This is a question to any makers or manufacturers: Can fullers be put into a sword blade after it is completed? And if so, who does that sort of work? The reason I ask is I have an old sword I absolutely love, but it is HEAVY. It was made with a hexagonal cross section, but no fullers to lighten the blade.

The short answer is: Yes.

For many of the projects Erik Stevenson created for me, he took already heat-treated ATrim blades and added fullers, reshaped profiles, and did other heavy modifications without ruining the heat-treatment.

It just has to be done with patience and care with frequent breaks taken to cool the blade down.

Thanks Nathan, do you have any contact information for Erik Stevenson , I would love to get in touch to discuss a project like the ones you described.

D'oh! Well I will contact him anyway via Phoenix, and with some luck he may know some one in the industry who can and will do that kind of work. So, if ANYONE else has any name or contacts I would very much appreciate the lead. Thanks again Nathan for pointing me in the right direction. IF I find some one who still does this, will pass along the info to the forum. Ray

I have been wondering about this myself, to the point of buying a cheap circular saw and abrasive blades, and some angle iron to make some sort of a jig with. I have some clunker blades laying around but haven't got around to trying it yet. As long as the heat is controllable it should be okay, grinding on hardened steel is done as a matter of course during blade making. The main difference here is that a tiny slip will scar an otherwise finished blade. I have a project that may motivate me to try it soon, but I would need lots of practice before I were confident enough to try it on someone elses blade, I think.

jason is right on if your thinking of grinding.

fullers are generally put in with a fuller and fuller hammer at red heat on the steel. this would only widen the blade not make it lighter