Hello,

I have something cool for you. Mike Jia of "The Printed Armoury" is planning to make a beautiful set of Swiss longsword fittings. These will be cast in mild steel from a 3D-printed template.

Here's a link to Mike's website: https://printedarmoury.wordpress.com

These are the fittings:







I would be happy to make a blade to go with these fittings. Can be a XVIII(a) blade as pictured but the fittings would also work with a XIX or even a single-edged Swiss saber design.

This would be a chance to own one of my swords for a substantially more affordable price than I would charge were I to make the entire sword myself. For a XVIII blade, the price for the completed sword would be around 1700 Euros, other more complex blade designs would be a bit more pricey but probably below 2000 Euros in the end.

Mike told me he will have the prototypes in hands in a few weeks so this is not just a distant idea but could fast become real! What we need now is someone interested in the project to make this work.

Let me know if that someone might be you ;)

Cheers,
Lukas Mästle-Goer

A 3-D printed sword? That would be...Awesome! :surprised:

I know of a few super-high-end knife makers that are close to 3dprinting blades, using some of the new hotness powdered steels.

It shouldn't be too much longer.

Even if you got a homogenous steel structure from the sintering process, wouldn't you still require finishing grinding and heat-treatment to make the weapon reliable to use? I find it worth noting that these newmanufacturing techniques still require a lot of involvement to yield good results.

Interesting discussion.

On a slightly related note, I have a client for this project. XVIII blade. It will be an interesting experience to work with these fittings I think.

I have started on the project.

The proportions of my rendering will be a bit different after the customer's requests (longer blade, slightly shorter fuller) but overall, it will have the same visual characteristics.

So far, the blade blank has been cut out, profiled and the fullers ground in. Grinding the fullers is always a nerve-wrecking process, even with a good set-up, because mistakes here can easily either ruin the blade completely or at least require a lot of clean-up by hand. Luckily, all went well.

Starting to look like a sword blade...

Wow, a good beginning! That's a shame that it's finally a sword and not a swiss saber, I would have seen what it looked like...

But I'm sure it will be a very classy piece!

Those fittings are sa-weeeet . I bet you could throw them on a H/T blade and have a near, if not as good as , Albion. Hell...maybe better. You could put any grip you want on it. In the pics of the computer -generated sword, a half-wire grip would be off the hook cool. My only concern, and not just about this, is that we are 'tech-ing' ourselves into dumbness. There are only a few artists (I REFUSE to call them swordsmiths or anything else) who can create such beauty with raw materials, fire, hammer and anvil. But....I don't want the discussion to go down that track. Just my feelings on it. Otherwise, that's gonna be one beautiful sword. :D .............McM

Finished rough grinding the bevels on the longsword. I'm happy with how it turned out. Now the blade needs to be cleaned up on the belt sander and though there is still be a lot of material to me removed, it already starts to feel like a sword blade. The basic handling characteristics are already there... now they will be fine tuned.

The blade is ready for heat treat. I'll be sending it out tomorrow.
It turned out well, unfortunately it was already almost dark outside when I got to take the pictures so no natural lighting. And my camera sucks, but that's old news. Really gotta upgrade...

So, let's hope the blade survives heat treat and comes back straight!

The blade made it through heat treatment fine. There was some warping but that could be corrected. Here it is almost ground to final shape. Edges are just shy of sharp.

I also received the fittings from "The Printed Armoury". I must say, I'm impressed. There is one small casting flaw in the pommel and one or two tiny pits in the guard but that ties in well with the general handmade appearance of the sword. I do strive for clean lines and shapes but I'm no CNC-machine and small irregularities are part of the deal with handmade products ;)

The fittings come with a high glossy finish that I will bring down a bit to a nice satin shine. I don't mind that at all, much easier to bring a polish down than to clean up a rough casting finish.

I already fitted the pommel, next up is the guard. You can already get a sense of how the finished sword will look... (hint, it'll be gorgeous ;) )

Gadzooks!

When does mass production begin?!! If everyone buys in, think of how affordable it could be!

On a more serious note, that's a beautiful weapon. I just don't have the space or the funds for anything of that caliber.

:D

Looking good, Lukas. I bet those fittings would go well in black. What's the weight for the guard and for the pommel?

Thanks, guys, glad you like it.

I haven't weighted the guard yet but I'm told it weighs about 300g. Pommel weight is 285g. The guard is quite heavy as is usually the case with ring hilts. But since the mass is so close to the hand, it's not a problem as far as the handling is concerned.

Fair enough ;)

Last bit of work:

The longsword blade is ground to final shape and sharpened, the hilt components fitted. Now comes the tedious process of hand polishing everything. But that will have to wait until after Christmas ;)

Enjoy and Merry Christmas!