Rapier Hilt project

Here's one of my latest projects, this is the basic parts of a Rapier hilt (fancy fencing sword). I was going to do a complete build, but I forgot to grab the camera till this point. I'm planning on doing a 3 ring sweep hilt, but you never know what happen when your working. All the parts are 5160 and started life as a leaf spring, AKA, junk yard blacksmithing. The hilt will be fully heat treated and tempered when finished. What you see in the pictures are the guilllion (cross bar), the quillion block, and the finger rings. In the 2nd pic I've got the knuckle guard some what in position. This is the rough stage of the 1st part of the build. Once the guard is on, I'll need to finish prepping and finish sand the whole guard because once the next parts are added. It's near impossible to get to parts of the guard when completed. Each part that is added will be finished off before the next part is added.

Cliff

Nice. Lets see some more work.

Do you have your own blacksmith shop? If so, post up some pictures as well. I built and used a little foundry way back, it was a lot of fun. But the heat was a bit much.

I wouldn't call it a blacksmith shop, just a few toys for blade and hilt work. When I started doing hilts, I built a freon tank forge to handle the larger parts. I use fire bricks to build a forge to heat treat them. I use a ferrier anvil, an I-beam, and a railroad tye with a 3.5 and 4.5 lb. cross peen hammers. I've got a large ball peen I use as well. Most of the parts are formed over different size pipes I use. I'm rebuilding an air over hydraulic press which will make life a lot easier making the bar stock for the projects. But doing all the extra hammer work has been good for my training. I get more respect for the old masters that did the work with 1/2 the tools I use every time a hand pond out the bar stock.

As you guys can see, it's coming along. I did change things a bit from the original plan. The flat rings are something I've never tried before and figured out a way to try it. I think it turned out OK, the middle ring is a bit off. But for my 1st try at flat rings, I'm not complaining that much.

Very nice. Maybe some short videos of you in action so others and I could see some of the process. I would love to see how you do it.

I can get black pipe in about any side, maybe I will cut some up for a crude bender and have a go at some curves. The old fashion way.

Do you fab a metal handle? Or wood/leather?

It's hard enough to remember the still camera, let alone a video camera. LOL...

Here's how I did the finger rings, which is similar to any other curve part. Plasma cut a length leaf spring about 3/8 to 1/2" wide. Work that down to a 1/4 square stock. Heat a length of the stock about 6". I have a piece of 1.5 black iron pipe (about 2" OD) I lock in a vise. I use a pair of pliers to hold the hot stock to the top of the pipe with about 1" overlapping. Grab the other end with some tonges and wrap the stock half way around the pipe. The stock is as long as I can get it for leverage. The stock must be cherry red or a little hotter to be worked that easily. I use iron pipe and tubing ranging from 1 1/8" to 6.25". The horn of the anvil help to fine tune the curves to fit whats needed.

I tig weld all the parts together. Welding those small parts can be a real pain, not just getting the torch in place after it's half built. I do wood handles and metal pommels. I use a poor man lathe for the pommels. Drill and tap the end and a cut off bolt in there then put it in the drill press. With a 4.5" angle grinder I shape then to size. Finish them with files and sand paper.

The hilt will be used for actual fighting. I've been playing with swords for decades. It will become a loaner sword, so people can check out fencing without dropping $500+ on gear to try it out.

Here's another tease. I did this blade for my seamstress. It sitting on my fighting doublet that she made for me.

Here's the latest update on the project. I've finished the back half of the hilt. Now come a zhit load of sanding. The handle has been started, I'm using Bloodwood (I love exotic woods) which should look good with the hilt black. Not sure if I'll do a black forge treatment or a poorman's power coating.

If anybody is interested, there is a web page on building hilts. I found it after I had built my 3rd hilt. It's very close to how I build mine, but he using a propane torch and I use a forge.

It seems that web page is gone. But there's a page on building SCA hilts, that's not as through, but will give you the basic idea of what you need to do. I tried to find the page and found this thread in the search engine. If your not doing a fighting hilt. There's enough information here to do a wall hanger.

The handle is dam near done. I just need to do 2 more sanding passes before clear coating it. I started to play around with the pommel (end cap and counter balance) My heaviest test weight was a bit light, so I had a good idea of how heavy I need to make 1. Last night I set up the poorman's lathe. From start to finish was 2.5 to 3 hours. In the 2nd picture, you can see what I started with and how it turned out. That's cutting it, tapping it, shaping and sanding. I was test fitting the pommel to the hilt to make sure it fit right. It's also the 1st time I used my 2" Roloc on the drill press. That's a great little tool. This pommel is a bit heavier then I thought I'd need, but it works, so I'm leaving it alone.

Looks like the project is moving along very nicely.

It's almost time to put this 1 to bed. We had a strange yellow ball in the sky today instead of the liquid type of sunshine. So I got some shots outside instead of in the dungeon. The hilt has been heat treated and tempered. And I went with the poorman's power coating. I've got the handle clear coated. Still need to do some more work on the pommel and then finish it. I tried to get a good shot of the bloodwood, but it wasn't cooperating. Trust me it looks better then the picture shows.

Don't say this word much, but that is "sweet".

Handle looks nice, lots of sanding I bet.

Work of art, nice to see something hand made like that over the stamped out things today.

About what does is weigh? Would be nice to see a shot of the blade too. And this was from a leaf-spring? Nice.

Well it's DONE! Or at least for now. I'll figure out some reason to screw with it in the future. Finished the pommel last night and polished it this morning. Since that strange yellow ball was out this morning I got the last pictures taken.

Thanks for the complements, yea it started from a leaf spring. Good free metal and I get more practice with the hammer forming the stock. Making 1/4" square stock sound easy, but it's not that easy doing it by hammer without a form. But it helps to develop the touch with the hammer need to work these smaller parts.

Not to sure about the weight, but it's lighter then the standard hilts. By using a carbon steel, you can make the parts thinner and still be stronger then mild steel. Plus being a fencer I have a good feel for what the balance should be for a given blade/hilt combination. Most of that is the pommel. Which is why I like to make each one for that sword. It's all a tread off. A sword needs to be light to fight with all day, but heavy enough to guard the hand and handle the impact of the sparring.

In the last photo you'll see my personal rapier, I call it a broken 2 ring sweep hilt. It's my own design and that's the hilt that earned me my doctorate in hilt smithing. I spent a lot of time getting the symmetries of the hilt close and I was figuring out a weight balance of blade and hilt. I'm redoing the black forge finish on the hilt and might do a new handle out of Leopard wood.

This is what I call anger management. Beating on hot steel to relieve stress. Now make all the piece fit is more like practicing my French. I come up with many new way to use the F word well making things fit.

These last shots are for support. The new hilt still has the factor tip cover, which I need to add a sparring tip. Plus I added the 1st hilt I ever did and my personal hilt. That's kind of the span of things. The 1st one is a 3 ring celtic knot made out of stainless steel. It looks cool, but it's pucked up. The balance is really bad. I tried everything I knew at the time to fix it, but I still need to learn a lot more.

I'm working on a spanish style cup hilt right now and will be starting a helmet after I'm done with that. I've also got a side project of make a scottish style basket for a rattan sword. That's for when I go put on armor and beat on my friends. Then I'm sure the guys and gals in the group will come up with more things for me to fix as time goes on.

Cliff

I thought I throw out a picture of the Cup hilt. It's my 1st try at a cup hilt, patterned after some of the early cup hilt designs. The handle is Zebra wood and I thought I do it in black since everything else is in metal or chrome.