- Joined
- Jan 27, 2008
- Messages
- 2,010
On the evening of Saturday Sept. 26th, The town of Sydney Nova Scotia held its 4th annual Lumiere Festival on the closed-off streets of the city core. http://lumierecb.com/ I went to a couple of these festivals and always thought they were a blast.... even if I didn't understand many of the artistic "installations". Well, a few months back I came up with a hair-brained scheme of building a sword for the show. Great idea! I'd never made a sword. So what better time for the first than to build it in a makeshift shop, outside, at night, with minimal lighting(at best). Oh, and I have five hours to complete it. Brilliant idea!!
So, I ran the idea past my wife(a woman of great wisdom and beauty), and she somehow talked some sense into me. I needed the help of some hired guns.
Ring, ring, ring......
"Hello?"
"Hi, Graham, its Peter. Hey, whatcha' doing on Sept 26th?"
"Not much. Why?"
Ring, ring, ring.......
"Hello?"
"Hi Rick, Its Peter. Hey, whatcha' doing Sept 26th?"
"Nothin'. Whyyyyyyyyy?"
Perfect! I had the two guys I needed: Graham Tourneur - expert home brewer and the resident blacksmith at the Fortress of Louisbourg, and Rick Marchand.......bladesmith/knivemaker....... and dunce cap inventor......... from Looneyburg, Nova Scotia. So, the three of us set about planning this project. We sent drawings back and forth and spoke often trying to work out the construction details, and the who-does-what when stuff. As the time neared we all felt we had a handle on this and were as ready as could be.
Initially, I had planned on building this thing as a replica of a 1700's French broadsword. I made a pencil drawing of one years ago from the remains of a piece held in the Fortress Louisbourg archives. That drawing was passed around. After a bit of discussion, it was decided that instead of building a replica, we should just have a bit of fun, use some artistic license and build something with some personality, but based off of that initial drawing.
Rick arrived a few days early with a friend, Scott. I had arranged for the two of them to stay just down the road in a small cottage for the weekend which gave the two of them more freedom to explore a few of the local attractions. Around noon on Saturday, we piled all the equipment into a couple of vehicles and headed down to meet Graham at the site and start setting up our shop. After a couple hours we were set, and went to find some grub. We had a good meal and a weee nip or three at the local Irish pub and were ready for the night. As the official start of 6:59pm(sunset) neared, we fired up the two forges and got ready to build a sword. We had five hours before the official close at 11:59pm with which to build a sword.
I'll post a whole slue of photos of the evening's progress, and write up a lot more about our experience, but first I'll post some of the finished sword.
Lumiere 2015 Sword
Blade: Wrought iron, forged from a 100+ year old ship's anchor chain link that was dredged up from Sydney harbour, flat ground and hand sanded to 320 grit then etched and polished to reveal the grain of the iron.
Guard/Handle: Mild steel, hand forged to the form of a leaf. The handle is Cape Breton figured Red Maple with heat colored, twisted wire wrap, copper spacers and a wrought iron pommel.






I also made a scabbard for the piece:
Scabbard: Figured Cape Breton Red Maple open spine case with heat colored, twisted wire wrap, copper collar, and 6/7 oz. leather upper with a hand turned Moose antler stud. The leather was dyed with vinegaroon.






There's more to come in this post and hopefully Rick will jump in with some of his thoughts and photos, and I think he took a GoPro video as well.
More later.....
-Peter
So, I ran the idea past my wife(a woman of great wisdom and beauty), and she somehow talked some sense into me. I needed the help of some hired guns.
Ring, ring, ring......
"Hello?"
"Hi, Graham, its Peter. Hey, whatcha' doing on Sept 26th?"
"Not much. Why?"
Ring, ring, ring.......
"Hello?"
"Hi Rick, Its Peter. Hey, whatcha' doing Sept 26th?"
"Nothin'. Whyyyyyyyyy?"
Perfect! I had the two guys I needed: Graham Tourneur - expert home brewer and the resident blacksmith at the Fortress of Louisbourg, and Rick Marchand.......bladesmith/knivemaker....... and dunce cap inventor......... from Looneyburg, Nova Scotia. So, the three of us set about planning this project. We sent drawings back and forth and spoke often trying to work out the construction details, and the who-does-what when stuff. As the time neared we all felt we had a handle on this and were as ready as could be.
Initially, I had planned on building this thing as a replica of a 1700's French broadsword. I made a pencil drawing of one years ago from the remains of a piece held in the Fortress Louisbourg archives. That drawing was passed around. After a bit of discussion, it was decided that instead of building a replica, we should just have a bit of fun, use some artistic license and build something with some personality, but based off of that initial drawing.
Rick arrived a few days early with a friend, Scott. I had arranged for the two of them to stay just down the road in a small cottage for the weekend which gave the two of them more freedom to explore a few of the local attractions. Around noon on Saturday, we piled all the equipment into a couple of vehicles and headed down to meet Graham at the site and start setting up our shop. After a couple hours we were set, and went to find some grub. We had a good meal and a weee nip or three at the local Irish pub and were ready for the night. As the official start of 6:59pm(sunset) neared, we fired up the two forges and got ready to build a sword. We had five hours before the official close at 11:59pm with which to build a sword.
I'll post a whole slue of photos of the evening's progress, and write up a lot more about our experience, but first I'll post some of the finished sword.
Lumiere 2015 Sword
Blade: Wrought iron, forged from a 100+ year old ship's anchor chain link that was dredged up from Sydney harbour, flat ground and hand sanded to 320 grit then etched and polished to reveal the grain of the iron.
Guard/Handle: Mild steel, hand forged to the form of a leaf. The handle is Cape Breton figured Red Maple with heat colored, twisted wire wrap, copper spacers and a wrought iron pommel.






I also made a scabbard for the piece:
Scabbard: Figured Cape Breton Red Maple open spine case with heat colored, twisted wire wrap, copper collar, and 6/7 oz. leather upper with a hand turned Moose antler stud. The leather was dyed with vinegaroon.






There's more to come in this post and hopefully Rick will jump in with some of his thoughts and photos, and I think he took a GoPro video as well.
More later.....
-Peter
Last edited: