[Chris Goerner]

I have a Del Tin broadsword blade I bought for a basket hilt. I would like to have it engraved with "Andrea Farara" and some traditional markings. Can anyone point me in the direction of someone who does this type of work? I am sure there must be a thread on this subject out there somewhere, but my searches have been unsuccessful in finding any.

Thanks!
Chris

[Nathan Robinson]

Art Elwell from A Work of Art can do etching, but I don't believe he offers engraving. That might help some. I don't know?

See Chad Arnow's Etched Dirk for an example.



John Lundemo does very nice engraving but I don't know if he does it as a separate service on other provided blades. You'd have to contact him about that.

[Blaz Berlec]

You can have your blade engraved like that by almost all companies that do decorative laser engraving, and it's not really expensive - here in Slovenia it costs about 10 - 30 $, it depends on the size of engraving. And it doesn't ruin the temper of the sword, the object is cooled by water. This type of engraving is often done on thin brass or aluminum plaques, which deform and wrap extremely if not cooled properly.

But it doesn't look good in my opinion. I would at least chemically blacken the engraved part, and hand drawn the design for engraving. And pay close attention to the style of engravings on original swords.

Uh, I would really like to see a simple silver, brass or bronze inlays in a sword blade. I ordered two swords from Czech swordmaker Radek Lobko (http://www.swordcutler.com/) without his mark on a blade just for that. Now if only I could find someone that could do it for me...

Maybe this guy, silversmith Christoph Steidl Porenta, one of the best jewelers, goldsmiths and silversmiths here could make the inlays.



He keeps a live raven in his shop, practices swordfighting, he made a welded mail shirt from Titanium for himself... But I'm just scared of the price... You can see some of his work on his shop's page, it's in English too: http://www.zlatoruno.com/
The name of the shop "Zlato runo" means "Golden fleece".

Most of the high medieval blades found here in Slovenia have some sort of inlays on a blade. Some of the drawings are quite symbolic - arrows inlaid near the tip of the blade, or at the end of fuller are present on many blades, and I really like that - symbol of evil and harm, pointed at your enemy. Or the dual nature of the sword (defending and attacking), shown with the fish on one side, and fishes' skeleton on the other. Well, swords will soon arrive, so I'll have to choose.