Some years ago I bought some Alchem rapier flat tang blades. I intended to use them for free sparring. but found them too heavy. On the other hand, they are well made, durable and with sufficient flex, so I decided to use them in some other projects.
This one was shortened to some 75+ cm, with 60cm blade, and shaped. I have added crossguard and nagel shaped from pieces of soft steel I had laying in my workshop, an oak handle, and brass pins. the only real problem was grinding holes through the tang: steel was really well hardened, so I had to burn through it with TIG welder - a nasty job but it worked.
All in all, the work took some 10 hours. I was not trying to create something fancy, rather a simple training messer. The blade, when shortened, is not flexible enough to be used in free sparring, but it could be surely used for training techniques. It handles quite nicely and is not too heavy (little over 700 grams in total).

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I´ve made a simple leather scabbard, with wooden core. The project is finished now.

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Another one, from a broken Alchem blade. No fancy stuff, just for training.

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i'm curious about how you affixed the pommel cap on the first messer to the grip/ tang, i'm trying to do a similer conversion project albeit turning knives into ruggers/ hauswehrs , so similer stuff, but smaller scale.

1) The end of the tang was cut to a narrow strip, rounded corners (the result was something like a cylindrical "rivet");
2) the cap was made from a strip of steel, some 4 mm thick, with a drilled hole, filed into an oval;
3) then I have heated the end of the tang (the "rivet"), set in the cap and hammered it to place.

Of course, wooden scales were fixed only after that.
Hope it helps.

A similar piece, using another broken Alchem blade. These blades are super-hard, so drilling holes for pins and nagel is a challenge. On the other hand, their hardness makes them suitable for trainers that need to sustain heavy use.

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