A new custom sword project by Peter Lyon -- myArmoury.com

David Stokes

I own one Peter Lyon sword, that I received late last year.
during the wait for that sword I have gotten to know Peter pretty well and we decided to work on another project
To those who may not know, Peter Lyon is the brilliant swordmaker who made the swords for the Lord of the Rings trilogy as well as the Narnia films. He also did the blades in Last Samurai as well...
just a few months back, Peter contacted me and let me know he had a little free time and I had an idea and proposed it to him...
We are calling this project "The Orcrist"....
Named, of course, after the Elven sword from The Hobbit, however in reality since the sword in the book was used by a Dwarf, it would probably be rather small like Sting..... Just because...well, because we WANTED TO, we decided to make this sword LARGER than the first sword Peter made...
More of a TRUE two hander.
the original plan was to have a 40+ inch blade, but we ended up aggreeing that about 38" will be as big as it can get and still look "right" for the blade design.
The blade: The HEART of any sword......we decided on a leaf blade ala Glamdring early on, but this is COMPLETELY different, In fact Peter is doing something totally unique here, something I have never seen.
it will be a TRIPLE fullered blade... a wide central fuller flanked by two thinner ones.... however, usually you see the flanking fullers ending and the longer one extending on........ we are doing the OPPOSITE here... the middle wide fuller will be shorter with the outer ones continueing on, and curving in a bit at the end.
As always this will be a DEEPLY hollow ground blade, typical of Peter's work.

The guard is somewhat LOTR inspired... somewhat of a straightened version of the Strider Ranger sword...
The grip will have some cording under to give it design under the leather.
The pommel will be a long stalk type pommel with hollow ground facets.

Heres the first stetch Peter did.... basically a winner right off the bat...
but minute changes may occur to "perfect" it...

http://i210.photobucket.com/albums/bb133/shag...rawing.jpg

IT HAS BEGUN!!

The roughing of the pommel has been started!!!!!

http://i210.photobucket.com/albums/bb133/shag...16_003.jpg

stay tuned to this thread for more updates!
Comments welcome!

I hope to let this thread be a "start to finish" chronicling so folks can see the process of how a sword is born.
I hope everyone fines it as educational as it will be entertaining.

Shamsi Modarai · Posted: Mon 16 Jun, 2008 10:49 pm Post subject:

Wow!...I am one envious geek! That looks like its going to be so special! Big Grin

Best wishes,

~ Shamsi

Steven McIntyre · Posted: Mon 16 Jun, 2008 11:28 pm Post subject:

David...I hate you...Just kidding of course

Anyway, I like the design. Fuller idea is intriguing, will have to see it done before I pass judgment on it one way or the other. I like the idea of making it a 2 hander,so it's "dwarf scale".

Who knows, maybe the filmmakers will see the sword and want to use the design for the movie. Big Grin

Paul Watson · Posted: Mon 16 Jun, 2008 11:49 pm Post subject:

David, Orcrist was the mate of Glamdring, it was a sword made for the elves of the first age, of whom the noble ones were frequently 7' tall, so from a "forensic" point of view when considering the stature of your Orcrist, it should definitely be big. The fact that it was wielded by a dwarf is irrelevant, in Tolkiens mythology although shorter than men and elves the dwarves were not nearly as short as hobbits, so it is conceivable that they would be able to wield such a weapon even if not specifically designed for their stature just as a man who is 5'0" would be able to wield a big two hander made for someone over 6' tall.

Of further consideration or possible inspiration for the sword you may want to consider the most thorough account of King Turgon's sword Glamdring which as stated was Orcrists mate......"a white and gold sword with a ruel-bone (ivory) sheath".

Thats enough Middle Earth geeking for now.

Peter Lyon · Industry Professional

Thanks for that info Paul. Tolkein's description also includes stuff about a jeweled hilt if I remember rightly, but that would just be cost prohibitive to do.

As I was sketching, I was keeping in mind that it is the 'brother' to Glamdring, so I wanted some similarities to the film Glamdring, but to be its own design, and quite different from the other sword I made for David.

I also want to make more large leaf blades, partly as an exercise in seeing how far they can go, in terms of taking something which is basically very hard to make work - it is easy to make a leaf blade with horrendous weight distribution, hard to make one that balances and also flexes evenly along its length. A problem I found with the blade of Glamdring, purely from a functionality view point, was that the wide part of the leaf blade ended up pretty stiff, as did the section near the shoulders, so most of the flex happened in the waisted section. The way around that is to make the blade out of 8mm spring steel (that is 5/16" for the metrically challenged), keeping the spine full thickness right through the waisted section, then flatten the angle of the hollow grinding to puts lots of distal taper in through to the widest part of the leaf. By then the blade will be only 3-4mm thick, minimising the weight near the tip and helping the flex. At least that is the theory; but I will be able to tweak the grinds as I go. I am looking forward to this blade, and the fullering was something I thought up as I was doodling. If the curve in of the outside fullers complements the curve in of the leaf, I think it will work well.

The hilt will be all steel, with leather on the grip and bronze wire details at the ends of the cross. The colour of the leather has yet to be decided, but it is something can be dealt with late in the project, just before final assembly.

The pommel is going to be particularly interesting - it will be oval cross section, and I will be cutting 8 fine lines from the base to the tip, with hollow grinds in the gaps, both on the convex top face and the concave stalk. A nice challenge.

It will probably also be a longer-term thread, running over several months, as I also have to do my private work in between the lumps of contract work I have to get done, so this thread is likely to progress in spurts.

Randall Moffett · Posted: Tue 17 Jun, 2008 3:30 am Post subject:

Paul,

Ah you beat me too it. I just had to find my copy of Tolkien’s works but they were in my son's room and he had gone to sleep by the time I saw this post. Orcrist being designed for use by the Noldor are frequently noted as using 'long swords'. Since they were tall and used long swords it can be assumed they sword Orcrist made by the Elves of Gondolin would have made it along the lines of a fairly lengthy sword. The sword Glamdring in the movie seems a good length to go off of.

Peter,

I love'd the interpretation of Glamdring from the movies that you made. It really had a look that gave much information about the culture and heritage of it with no words needed. The leaf bladed swords look fantastic. I loved the look of sting as well. Only wish all elf swords in the movie were done so as I just thought they looked so amazing and if two looked good several hundred or more of them in a film would have been phenomenally awesome. Will look forward to seeing this finished.

RPM

Allen Andrews · Posted: Tue 17 Jun, 2008 4:03 am Post subject:

What an excellent project! I have been a fan of Tolkien for many, many years. I thought Mr Lyons did a great job with the swords on the LoTR films and have been glad to see his work continue. I will watch this thread with interest Happy

Anders Backlund · Posted: Tue 17 Jun, 2008 6:36 am Post subject:

Well, this looks very promising. It'll be fun to see what the finished sword. Happy

David Stokes · Posted: Tue 17 Jun, 2008 6:43 am Post subject:

Peter,
Thank you so much for your input!

Peter came up with an absolutly brilliant design!
I have found that when working with a custom smith, the LESS input the customer has, the better the end product will be.
I totd Peter basically what I was after (a big leaf blade) and he was very eager to do that for the reasons he mentioned above.
The first sword we did together which can be seen here : http://i210.photobucket.com/albums/bb133/shag...sword3.jpg

it was highly influenced by the Aragorn Ranger sword and the guard, of course influenced by Glamdring.
Peter named that sword "Nemesis" and it has always stuck.
All of the fittings on it are PERFECTLY mirror polished, and the leather is dark , rich blue.
Also the size of that sword was important, its basically a true bastard/hand and a half sword.
the blade is around 34" or so as i recall, and its very light and fast....
it really handles like a single hander, truth be told...

So with this next project, I wanted to go in a completely different direction:
Not small;
Not blue
Not shiney and high polished

I doubt the fittings will be darkened, however a satin finish will probably be best.
as for the color, as Peter mentioned we havent decided.... however we ARE leaning towards a dark green...
Since this is something that is sort of the last step of the project, Id love to hear input of myArmoury members! Help me decide the color of the leather! All you Tolkien scholars, let me hear your thoughts!

Bren O · Posted: Tue 17 Jun, 2008 6:51 am Post subject:

Peter, I'm really excited to see that you (like me) will be wrestling the form from steel, rather than wax casting. As a fledgeling steel sculpter I would be so happy to see such detailed photos of every stage. I really hope to someday emulate the forms that you create, and could learn alot from the shots you can provide of this photo.
Thank you. Looking forward to this thread (favouritized)

Joe Fults · Posted: Tue 17 Jun, 2008 4:27 pm Post subject:

Neat looking project and I'm thinking green would be a good go at color. However the sword from the story being made for the Noldor means you're not going to have to stick with a tree theme for things. As long as it appears noble you're going to be good to go.

J.G. Grubbs · Posted: Tue 17 Jun, 2008 6:55 pm Post subject:

Looks like another fantastic piece David! Can't wait to see it. Big Grin

Peter Lyon · Industry Professional

Well, the only news on David's new sword is ... there is no news. The workload gremlins have been biting at my heels again, my contract work load has picked up and I still have a couple of commissions to complete before I can seriously get onto David's. This is now looking like October, since I will be away in the UK all of September. This is why I don't like getting a deposit until I know I can make a start on building the sword, it is uncomfortable for me to be holding someone's money with nothing to show for it.

So, check back again later, unless something unexpected happens (like I get some free time).

Randall Moffett · Posted: Sat 26 Jul, 2008 11:00 pm Post subject:

Hope you have a nice time over here. Going to the RA or anywhere fun?

RPM

Shahril Dzulkifli

David, I have some bad news - The U.R.L.'s of your swords expired and they even have no picture. Do you have any replacements for these?

Peter Lyon · Industry Professional

Chris Artman · Posted: Thu 31 Jul, 2008 6:12 pm Post subject:

It would be great to see the pictures again, as mentioned above, the URL has expired. Sounds amazing...

Derek K · Posted: Thu 21 Aug, 2008 10:10 pm Post subject:

I too wish I could see the pictures!

And I apologize if this is a question that cannot be answered, but I'm wondering if Peter Lyon might be creating the swords for planned Hobbit movie. And if this Orcrist sword design might be a step towards the movie sword?

Because the LotR swords were in my opinion some of the best movie swords ever designed. Fantasy swords that are not overly fantastical. Happy

P. Thompson · Posted: Fri 22 Aug, 2008 7:33 am Post subject: Orcrist

As far as the color of the leather goes. I was thinking why not a light brown or "buckskin" color. Against the steel it would appear to be almost golden in color, also it would look nice with the bronze wire detailing on the hilt. The golden color would fit since Orcrist was made by the Noldor. It would also make it a nice contrast to it's Brother Glamdring. That's my two cents worth anyway. I would really like to see pictures of the work in progress, but unfortunately the links have expired. By the by, another sword that I would love to see a good interpretation of is Gurthang, the sword of Turin Tarambar and of Beleg Cuthalion before him. I love Mr. Lyons work and think that he would be the one to do it.

David Stokes · Posted: Sun 24 Jul, 2011 9:53 am Post subject:

Well, its been a while since our last update, but Peter has been BUSY at work!

He has been sending me pictures on a regular basis.

First, well started with the revised drawing he is working off of
Photobucket image