Greetings from Buenos Aires! i'm new in the forum, though i've read a lot of useful info in here and i learned to love this site (sorry if i mess up with my English)

It is possible to reshape a tempered steel sword? i have a Spatha i ordered from a blacksmith -far away from my state/province- and looked great in the photos, the thing is: when i had the actual sword in my hands, it felt heavy, mostly because of the distal taper or the balance. It's 5cm wide, CoB is 13cm and weighs aproximately 1100 grams.

I have no complains about other aspects of the sword, just the maneuverabilty..

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You could shape an already heat treated sword, but you would have to be careful to not overheat the steel to lose it's temper. If you need major reshaping, in my eyes, it would be better to anneal, shape, normalize and then re-heat treat it. I wouldn't do it if you don't have knowledge of steel though. Are there any bladesmiths in your area?

Yes it is possible to grind an already heat treated blade without damaging the temper if one avoids heating any part of the blade over the heat used to temper the blade.

By the way Tinker usually grinds his sword blades from bar stock after they have been heat treated, but he is careful to not overheat the blade while working on it. In some cases he also selectively heats parts of some of his sword blades keeping the edges harder and the middle of the blades softer as well as reducing the hardness of the tang and the blades at the shoulder for a selected heat treat. ( Most makers who use bar stock heat treat after grinding their blades, although they might do the final grind and polishing after heat treat )

http://myArmoury.com/review_tink_seax.html

From the above link:

Quote:

Replica created by Michael "Tinker" Pearce. The blade is Marquenched 5160 spring steel at an edge-hardness of approx HRc58-60. The tang, spine, and base have been selectively drawn to HRc45-48. The furniture is mild steel and the pommel is secured by a riveted tang. The tang is 3/4 of an inch wide at the shoulder and tapers to approximately 1/2 an inch wide where it enters the pommel. The handle is one-piece construction and is made of Cocobolo wood. An explanation on marqueching can be found on Tinker's Web site.

With your blade, with a very complex grind, removing metal and mass to increase the distal taper would be very very difficult to do and still keep the grind lines, fullers, ridges looking the same.

If it was a simple diamond shaped blade someone extremely skilled in using a belt sander might be able to take some material off and not ruin the aesthetics of the blade.

This is not a DIY type of job and even the maker of the sword you show would have difficulty reshaping the blade: If you are generally happy with the sword I wouldn't risk it as it does look very pleasing, if not 100% historical. ( It depends on how historically accurate or plausible you wanted the spatha to be ? It does look more like a fantasy design closely inspired by a historical spatha ).

By the way I really like the complex grind and aesthetics of the blade.

I find that one can adapt to the handling of a sword even if it feels a bit odd or unbalanced at first, at least as long as the balance isn't too extreme. A lot of forward balance does give more power to a cut at the price of making recovery slower and more difficult.

Thanks for the answers everyone.

I was thinking about sending it to a friend, which works swords with modern tools. He's a good swordsmith, may know something about blades, not much like a traditional one; but he made quite a lot of weapons..

You're right about it would not look the same, but i am willing to risk a few grams for a bit of better control. Conserving the profile and esthetics as well. About the hilt: at first i showed him an image of an Albion Decurio but seems like he didn't get so well the idea, hehe

I just want a more acute gradual profile taper like this image describes

http://myArmoury.com/images/features/pic_pt.gif

Unlike my sword, which it starts lowering width only at the second half

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Or...

You could do whatever you want with the sword, then normalize, harden and temper all over again.