[Rodrigo Paz Reyes]

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..

[Michael B.]

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?

[Jean Thibodeau]

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:

[Rodrigo Paz Reyes]

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

[Harry Marinakis]

Or...

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