[Mark Donevan]

Hey Gents.
I have a 1557 atrim. a really nice sword, standard fittings. id like to curve the gaurd myself towards the blade. is it complicated? any suggestions?

cheers

[Mike Harris]

Mark,

The guards Gus Trim puts on his swords (mostly) handle heating and forging well. Simply heat to orange and hammer to shape on an anvil or similar surface. Then refinish to your desired level of texture and color.

That's putting it pretty simply, but it's not really a complex project. It just requires a bit of artistic skill with a hammer and fnishing tools. Here's an example of one I made from Gus' standard bowtie guard with cusp at the ecussion.

[Toke Krebs Niclasen]

How does one get the guard to fit the blade/tang tight without spending forever with a small file?

I have considered heating it to red hot and fitting with hammer, but that would likely damage the tempering even if removed quickly. (make a soft iron dummy?)
Another idea is to make a loose fit, cover the inside with solder and then fit with hammer.

[Mike Harris]

When I have a loose guard on an ATrim blade I like to make a brass shim set that are fitted to the guard, silver soldered in place if necessary. These act to make the guard a press fit, if the shims are sized correctly