because I am bad with managing my time. So I decided on 2 things, I would A. make the sword from flat bar not draw it out from a billet and B. I would get the sword done in a day and the scabbard done on the next.

An Etch with Sketch:

I went on to add a hickory handle, a pommel from a drawer knob blank, and a forged cross-guard. After this I decided to see if i couldnt add a patina to it with some ferric chloride. This was my first time using ferric chloride so I made sure to use Nitrile gloves and had a large amount of baking soda saturated water at the ready to neutralize any accidents. Now chlorine scares me. It should scare you too. So this was also done outside with a fan pointed at the work area, blowing away any and all fumes from me. I don’t want to be in the next ChubbyEmu video. You shouldn’t either. Always exercise caution. That said, I did this stupid shit.

Needless to say I got wigged out from doing this for like 5 minutes and switched to a PVC dunk tank instead. That worked way better and involved way less OSHA snipers after me. I neutralized the area and disposed of all tools and PPE used after this etch was complete. I was left with a bright and dull gray patina with a little light gray mottling.

The Scabbard:

After all that was said and done A new day rolled around and I started work on the scabbard. After researching a bit it seems like the most common way to make a scabbard was to make two ” ( ” shaped pieces of wood, line them with oil doped felt, and squeeze them tight with a leather wrap. I decided to do something a little different. I used 2 pieces of flat hobby wood and a sheet of balsa in between, carved out with the shape and length of the blade, with tolerance. The space was then lined in black felt and soaked in boiled linseed oil ( The clever will notice my fuck up here ) and the whole thing wrapped tight in leather. I ended up riveting the bottom and then using brass wire to tightly bind the 2 leather pieces. The reason I was using 2 pieces here rather than 1 contiguous piece was that It was Christmas Eve and my local fur trader wasn’t open. I had to use crap I had on-hand.

Final Result:

The final product turned out great. My partner loved it, God was in his heaven, and all was right with the world ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°). A few days later disaster struck and like a forsaken Arthur, we could no longer draw the sword from it’s scabbard. After some percussive maintenance and some research I found that boiled linseed oil has two neat properties I was unaware of. It gets extremely hot when exposed to oxygen, to the point it can cause fires, and it acts like a glue when it dries. I had glued the sword into the scabbard along its entire length.

Soooo I had to tear it apart. Which sucked. Here is what it looked like before the oil glued.

An Encore:

The best part of all of this was post credit scene. I was using acetone to dissolve the linseed glue off the sword and getting frustrated at the whole situation. I was then rewarded by the Universe for my lack of attention with a very SlicingOfMyFuckinFinger ™ blocked only by my nail. Luckily, I cleaned up the murder scene in my bathroom pretty quickly. Unluckily, I had a cut that wouldn’t clot for 2 days.

Thus ends the tale of this cool gift that I now have to make a new scabbard for. This time, with all my fingers intact.