Motion pictures

Mecha

Mecha

Titanium Bladesmith
Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
Joined
Dec 27, 2013
Messages
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At risk of exposing my ridiculous visage to the internet at large, here are presented Mad Science Forge sword test videos. The important thing to remember is that most of these vids are to show that the swords can be whacked into various objects without damaging the sword edge. Not to show some sort of sword skill or full-on cutting power.

Legend has it that "titanium" is either too brittle or too soft to hold up as a large blade, never mind the alloy composition. Let's find out...

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In this video we see some of the first completed forged titanium alloy swords, after a lot of study and some failed blades. These had an early heat treatment that left them tough and fine grained. They were very sharp, convex bevel with a rolled edge.

 
Here we see a sword called the "Skyship Captain's Cutlass," name suggested by an Aussie BF member, and made to be like a small Chinese dao. This was the first to keep the gray hard oxide coating after HT. The 2x4 in this vid was really hard, and broke drywall screws. That's why it as kept around to test sword edges for integrity.

 
This is pretty much the only single-edged Mad Science big blade that narrowed toward the tip rather than flare out. The bevel is convex. It went through bamboo in a straight forward way.

 
The Bombus Gladius:

This "buzzing sword" was made in response to the popular love for the gladius sword. It is owned by a fellow who wears it when he patrols his property and throws it at a tree a lot.


The sword was rather thick. In this deleted scene you can see the chips flying off of that hard 2x4 again, showing what a brittle piece of wood it was.

 
Here is a little sword, "Mecha's personal sword." It was related to the ones in the first video, however Dan Keffeler got ahold of it and gave me an interesting and enlightening lesson in grinding and sword cutting geometry when he put a nice flat grind on the blade, while it was hilted! This sword has been thrashed for years, and I still love it and use it. The video was a fun response to a BF member cutting cans with a nice blade.

 
A cryptic video clip showing the quenching of a forged titanium alloy sword blade. It's a pretty intense process.

 
Odonata: the Dragonfly Zweihander

This was a huge sword. The entire sword blade and both handguards are made of forged grade 23 titanium alloy, with a silicon bronze pommel. In this video, the blade was still blunt. After the footage, the blade was fully sharpened and treated with a tungsten carbide edge.


This clip shows the way the sword flexes in-hand. It was like a very rigid, giant sharp metal whip.


It took a big trip hammer to forge the bar stock for the blade;


Here is the blade being ground to shape:

 
A miniature take-down ti gladius vs flowers!

 
An old video of quenching a few big knives!

 
Nice touch with the Ren and Stimpy. I used to recieve messages from Ren on Nickelodeon.
 
There was a discussion on Bladeforums about the fire hazard of ti chips. They do light up, but not as easily as you'd think. The finer the dust, the more the danger. :]

 
If you're gonna make swords, you have to make a ninja sword. At least once. :D

 
A fairly complete video of making a large ti blade, getting close to something I'd think is perfect in shape for a ti sword:

 
Making a free shank is easy!

 
Grinding a large blade takes time, ti or steel, forged or not. Here is shown about 8 hours of hard grinding, with no regard for ceramic belt cost. This ti sword, like all of them, was "sculpted" to shape. After this footage came heat treatment and more grinding. This one in the video was called the "Light Sword," made alongside its brother the "Heavy Sword."


Here is the Heavy Sword, named for the way it hit, with a feeling of weight, more than for its size:

 
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This is a goofy video of the billets for the first two swords in this thread being forged, with the S.A.M. Hammer auto-striker Mk I. This was three evenings of forging, but I kept putting on the same clothes to make it look continuous! :D Seemed like the thing to do at the time.

 
The S.A.M Hammer auto-striker (Spring Action Metalworking Hammer). More of an automatic hammer swinger than a real trip hammer. 8 pound sledge getting pushed by a car spring:


S.A.M. Hammer Mk II. It hit way harder than it looks. The head was a 22 lb round-faced hammer on a leaf spring. I had a lot of problems with this one since the design got changed halfway through, but it did good work before it was dismantled.


Slow motion:



S.A.M Hammer Mk IV is in the works. The point of these is to tune a hammer optimized for making forged ti swords.
 
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