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@bertilhatt

4 ай бұрын

No one does ad segment nearly as perfectly as HTME, “As you can see, I’ve tried doing it myself, and I can assure you, paying someone to do it for you is a gift beyond words.” There should be a Webby award for those, and you should get them all. (Except once, give it to Legal Eagle when he covers Better Call Saul giving away phones and he transitions to him slinging Ting Mobile contracts.)

@PankajDoharey

4 ай бұрын

Bronze Iron alloy "Sidero" would be cool.

@jordanezell5132

3 ай бұрын

Will you try making a diving suit one day?

Why is everyone being so harsh? Guy showed decent technique, didn't do a bad job at all. Yes he would for sure do a better job if the material was cut and forge welded into a bar, but the whole experiment as it was proposed wouldnt make much sense. Keep it up. I like this a lot.

@maddi4075

4 ай бұрын

Agreed! 👏👏

@GildedLithium

4 ай бұрын

Yeah he had proper technique. I think that forging it into a billet would've kept with the idea, it just takes way longer. And these guys probably don't want to spend that much time, which is respectable in my opinion.

@matthewpohlmann6623

4 ай бұрын

Fair enough, I wish it was The Elven Smith we've seen many times before though

@marblemarble7113

4 ай бұрын

The quality is actually very realistic for the time. The average sword did not look like a museum piece.

@daniel1981de

4 ай бұрын

Those people who criticism are Sam ones who can't do anything except sit in their parents house living on their dime.

Theo did a great job explaining the setbacks and why they we're happening!

You could have made a reforged scythe, a common repurposed polearm often used by peasants, which is basically a scythe made into a spear

@moenchii

3 ай бұрын

I was thinking that too. They were basically just scythe blades that pointed forwards instead of to the side and on a straight pole. Could be used for stabbing and slicing with a prettly good range.

@voidwyrm6149

3 ай бұрын

modified war scythes were common enough to inspire a purpose-built polearm called the fauchard

@trvekvltBurzum

3 ай бұрын

Not really a spear, but a polearm. Lithuanian and Polish peasants used them during the revolts against Tzar Russia

@rockid7970

2 ай бұрын

@@trvekvltBurzum Literally a Polearm lol

"Svo má brýna deigt járn að bíti!" Even soft iron can be sharpened to an edge, it is a rough translation, but it gets the point across. In one of the Icelandic Sagas, Gunnlaugs-saga ormstungu (Saga of Gunnlaugur Wormtounge), it tells of a duel, where they agreed to a pause so they could straighten out their swords, who had become quite bent after the fighting. Gunnlaugur was nicknamed "wormtounge" because he was a good poet, and came up with some sick burns and good one-liners!

@bilbo_gamers6417

3 ай бұрын

Ehh. Working iron into a sword is a very different skillset than forging modern material. You can't just rely on the grind. You need to make sure that the edge has the correct grain, and, in iron, that can only come from cold working. It is not super difficult but also it is really not easy to get right, especially to produce something comparable to a decent steel sword.

@capnklay

3 ай бұрын

"And then you can sharpen the crushed iron to bite!" TIL VALHALL VI DRAR

"Beat our ploughshares into swords," Historically, peasant militia could be armed with a war-scythe by just taking a scythe-blade and affixing it parallel to the haft rather than perpendicular.

@Zelmel

4 ай бұрын

Isn't the phrase typically the other way around though? "Swords into ploughshares" is a phrase from Judaism and Christianity about repurposing (figuratively or literally) tools of war for peaceful purposes. Obviously you could also go the other way around, but the common phrase is peaceful unless I'm having a huge brain fart.

@WolfWalrus

3 ай бұрын

@@Zelmel Yeah this was the reference, I was hoping somebody would get it :) The usual phrase _is_ "swords to ploughshares", you're right, but I was switching it around to make it more appropriate for the video.

@Zelmel

3 ай бұрын

@@WolfWalrus It would potentially be cool to see them actually try to turn a sword into a plow, too.

@capnklay

3 ай бұрын

"Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears; let the weak say, “I am a warrior.”" Joel 3:10 English Standard Version

If you had kept the curve of the blade you could have made a falx like sword with it. The falx was A deadly weapon used by the Dacians when they fought the Romans. You could have also made the blade into a war scythe pole arm which would have been historically accurate for the medieval era.

@Foof50

4 ай бұрын

But that wasn't the point of the video.

@theomelchior2739

3 ай бұрын

I brought up both ideas before forging but we ended up going with a more iconic look despite to significant spike in difficulty

Theo did an excellent job turning that scythe into a sword! He should be super proud of himself! Don't let Andy touch it! 😂

Great and interesting content as always. Video was about recycling old metal into a weapon quickly and did that well. I can imagine cities under siege with blacksmiths churning out swords like this to arm the populace. Glad to see the team expanding too. Welcome Theo!

The beauty of blacksmithing is the ability to recycle almost anything steel into something else. Just a side note, scythes are mild steel with a work hardened edge. That is why the sword bent so easily on that last blow. I think if the Smith would have ground both edges back to make them thicker, then cold peened the edge like you would do with a bronze edged weapon/tool, it would have held up a bit better. At the end of the day, I still wouldn't want to be on the receiving side of the sword you made. Well done!

I think their attempt was not "how to make a proper sword from a scythe blade" but "how difficult is it to reforge a scthe blade" and just heating up the tang and putting a single bend in it for a war scythe is obviously not as interesting as a video than making a sword blade from it. Still a very interesting video, and I hope you can maybe at some point redo this with someone like Alec Steele and make a properly working sword from it :D A very cool video, showing that it's not that easy as one might think

I know they are working the metal in a brightly lit shop for the sake of filming but they really need a dark workshop to see those temperatures. I’m envisioning all the stress fractures from working that metal as cold (relatively) as it looks. I know the light bleaches the color out so we can’t really see it. I know they’re bright lighting for the sake of filming. And I thank them for all the work.

@jeanladoire4141

4 ай бұрын

Don't worry too much, scythes are pretty soft steel, they can stretch a bit before breaking

@toddellner5283

4 ай бұрын

Which makes them pretty high quality steel by Norman standards @@jeanladoire4141

@gaskamp2

4 ай бұрын

That, and it looked like they were doing spot heats. If they had let more of the metal get hot, then it would have flowed a little better. But it was already so thin that there's not much you can do to prevent a tear, especially on that big curve.

@arcanealchemist3190

3 ай бұрын

as a film student, and amateur blacksmith, its harder than it looks! its hard to predict which part of the heat you will want to film, and changing the exposure on the fly isnt always an option. coming fresh out of the forge you would want the lowest exposure, but quickly youre gonna want to turn the exposure up as the metal cools. that pretty much cant be done on the fly while filming, so youve got to decide which step you want to look the best ahead of time. its a lot to consider :P

@bilbo_gamers6417

3 ай бұрын

I work iron at relatively low heats all the time. In pure iron like this especially you can beat on it all day long. As long as you are getting it at least a little bit hot and you aren't completely incompetent, it's not going to break. You can hammer wrought iron completely cold honestly.

Or use the curve like a falcatta/curved sword of similar time since the theme is expensive commodity. The large base size of the scythe was quickly reusable just given the tail lang.

@danilooliveira6580

4 ай бұрын

would be even better to just change the base to turn it upright and make a polearm, then just grind the back side to give it an edge. its something we have real records of being done.

@AnonymousAnarchist2

4 ай бұрын

ya... but then your lird would know you are mounting a coup or a rebellian where as using a scythe you get more iron to make famr tools with after youve unshckled yourself from the bonds of the warlord

@carola7893

4 ай бұрын

Your biggest fail is that you are not thinking northern European. Which is the area they are using and their base. The curved sword is not from that area. That would be more middle east/Eastern. If they had decided to not do with something they were familiar with. Northern Europe, it probably would work better. But he is in MN, and is more familiar with european history and arms

@rmg6884

4 ай бұрын

@@carola7893 no characteristic as vague having a curved blade or not would be endemic to a specific region; it wouldn't be a completely alien concept either, seeing as scythes and sickles and other conveniently deadly tools from pretty much everywhere had already had curved blades for millennia furthermore, improvised weaponry, would be formed as quickly and with as little modification as possible, and the difference having a straight edge would make wouldn't be enough to justify several additional hours of work and the possibility of ruining the piece

@barjekold7140

4 ай бұрын

​@@danilooliveira6580basicly what a war scythe is, i dont know if something like that was used in Hastings tho, more typical would have been to cut the scyhte blade up to make a bunch of spear heads

Please make a proper grindstone using compacted concrete. 5% to 10% cement, 2-3 times as much water, and the rest being local soil, mix well, get it to a clay-like consistency, then form it into a wheel and compact it really well as if you were compacting rammed earth, and the result should be very close to natural rock, once it cures enough. You can use quick-setting cement, if needed, to speed up the process.

This was pretty cool. Cheers, Andy!

I know everyone is going to have their input on this, and I think that's fine so long as it's constructive. In future reclamation projects with steel and iron, consider forge welding your material into a bar first, then drawing it out into a blade. I have done a number of similar projects as this and I have found that when working with such thin material, you get a better final result by just consolidating it into a bar first. The trade off in work usually ends up in your favor. Rather than trying to correct for warping and cracking of an already over stressed steel, you just draw out a blade with the proper taper and balance from begining. Little things you learn after countless hours at the forge.

Okay so two things. 1) While we can all agree that this was a novice attempt at this project, I'm a relatively experienced blacksmith and as soon as making a sword out of a scythe blade came up I immediately thought that it was a deceptively difficult project. There's a reason you beat swords into ploughshares and not the other way round. At each step he was forced to use a very basic skillset to do something that was better achieved using some much more well developed skills. Regardless, he made a blade that survived a water quench and warp straightening in temper that didn't immediately shatter, yet held an edge of some variety. That could have gone disastrously worse at any of those stages, but he succeeded in that. While there may have been an amount of luck that went into this project, Theo also used enough caution at each step that it came out looking as good as it did. THAT is a skill that might be really useful in someone you want to try doing a whole bunch of new things. 2) Seeing Theo take this on makes me want to get out in the shop and challenge my abilities to get better. Try doing more complex forge welding than I've usually done, something like that. I remember being at Theo's stage in smithing, and seeing the beautiful things people can make and wanting to try doing that one day. Theo's attempt at this has motivated me to get out and do more of the trickier techniques you'd need to use to do a good job of this idea. TL:DR yeah, it wasn't great but smithing is hard and he seems like he may just be an asset to the team when it comes to trying new/tricky stuff

This was pretty cool to watch, do more of this

I was just thinking about this channel yesterday! Heck yeah!

At 6:40 that process is called normalising, not annealing. Annealing is purposefully causing the metal to cool as slow a possible to make it softer

I wonder if folding over that edge so both sides were thick then create both edges later, would have worked

@Watford4321

4 ай бұрын

"I wonder if folding over that edge so both sides were thick then create both edges later, would have worked" No... that would require fire welding. to do that you need to grind it clean then get it up to temp and wack it back together. With such thin steel over such a long length that simply wouldnt work in a coal forge (you'd burn it). Might be possible in a gas forge but you would lose a lot of material and likely it wouldnt be much thicker than it ended up.

you should've filed off that thin edge or bent it at a much higher heat to prevent those cracks. that edge is probably insuitable for combat anyway.

With a ton of KZreadrs quitting KZread now, it makes me feel more appreciative for those who continue to put out content. Thank you for pushing forward with the projects and making some incredible videos. I've been following you since 100k subs and I remember loving the idea of creating everything from scratch. These videos definitely highlight how difficult it is to creat these items that we take for granted. I appreciate this channel, thank you and best of luck forward!

Great content!

theo's full name sounds like it came from a medieval hero

This video shows why they didnt make swords out of farm tools. Not just the lack of training, but imagine having to make 40-50 of them before the enemy gets near. Otherwise though, pretty impressive given the challenge

I love how a "Can it be done?" Video has been taken as a "This is exactly how you do this and the only possible way and the most correct way to make a sword" video. This channel is not a "how to do things" channel, it's a "learn history in an entertaining way" channel. Sit down, shut up, and enjoy the video.

Yay! Fantastic day whenever you post.

I made a short sword type of thing from a sickle before and it was so annoying, bending all over the place like your scythe blade did. Im never doing that again.

The better option would have been to cut the scythe up into smaller pieces, hammer them into as many usable bars as possible, then forge weld those together. And then draw them out into a blade.

They literally made the sword you start off with in a video game.

You are supposed to beat your swords into plowshares, not the other way round.

@jabrwok

4 ай бұрын

"Those who beat their swords into plowshares will plow for those who didn't." -- source unknown by me:-).

Nice blade dude! I'm glad you got to repurpose that steel! I was literally gonna use those for swords!

I’ve been waiting for a upload all year😢😂

agricultural scythe blades were indeed once directly converted in to forward curving single edged sword blades as well

Forget farm to table. Now it's farm to battlefield

Keep up the good work ❤

Love this channel!!

My suggestion with the scythe would have been to fold the thin side back in, and continue folding and eventually just twist all the metal into a solid form (High risk of it de-laminating and splinter cracking in this process) from that re-folded then hammer out your sword.

This is pretty cool. Usually with sword making content you never see this kind of semi-destructive testing. Also shows how much difference a good, well tempered and balanced sword would make in a battle against a crude one, wielders skill not considered. Edit: Also, I just noticed the forge you're using seems to be one of those gas powered ones? Normally I wouldn't complain, but for this purpose a coal powered one would've been better (others have already mentioned some stuff about carbon etc)

Doing something lik this is so cool! Ive wanted to do something like this for a long time!

I have a section of bandsaw blade from Central Oregon’s first and biggest Lumbermill. I have been wanting to make a knife from a piece of it for a long time I just haven’t brought myself to cut it😅

first good on you it is a hard task and you did it. also great to show the issues that arise from the task it helps to show the bad just like the good. I do ask you to research a bit for terms and process's as many people are being educated from this. overall brilliant job.

8:56 Oh so THATS how they would fix the handle to the sword. Always wondered about that and makes perfect sense in retrospect

@TheFriendOfLucifer

3 ай бұрын

There's more than one way...this one is fixed. There have been records of unscrew able pommels (round thing on bottom of sword). Skallagrim has some videos on that, and loves to end them rightly. Full tang, not full tang, etc. Lots of ways for a seemingly simple thing to do.

@linecraftman3907

3 ай бұрын

@@TheFriendOfLucifer threads also make sense but sounds a lot more complex if this is a mass produced weapon

Dude did a great job for what he had to work with. I have no idea why anybody is complaining

Good job blacksmithing it definitely would be a challenge. Some higher heats might make it a bit easier to work into more of a bar instead of trying to keep the edge.

Being a Norman this video popping up on my feed made me unbelievably happy.

Probably would have been a better idea to try for something single-edged like a Falchion or Langmesser. You still would have had to straighten out the blade a little, but you could have had the thick part remain as the back and the thin part as the blade because frankly, I think trying to get a second edge on there wasn't great for the structural integrity of the blade.

Historically, scythes were more often reworked into polearms I believe than into swords, as if your weapon was made from a scythe, most likely you weren't the most highly trained warrior, exactly, so it was more common to convert them into polearms- called "war scythes"- than into smaller weapons, such as a sword. Haven't finished the video yet though, so idk if you'd already mentioned this or not. Sorry, if so! Edit: After watching the full way through the video, I must say, I'm surprised and a bit confused by your choice of what kind of sword to create here. The arming sword you created seems like it would be too thin, and it looked to have a lot of major twisting and warping in it- and that tear in the blade is a major weak point where the blade is likely to break, should it ever encounter major stresses, such as through combat. It would have made more sense- in my opinion, at least- to have a forward-curved blade as it already was, with perhaps a small false edge near to the tip, and that thick spine slightly thinned out in the rest of the sword from its original thickness. This would've been similar to the design of some african swords, as well as other forward curved blades like the falx. Regardless, this was an enjoyable video to watch; I simply wanted to give my thoughts and suggestions here, as I do a bit of blacksmithing and bladesmithing myself, and quite a decent bit of experimentation with swords.

@bl4cksp1d3r

4 ай бұрын

also, a war scythe needed not a lot of reforging done to become one. It's basically just changing to angle of the tang, which is the thickest part and can be more easily reforged than the thinner blade

@bloodsmithgamer5071

4 ай бұрын

​@@bl4cksp1d3rIndeed; in all honesty, I am quite worried about the structural soundness of this blade they've designed here. If they were going to make a sword of this, they should have either flattened it out, folded it, then drew it out again, or kept closer to the original shape and profile of the blade than they ultimately did, in my opinion.

@bl4cksp1d3r

4 ай бұрын

@@bloodsmithgamer5071 we can see it in the video at the end. I think their attempt was not "how to make a proper sword from a scythe blade" but "how difficult is it to reforge a scthe blade" and just heating up the tang and putting a single bend in it is obviously not as interesting as a video than making a sword blade from it.

@georgiwenckovsky9748

4 ай бұрын

well as the title says Can you Turn Old Farm Tools into a Norman Sword? was the goal

@bloodsmithgamer5071

4 ай бұрын

@@georgiwenckovsky9748 Hm. I could've sworn it was just "a sword" when it originally aired... But fair point.

The first thing that came to my mind was: this must be a reference to the mtg card swords to plowshares!! After watching to the video, I think that probably that would be an easier job. I'm not an expert, but seems easier to curve a sword to make a scuthe, or make one side of the blade dull and attach it to a long handle. But great video and nice work given the situation.

I don't know much but I would have heated it and worked the edge into the metal while straightening it then when I got it relatively straight than I would have worked on drawing out both edges.

Tool steel is usually pretty high in carbon, making good material for blades. Not on only is it possible, there was a show on the History Channel called "Forged in Fire" that had smiths make blades from tools all the time.

@joeofloath

4 ай бұрын

I make knives as a hobby and have a big box of scrap files, sections of industrial 40x1mm bandsaw blade, and bits of gardening implement. They all work great and even better, I don't need to buy stock!

This is backwards. You're supposed to be beat your swords into ploughshares. Speaking of which... are there any plans for making ploughs? You haven't really done much with agriculture lately. I would love a video where you make a simple scratch plough and then a more advanced Mediaeval one, so you can compare the two. You can also make a horsecollar and show how that was such a huge improvement over older ox-type yokes. I assume you could rent a horse for one day to test them out.

Next episode: Swords to Plowshares

fantastic

I love this

Yeah, a gme try but should've been pretty obvious from the get-go that there's not enough meat in a scythe blade to stop it being bent by any fair blocking blow from a stick. Scythrs, by their nature, are going to be as lightweight as possible and a sword just needs the mass. You'd really need to weld the thing into a brick and beat it out again into a shorter, thicker sword. Much work...

This is awsome

Great video. 😊

Love you RCE

It might not fair well in battle. But for what it is, it is Awesome!

I'm sad you didn't pair up with Skallagrim on this project. He does sword testing on his channel and probably would have been all about this.

Excellent. Weapon making is crucial. You should be able to defend yourself and your loved ones.

Wow, I once stood in front of the scythe sword attributed to Thomas Münzer, and it looked just like the scythe blade after the tang was straightened out...

HTME should be making swords into plowshares next spring

outstanding channel and production quality as always

Plowshares to swords?

@Godwinsname

4 ай бұрын

Yep was gonna say sort of this.. High five to the knowers of the 1 white mana spell :)

Out of curiosity, would it not have been easier to cut the scythe blade into pieces and forge weld those into a brand new billet for a sword? I'd suspect it might not have enough metal since then you'd need to re grind everything etc but it seems like the obvious solution

@1forge2rulethemall88

4 ай бұрын

Forge welding is harder to do, especially if the scythe was made from modern mild steel. Its hard to get forge welds just right, and modern steel is pure enough it actually is harder to forge weld than many older forms of iron/steel. It certainly would have been better, but not exactly easier. I once tried to forge weld some rebar I'd cleaned together, I accidentally broke a fresh forge-weld while making it and ruined my billet early on. To fix it I'd have needed to grind down the separated surfaces and tried again to ensure I didnt make inclusions in my new bar.

@kinggrigori192

4 ай бұрын

Reclaiming steal with forge-welding can be pretty difficult depending on the type of steel. Even with wrought iron, which is known for it's easy of forge welding and reclamation, it still takes a lot of work and loses a lot of material to forge scale. The easiest way would have probably just been to hot-cut the thinnest 1" or so off of the edge and then go from there. It would have left plenty of material, and the edge material could be easily recycled in the future for nails or wire or whatever else.

@nickverbree

4 ай бұрын

It might have been better, but it would definitely not be easier. Especially if that scythe has a forge welded edge on a wrought body, which is completely possible, it would be significantly harder to do successfully.

Very cool. Made me think of: Joel 3:10 Beat your plowshares into swords And your pruning hooks into spears

Really good Video. The reforging is very very lot of hard work. But the forging temperature looks really cold and the Tempering and hardening was not right. If it where properly hardend, it wouldn't stay bent! Also another variant would be to cut the sickle and weld forge ist. But this example from the video is maybe more historical correct, im not sure. ⚒️

"A little thin" is an understatement. The tempering process was "done" three times, and there are more than 10 different historical ways of reforging steel. How he did it would've caused stress fractures, warping, snapping, imbalance, and dulling. He should have broken or cut the rusted blade and reforged it via forge welds. Then he should've drawn the blade out, leaving the previous tang. It would've taken longer, but given better results. I love watching you guys work, but this hurt to watch. Sorry, I felt I had to rant about that.

A scythe history would have been made into a warscyth, a pollarm that is basically just a scythe blade put sideways on a long stick

Next, the other way around! Turn the sword into a plowshare!

Actually the other way round: From sword to skythe would have been way more interesting and sending a message to the world: NO weapons needed.

Reversing the classic M:tG card Swords to Plowshares

Check the Scythemen on Wikipedia. The Poles used scythes to fight during the Kościuszko Uprising.

THE SWORD OF FEAST AND FAMINE.

Very Joel 3:10! But I think scythes are traditionally mild steel so they can be peened to sharpen and work-harden them (hence the bend on the bone chop).

@nickverbree

4 ай бұрын

A lot are also mostly mild steel or wrought iron (depending on age) with just a forge welded high carbon edge.

Very impressive working with an already thin blade. Making a damascus blade would of course solve this but it still worked

Great results with the given limitations... xD I'm guessing that for better results, you'd just keep the original tool shape intact for a different type of weapon, or just melt the entire thing and recast, rework into something completely different.

@1forge2rulethemall88

4 ай бұрын

Melting it probably would have been a bad idea. Usually melted iron absorbs too much carbon becoming brittle (think of like a cast iron pan). A professional smith probably would have cut it into small sections, bound it together with wire, and then forge welded it together (similar to how the Japanese made their swords). It would have required a bunch more skill and could go wrong but if it worked well it would have let them make a new bar of the kind of steel usable to make a sword from scratch.) However I think this would have gone against the original idea or spirit of the project.

@XSpImmaLion

4 ай бұрын

@@1forge2rulethemall88 Yep, you are right on this.

As a weaponsmith I was trying to not yell at the screen LOL (Cut, clean and stack) What you made is not a sword, its a sword like object

I feel like a spear would had been better , since it saw more use in battle and you could theoretically more weapons from the same material But otherwise good episode

@bl4cksp1d3r

4 ай бұрын

yeah, but imagine what a short video it would have been when they just heated and bent the tang and resharpened the edge and point lol

I know that this isn't very the argument of the video, but, ever thought of doing a collab with the channel Tasting History with Max Miller ? By the way, excellent video.

No criticism, just honest curiosity. Would it not have been simpler to keep to the single edged nature of the scythe and made a scimitar or falchion?

1960 car leaf springs make great weapons.

No wonder the swords you find in battlefields look so rough, because they were rough looking to begin with.

@TheFriendOfLucifer

3 ай бұрын

I wonder if we're just biased because the most swords we do find (and display) are usually exceptionally well made ones. It wouldn't surprise me if the cheaper materials / less well made ones have a tendency to rust / degrade quicker than well made ones from good materials.

The scythe is made from mild steel and only has a high carbon steel edge which results in the sword won’t hold an edge well.

Wow those cookunity guys must have a terrible marketing team. "Hey this guy Has a channel about how to DIY literally everything, im sure his viewers will be intrested in pre-made food"

And there was me thinking that the quote was "swords to ploughshares"... my bad xD

Great now all you need to do is beat your swords BACK INTO plowshares

there's only one real question here..... "Will it keeeeeel?"

Not the way I would have gone about it, being a blacksmith of 18 years. It worked... But I wouldnt trust it in battle. Unless you cut some footage, the blade wasn't annealed.. it was normalized, the quench was uneven/spotty, the temper is non existent. It's a bit heavy in the handle, but the furniture looks decent. Owning many scythes, I wouldn't have gone for a straight sword profile, curved swords cut better anyway.. But if I were forced to (and couldn't just cut and forge weld it into a new billet), I would chisel cut the flat edge off first, straighten out the remaining stock, and anneal it overnight in wood ash. Then hammer it to shape working both sides evenly, grind, heat in a long fire and quench at an even temperature (except the tang), and temper accordingly (about 400°). Normalizing the steel doesn't remove stress in the steel as well as actually annealing it, especially steel that's been work hardened for years.. hell, scythe blades are sharpened with a hammer and a stake anvil, the original scythe blade is so full of work stress that it's only suitable for cutting grass at this point anyway. Best to just remove it early on in the process. I've seen worse, for sure. So I'm not trying to be too critical, I just know better. The kid has a lot to learn, but he's definitely a better smith than most of the folks bashing him in the comments.

@bl4cksp1d3r

4 ай бұрын

These are the kind of comments I like to read here! especially since so many people seem to miss the purpose of the video or assume that Theo thinks he's a master blacksmith or something. He is like everyone in the HTME crew someone interested in learning by doing, just like many of us viewers are :D

@sasssquatch1467

4 ай бұрын

@@bl4cksp1d3r if I couldn't recognize a newer smith, or if he'd tried to come off as a "master blacksmith" (which I don't believe actually exists), I'd have been a lot more critical lol. But at the end of the day, the dude made a sword from a scythe blade, which is a lot more than most critics can say. He also did it without using any power tools, from what I saw. Most blade smiths these days just buy good steel blanks and cut/grind the blade to shape. So giving credit where credit is due, all things considered, he accomplished his goal.

@theomelchior2739

4 ай бұрын

I appreciate the tipes, yeah the heat treatment was god offal (but our normal quench tank was frozen solid) it was -8 when we were filming

@sasssquatch1467

4 ай бұрын

@@theomelchior2739 yeah, that's definitely a downside to being a blacksmith in the North. My first half hour in the shop is spent just warming up my anvil and thawing my slack tub. For what it's worth, you got the job done.. and as I said before, that's a lot more than most of the critics can say. Keep at it, brother.

@DH-xw6jp

4 ай бұрын

​@@sasssquatch1467do you truly believe master smiths do not exist?

The Bible in several places talk about beating swords into plows and fishhooks for when peace is coming and beating plows and fishhooks into swords for when war is coming.

Why didn't you fold and forge weld into a central bar, and then draw it out to the shape and thickness you wanted? The scythe spine has the bulk of the steel, aside from the tang. Makes sense to bring it to a common center first.

@TheFriendOfLucifer

3 ай бұрын

You would, if you had time and the skill to do so. When have neither time nor skill (e.g. if you're about to face an invasion) you're gonna have to make compromises. Also forge-welding is pretty difficult even today.

i think i would personally have folded the steel to get more of a even sword stock to starat off with.

Have you tried turning a "bark spud" Into a spear, and back into a bark spud. It just seems the most logical tool to turn into a weapon and back to its intended purpose.

i personally belive you may have been better off creating a single edged sword and creating something more akin to a katana/scimitar perhaps somewhere imbetween where you focus most of your bending towards the tip where cracks and splits would be less impactfull on the whole body of the blade whilst still getting that curved blade to aid in slicing

@camer5371

4 ай бұрын

This would also aid in warping and mean a much sturdier blade overall

@DH-xw6jp

4 ай бұрын

Or... A falx. Which is a sword with a forward curved scythe like blade. It would have been as simple as straightening the tang and putting a handle on it.

The sword looks like the grey items you get dropped in mmos from low level mobs.

i mean in my country we used to use scythes as swords or as spear

my first thought from this title is swords to plowshares