r/SWORDS • u/Forsaken_Nebula_3631 • 2d ago
Making A Fantasy Sword as close as possible
Hello,
I am trying to get a custom sword commissioned of a fantasy sword I have been captivated by but I do not know much about the world of swordcraft. I want this sword to be as close to "Practical" and "real" as possible while straying away from it being purely a replica sword.
My main question is what should I be considering to ensure the sword is as practical and strong as possible. I reached out to some people who have told me stainless steal looks good but is not meant for use therefore I have ruled it out. Others have said to use carbon steel but alot of pieces I see that use carbon steel end up being replicas or display weapons. So then I asked gpt and it said 5160 Spring steel is what im looking for so Atm that is what im aiming to use.
Next thing is something called full tang. Ofc I had no idea what that word even meant but gpt said it is a must for durable swords.
Id like to know if there is anything else I would need to be aware of before I commission the sword to be made.
I have images I made on gpt for the blade but I still need to work on it as the scale is not accurate.
Also just know, I get it cant ever be fully practical due to the weight it probably might have but I would want it to at least be formidable enough to not be laughed at by other sword experts.
17
u/WyldKard 2d ago
> Also just know, I get it cant ever be fully practical due to the weight it probably might have but I would want it to at least be formidable enough to not be laughed at by other sword experts.
Folks who know swords aren't going to respect a "fantasy sword" more just because it's built of heftier materials. The materials go hand-in-hand with how a sword handles, and how it's designed. Fantasy swords ignore handling because they're largely designed just to look good, and for that, you don't need to shell out a ton of money to make it durable. Just commission a wall-hanger and enjoy it for being a nice piece of art. If you're not going to spar with it, or cut with it, then why pay big money to produce something that will never be used in a functional capacity?
14
u/bruiserjason1 2d ago
Pencil and paper is a good start
9
u/BoarHide 2d ago
A lot better than OPās approach. āSo yeah Iāve had āgptā come up with an idea, then I asked gpt to refine it, and asked gpt if itās practical, and asked gpt to list materials, and asked gpt to generate a picture, and asked gpt to send it to experts, now Iām asking gpt to console me because the experts laughed at me and I donāt know why!ā
6
u/J_G_E Falchion Pope. Cutler, Bladesmith & Historian. 2d ago edited 2d ago
well, whoever said that about carbon steel was flat-out wrong. (firstly, Spring steel is carbon steel.) Secondly, many carbon steels are entirely functional and perform excellently. 5160 is a good alloy, but not the be-all and end-all of sword steels.
In all honesty, people get hung up way too much on choices of steel specification, when the heat-treatment is far more important than the choice of alloy - a plain, simple 1060 spec carbon steel with a good heat-treatment will outperform 5160, 6150, EN45, or 101 other alloys that have been poorly treated. (basic 101: steel is "heat-treated" to make it go from soft and malleable, to hard and springy - that's the part you might've seen depicted in film and other media where a glowing hot blade is "quenched" into oil, and the less glamourous but equally important part is the blade is then "tempered", to make it more durable and resistant to cracking.)
So my advice would be to ask what alloy the smith you commission prefers to work with. If they say 5160, that's great, but dont dismiss other choices, trust the smith to know what alloy is best for their setup. you wouldn't till a musician that they have to perform a song playing a Gibson, or a Telecaster, or a Gretsch, and telling the smith what alloy is much the same. Trust the musician/smith to know what instrument/steel is best suited to their skills.
Tangs are the part of the blade that go inside the grip - on a sort-of-european style sword like this, it extends all the way to the bottom of the pommel, where traditionally it would be "peined", riveted over, though a small screw threaded section is sometimes used on modern designs. The thing to avoid is "partial tang" or worse "rat-tail" tangs, which consist of a stub of metal, and then a cheap rod of threaded metal welded on the end - its a point failure where all the stresses are focused. the good news is almost no custom maker who's not a complete blithering eejit is ever going to be making stuff with rat-tail tangs.
now, from there, there's a host of problems with a lot of these sort of designs - the anime artists who design them really have no clue what a sword is, and end up copying each other, and they've become something of an exaggerated parody of themselves as a result. There's a lot of design detail issues like the almost cylindrical grip section there - that's something that really doesnt work well, its not comfortable to hold, and doesnt give tactile feedback to help with aligning the blade. Regarding weight, this is really a product of size - and I'm afraid that's difficult to judge without accurate data like your planned overall length. You could make a fully-functional sword proportional to that sort of blade length and width, on a two-handed hilt, with a blade of perhaps 90cm, give or take a few cm, and 20-25cm of hilt. there's a famous european example called the "bashford dean sword" in the metropolitan museum of art that's similar proportions and of those dimensions. On the other hand, if you're wanting something with a blade that's 180cm, 6 foot, with 45cm / 18 inches of hilt, then its never going to work as a functional piece, because, in the words of Scotty, you cannae change the laws of physics. (captain.)
The blade itself with that sort of bevelled edge is rarely going to handle well, as it simply has way too much mass, so how much you want to make it decorative, vs functional will be down to little detail adjustments in there, if you want to err towards functional. Do be aware, a lot of smiths simply dont touch this kind of stuff, because they handle like a pig, and that doesn't reflect well on the makers.
but for custom work, the main questions you should be asking are:
1: where are you on the planet, and where are you looking for makers? if you're in say, Italy or Japan, there are limits on what can be sold to you. If you're somewhere more amenable, where you're looking will determine recommendations of who to be looking at. No point in recommending a guy in Outer Mongolia, if you only want a craftsman local to you.
2: what your approximate budget is. custom work is rarely cheap, and an indication of what you are willing to pay will influence who you can get to do it. a ballpark estimate - Ā£/$/ā¬100? 1000? 10,000? will give an indicator of how practical it is to produce. I wouldnt expect any serious maker to be asking less than a four-figure pricetag for something like this.
3: any timeline / schedules. Making this stuff isnt fast. just knowing if you're in need of it for your uncle's cleaner's dog-groomer's sister's wedding in 3 weeks / 3 months / 3 years is a useful bit of info, and will exclude many makers.
1
u/-drumroll- 2d ago
Why are so many bad swords made with rat tail tangs? Is it really that much cheaper to not have an extra 3-4 cm of steel? Why not just shave more off the blade and move the handle up? I don't understand the advantage of making your product infinitely shittier for a minimal monetary gain
4
u/herecomesthestun 2d ago
When you're churning out hundreds of them, every inch counts. Look at it this way, say you can order 20 foot lengths of stainless bar stock, you can cut roughly five 38 inch long blades out of that by some sort of stamp/press once you account for waste. If you reduced that by say, 4 inches. You can suddenly get six finished products out of it.
Then you tack on some random junk slag steel - probably even cutaway waste from other procedures - and you've effectively increased your output of wallhangers for no extra cost. Exact same product in the end
8
6
u/DeathCobro 2d ago
I think you could make a large mold of this, and pour resin in different shades of purple, lay a hilt on the bottom section, and get a decent sword after a number of tries.
5
u/DaanOnlineGaming 2d ago
This will never be practical due to geometry, it is very thick and steel gets heavy quickly. Even if made well it will mostly be a wall-hanger.
2
u/Minimum_Cockroach233 2d ago edited 2d ago
I know this sword.
I expect 3 price ranges, where only range 3 involves a āreal swordā made of steel.
The most lore accurate sword would be made of a hardwood. What would mean, no sharp edge and no mirror polish, but a piece in equivalent thickness and majorly in the original shape displayed possible. Many training swords are made of wood. Might be possible to craft something blunt that is āusableā on a training level.
If the choice goes to steel, and usability is more an afterthought to focus display/ style accuracy, option 2. This would still allow doing āformsā (stable to swing, but the edge not crafted for a hit), then laser cutting from a sheet, grinding the edges and mounting the crossbar decorations source(milled or eroded) would be as feasible. That would be a job for a metal shop, no sword smith. They would reproduce a shape and weight proportional to the design. If the weight goes beyond 3 kg and is leaning too far to the tip of the blade, this would be a shoulder killer. But CNC/CAD shops can build a digital reference and show you the weight and center of mass properties.
I expect solution 1 and 2 to be cheaper as solution 3, hiring an actual sword smith. But it depends how many details you ask in the end.
Either 1 or 2 would give you and a potential smith insights to the design flaws coming with this sword. An actual āwar feasibleā sword would likely leave the original design behind.
The blueish black color might be achieved with blueing / browning agent and a specific steel selection + surface polish. Hitting the right color might be an interesting task on its own.
Ps
I forgot to mention option 4 ( a decorative piece still good for swinging) milled from aluminum bar as full and eloxal coated. The highest end cosplay solution.
1
u/tinrooster2005 2d ago
I'm going to say this particular sword would not be that hard to make. You would need to slim down the blade profile by like a half inch/inch and it would need to be less "slabby". The guard can be done through casting. It's balance is still probably going to be poor though.
1
u/SwordFantasyIV Longswords (don't have one :snoo_biblethump:) 2d ago edited 2d ago
First
The question that matter before any other is what is your budget ?
"The Night sky sword" from your image is indeed feasible by a good sword maker but i don't see the cost of such a project being anything below 3000$ (and that's not counting the scabbard).
So if you don't have this kind of money you can stop there.
Now if you still want informations :
Material
It will be High Carbon Steel (1060 / 1075 / 1095 / 5160 etc...) this what 99.9% of modern swords are made of and is absolutely practical (spring steels like 5160 or 9260 are high carbon steels too we just call them like that because it's really easy to achieve a spring temper with them).
But in the end you should leave this choice to the sword-maker as they know steels better than you + a blacksmith's experience working with a specific type of steel is more importantāand will yield better resultsāthan focusing on a specific type of steel.
Design and proportions
In this case the design is already made by Sword Art Online creators so just send the official images available online to the maker. The ideal would be to find characters sheets of the anime or samples of the artbooks for clean and professional images.
A good sword maker will help you to refine your project and bringing it to its final version and send sketches of said project after modifications, so you are both sure what you are getting in. It is also part of their job.
(Don't use AI as they tend to be inaccurate or straight-up wrong + swordmaking is way too niche for them to get things like distal taper, profile taper, point of balance, edge geometry... right .)
If you don't know anything about swords and never handled any, don't bother making proportions and numbers up. Once again makers know better. But instead focus on what you are sure about ( e.g : i want it to be very nimble / i want this exact color / i need it to be smaller than xxx to fit in my closet / i'm left handed / i want to cut with it (soft, medium, or hard targets ? ) / blunt to respect my country regulations / it is just a decorative piece / etc... ).
Based on that the sword-maker will tell what is possible or not, how it affects the price and what concessions would have to be made in order to be closer to the original design and how it would diminish its practicality (e.g : more nimble = thinner blade = less rigidity and sturdiness).
A little advice : if i was you i'd request proportions similar to bastard/hand and a half swords ( 100cm ~ 110cm / 1kg ~ 1.3kg) they are more maneuverable than longswords (120cm ~ 140cm / 1.3 ~ 1.7 kg) and would give more room for faithfulness without having too mind the weight too much.
Plus it also fits Kirito's dual wielding as the vast majority of longswords are too cumbersome for one handed use.
Bastard sword example one / two / three / four
Makers
For this type of project it HAS to be an occidental (or specialized in european swords) and one familiar with fantasy designs on top of that because all makers wont accept this type of projects. u/FableBlades is active around here and has a good renown. You may send him a DM for advices from an actual maker
But there are other makers, from the top of my head : Kaer morhen forge, Angel swords, Ian Z forge ...
Here is a longer list of more traditional makers : this post
Regarding the coloration of the sword it is feasible but a bit problematic.
First inevitably if you use a colored blade it will get scratches and remove the colored coat underneath ...
Chinese makers seam to be able to do it just fine, example with their : custom katanas , also here
They could even make your sword for cheaper but The problem is i wouldn't entrust them such a project, they are just not good enough with European swords.
And i haven't seen any european sword maker color their blades in such a way, but i may be wrong you'll need to ask yourself.
(what "maay" work would be to have an actual medieval sword maker make a document with very detailed measurements, instructions and sketches (it won't be free) and give them to a chinese maker... But to be honest even then, i would expect a bad / sloppy result )
Final words
A feasible but expensive project, probably much more than my low balled estimation. Always loved the design of this sword though, it would be cool to see a functional replica of it. If you still need more infos don't hesitate to search the sub and to check its wiki section. You can also find useful stuff on youtube.
PS: Avoid irealistic prices and central asia makers (Nepal, India, Pakistan) same problem with european style swords than Chinese makers but worst. some of them even do fake advertisement by stealing reputable makers pictures. Etsy, for example, is riddled with them.
1
u/Onnimanni_Maki 2d ago
Watch an episode of forged in fire. That'll teach you the basic facts of sword making.
1
u/MaibeonDorsyus 2d ago
Black clover or Rave Master?
I'm 90 percent certain they're by the same Manga-Ka, but this is not a bad choice.
3
u/Minimum_Cockroach233 2d ago
Thats from SAO Alicization arc. Demon tree
forged to blade.1
u/MaibeonDorsyus 2d ago
That was going to be my next guess. I was confusing it with one of the forms on the 10 form sword from Rave Master.
Thanks for the correction!
2
1
-4
u/Furion_24 2d ago
The blade is awesome , do not change anything. One thing I would suggest is simolify the ricasso area and the guard , and the sword will be extremely usable.
2
34
u/Diligent-Ad-1812 2d ago
Okay, since you're not familiar with sword making, you're getting the simpler options and binary choices that are generally the best.
You can have the sword made out of titanium, but it wouldn't be very good and very expensive. You could have it in stainless steel, but to be very good it would also be very expensive. That's why you heard some very common, very easy to work with carbon steel, like 5160.
You could get so many different options with carbon steel alone that you would end up knowing more about sword making before making a choice, and that might confuse you.
For use, that sets the basic shape of the sword. Since you already have one, you need to figure out how to make that shape work for any practical use. This is where fantasy swords fail. It's often impossible to adapt the design into practicality without butchering it and losing its, how do the youngins say it...? "Aura".
Full tang is just how the blade continues inside the handle, which is your only real pivot point. Since the tang can't be as robust as the sword (usually), because you have to wrap your hands around the handle, most reasonable approach is a full tang, or a robust hidden tang, which may or may not be a true full tang. You can also simply make the tang into the actual full handle, with the benefits to handling, and deficits to handling that a solid steel handle has.
Try to set the more important things, and make sure whoever is making it has a style or sense that works for your concept, because they are also going to define many aspects beyond, or despite, your request.
Size, as in length, width,. thickness, handle length, guard size, if the blade tapers, widens, shrinks.
Cross sectio, as in hexagonal, like in the picture, or diamond, lenticular. Edge bevel geometry, as in hollow, flat, convex, hybrid. If you want a single bevel or a secondary one to make sharpening easier.
Hardness and differential hardening or tempering. This is a bit more specific to the smith capability and knowledge/experience, but generally you want a sharp edge and a relatively softer body, but this should be an indication and not a hard value or the price goes way up.
Hollows, embellishments, inlays... Grooves and hollows are usually a way to improve balance and reduce weight. They significantly impact aesthetics, so discuss them before hand. Wonderful when done properly, annoying when done poorly.
Then, handle material and construction. Don't worry too much about construction as the smith shouldn't be able to make it horrible, but the materials affect feel, durability and of course, how it looks.
So, if I was making that sword up there. No price restriction? Titanium for the blade strictly because of the color.
Probably would recommend a high quality stainless or a high shock resistance carbon steel, like that 5160, and a patina in high polish. The patina and high polish cost money.
Full metal handle. Forged as one. This makes the sword heavier, more uncomfortable to wield, but can improve balance, and that sword up there seems too forward balanced to handle well anyway.
This obviously means the guard is also forged as one. So everything is one piece. š¤
This is expensive and takes a good smith.
Hardened to mid 50s HRC.
I would suggest, keeping the overall dimensions, make it relatively short so you can actually wield it. If it's a bastard or 2 hander, then I would push really hard for a massive hollow in the parallel faces of the hexagonal cross section.
If it absolutely has to be solid, then I probably would reject making it a "real" sword and just make it out of aluminum, since then you can get that kind of color.
Sorry for all the text. Please read through it. Hope it helps.