Man at Arms: Reforged

[alanp]

The Baltimore Knife and Sword episodes (the Reforged ones) impress me more and more. The original series were quite good, but I like seeing actual blacksmithing, rather than cut the shape out of spring steel and grind it.

The historic builds are what I really like. The Kill Bill katana was the first one, I think -- starting with the tatara, ironsand, and charcoal, and making the bloom from scratch. The Chinese Dandao was also very impressive!

But for some reason, this viking Ulfberht one is my favourite so far. I've heard of crucible steel, but this is the first video I've seen that shows it's creation and forging.

I'm very meh on builds like Poppy's Hammer, though. Pretty much useless in real life. (Guts' pre-Dragonslayer sword I like, though, since I'm a long-time Berserk fan!)

[juansolo]

I posted a video a while back on FB of traditional katana making. It was fascinating... I'll see if I can find it again.

Found it.

[wgc]

Awesome did not know about this show, super interesting

[mremic01]

This stuff puts the boutique pedal industry to shame. My old iaido teacher used to make Japanese swords as his day job. He's one of the few people in the US who make them. Even without the 2 per month limit, they still run at least 3 grand for the low end stuff. So that's like, what, two Klons in the current market? There was also something like a year or two wait list for orders. There's no way I'd train or do tameshigiri with something like that. I'm happy with a cast aluminum blade.

[chromesphere]

cool video alan, thanks for posting!

Heres a video i watched recently also on japanese sword making.  I find sword making such a fasinating topic:

[nzCdog]

Man!  That is fascinating... I need a forge

[mremic01]

Do any of you guys have experience with HEMA? It's something I've wanted to do but never had the time or money.

[alanp]

Fun watch.

mremic, I find the concept fascinating. I haven't really tried to find any NZ groups, since the odds of them being within half an hours drive from me is as likely as me finding a long-lost stash of MN3005's in Dad's shed.

http://www.thearma.org

I sometimes wonder what weeaboo's think of the idea of martial arts not being exclusive to Asia. Hollywood likes to give the impression of fencing being the only school of swordplay in Europe, ever.

[alanp]

Shadiversity did a series on katana construction. This one (Part 3 of a series of five) goes into a LOT of detail on the smelting and forging process, and how it affects the product. (I knew about decarburization before this, but not the pig iron angle.)

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWklwxMTl4swj2iFIjIPsHogwioUFTIxy
For the complete series.

He also does a fairly entertaining series of videos reviewing game and movie castles. I always had a strong suspicion about Helm's Deep, while watching LotR.