Three Men and a Forge

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
 
Last edited:
Pre-event stratigery and carbo loading session in my shop.




This was our "shop". We were set up next to the town library in a small green. The three roads that surrounded us were all closed off for the evening and open only to foot traffic for the festival.


Work bench:


One of two anvils:


The view looking out from behind:


And overview showing Rick at his grinder set up in the back-right. The guy in the plaid jacket is my friend Joe who helped with the set up and also lent us one of the work benches:


Display table with all the materials used in the sword and a short descriptive write-up of each. Also, in the background are my large forge and Rick's smaller forge that he brought up along with his grinder.


This is a slightly enlarged copy of the original drawing I had made a few years back, and our sign.


A bit of wrought iron decoration. Stunning, eh?




We are stop #34:


Let the show begin! Graham began work on the leaf guard forged out of 1/2" square bar.


I started by doing the rough forge on the blade with a 1" x 3/4" bar that had previously been forged down from the chain link. Meanwhile, Rick did some work to the pommel that had just an hour before been a raw chunk of chain link that Graham forged into a rough rectangle.


We had a nice crowd throughout the night:


A nice shot of Rich grinding the blade:


The guard almost done. The tang slot had been drifted through the leaf and now Graham is adjusting the curve.


That's about right:


After handing the rough forged blade to Rick for his grinding magic, I got to work on the handle. This began as a squared/tapped 4 1/2" handle block that I caved in the rough tang slot and rounded it by eye. Based off of our original drawings, Rick had ground out a template tang to use on both handle and guard construction while the actual blade was still being forged. When the sword was nearly completed, we burnt the real tang in the rest of the way.


Rick and I working away:


Tang shoulders being filed in:


Grinding on the handle:


More blade work. This is a neat shot... The guy in back of Rick is also taking a photo. That guy is the photographer from the Cape Breton Post, and that shot of Rick made it into the news paper.


Test fit:


Wire wrapping the handle. This step did not get finished. I took the sword back to my shop and finished it up:


The blade just out of the etch:




When the going gets tough, get a bigger hammer:


Copper spacers in place:


Checking the fit:


And the pommel gets screwed in place:


All night long, for the first minute till the last, this kid and his dad(behind-left) intently watched us work. They asked lots of questions and were truly nice folks. The young boy was recently recovering from a life threatening heart malady and surgery when his dad purchased one of my knives for him as a get well gift. They have since been to my shop a few times and we keep in touch. The young lad had the honor of being the first to hold the completed sword.


A few other onlookers:


Three men and a forge. All for Wrought!!


The sword as it was when we finished work at 11:59pm.
 
Last edited:
Really cool project.

Was the blade iron folded? It looks like damascus.
Hey Stacy. Since Peter turned blue overnight(membership ran dry) he cannot post to this thread. lol. He is working on a remedy for that.

I am preparing to reply with some added pics and video. We had a great time. The 5 hrs we thought we had turned into 4 yrs, due to a late start.

As for your question, the blade was forge from a wrought iron chain link. So, the pattern you see is the grain of the wrought, alone.
 
Thanks, Rick. I moved this to H&T so Peter can reply, too.

I have not seem that pattern in the wrought I forge. Most of my wrought is architectural and farm wrought iron. I have some big anchor links that I will have to draw out and see what I get. I get that pattern with folded mono-steel and simple damascus, so it would be really neat if I could get it in wrought and do a san-mai with a hard edge core.
 
Stacy, you are a kind man sir.

Jonathans - The blade just has a false edge. Its thin, but far from sharp.

-Peter
 
Craftsmen actually making something are the best thing you can hope to see at a festival - far too rare. Great work.
 
This coming Saturday I will be forging at a local Fall Festival. Five or so hours of pounding away. It is always a great day to get out with people and let them see how steel can be shaped. I usually do a lot of Frederick's crosses, some hawks, and forge a sword and matching dagger from square or round stock.

I always keep some 48" X 1/8" square stock and if there is a youth who stays a while watching, I get him to help me forge and twist a hot dog/marshmallow roaster with two forks. When done, I give it to him.
 
Cool - I wish I could go, but we just made a swing through VA this past weekend. We rode the creeper trail on Friday, and then went to Bridge day in WV on Saturday - 100s of crazy folks jumping off of the new river gorge bridge - for fun. Both VA and WV are beautiful states with friendly people.
 
I know of all the wonderful things in the pictures to catch my eye this is going to sound kind of silly, but the hammer in that first picture looks fantastic! Do you mind telling me who made it or where you got it? It looks like it would be a pleasure to move steel with.
 
Anthony - That hammer was made by Rick Marchand. He forged the head and carved the handle to perfection. If you look at the forth from last photo in the second spread, you'll see two more of Rick's hammers on the table.

-Peter
 
Thanks. I see those too! Everything about them looks great, including the shape and length of the handles. I prefer that type of handle in a forging hammer over more pronounced contours.
 
I had used a few of Rick's hammers during a short visit to his shop a while back and knew then that I wanted one of his designs. Rick gave me this hammer as he arrived in Louisbourg at the start of the weekend. It saw its first use that Saturday night forging our that sword blade. Perfect christening.

I've been using hammers that have a "taller" head, placing my hand much higher and further away from the work piece. This hammer, feels more, ummm.... intimate(am I allowed use that word to describe smithing?:o), closer to the work piece. As well, the hammer faces, both flat and peen, are perfectly shaped and polished and it moves steel more efficiently than any other hammer I've used. Less effort - kind'a important for this lame ole' geezer as my Thor-like body has long withered away, as has the power to smack steel around with simple brute force. I find this hammer allows for a more relaxed position, and a more relaxed swing. I don't have to grip the hammer as hard versus my taller hammers which keeps my arm more relaxed. Rick's design also has a thicker handle that has lots of small vertical ridges left from a spoke shave(I'm guessing). It makes for a very comfortable grip. This is a properly thought out design crafted with a high level of expertise using quality materials. I love it!!

Rick's on the left, my old one on the right, almost the same weight:


-Peter
 
Last edited:
Back
Top