Carving a sword

[TheFatBaron]

No, seriously. I train in aikido, and we use wooden weapons as part of our paired practice. I found a local hardwood dealer that has some potentially interesting stock and since I'm done with most of my big projects, I figured I'd take up some hand carving (most of what I've done has been rough framing, and I don't have room for a ton of equipment in my basement).

Specifically, I'd be making something like this short sword.

I have two questions:

First, I'm making this out of a 1x2" piece of wood, with the curve carved into it and rounded off by hand. It seems like a nice, sharp planer would be a good choice for creating the main curves on the front and back edges. Staying within the realm of hand tools, is there some other tool I may want to look at?

Second... how would you clamp this? I've got a couple available work surfaces, but I was planning on leaving some extra stock on the hilt, clamping it down tight in my bench vise, and then letting the front rest on a board that's clamped to my workbench. Is there a simpler, more stable method for clamping down long, curved pieces like this?

Thanks.

[dwacker]

Im not a hand tool guy but I'd use a spoke shave for the whole thing.

Don

[Onboard]

Just a guess, but it looks like a good candidate for a shaving horse, maybe a draw knife to rough in the shape, but as Don said, a spoke shave may be all you need.

I noticed in the “Wood” section at the bottom of the page, some nice detail pictures. Are you using Hickory? Sounds like their making a distinction regarding “impact grade hickory” or “Appalachian hickory”, and other species of hickory. Not sure what that’s about. It also looks like they’ve used a round stick of hickory and put a shallow bend in the stick (steam bending?). Your dimension of 1 x 2 may be a little small. If the picture of the sword matches the description below, the handle end would be somewhere between 1.5” & 2” in diameter. Just some thoughts that may or may not be correct.

[TheFatBaron]

Just a guess, but it looks like a good candidate for a shaving horse, maybe a draw knife to rough in the shape, but as Don said, a spoke shave may be all you need.

I noticed in the “Wood” section at the bottom of the page, some nice detail pictures. Are you using Hickory? Sounds like their making a distinction regarding “impact grade hickory” or “Appalachian hickory”, and other species of hickory. Not sure what that’s about. It also looks like they’ve used a round stick of hickory and put a shallow bend in the stick (steam bending?). Your dimension of 1 x 2 may be a little small. If the picture of the sword matches the description below, the handle end would be somewhere between 1.5” & 2” in diameter. Just some thoughts that may or may not be correct.

Thanks guys -

The shaving horse and spoke shave may be exactly what I'm looking for.

As far as the wood, I did, in fact, find the distinction. Apparently, impact hickory is specifically Appalachian hickory which is cut into thicker slabs, dried slowly, and then milled down. There's also the issue of grain direction (it should run parallel to the "cutting" edge) - but that's easy enough for me to solve when picking up the wood. My dealer is trying to find out the details on the hickory, but they also have jatoba and eucalyptus, both of which are acceptable for what I need. I may pick up a couple pieces of hickory or hard maple, just to have some practice wood.

Also, they do not steam bend - it (and most other good training weapons) have the curves carved/cut/milled. I've seen various reasons not to bend the wood itself (it'll weaken the wood under impact, it's not tradition, it'll put hair on your palms and make your ancestors roll over in their graves, etc) - but I figure if I'm carving this, I might as well really carve it.

And I do own their full size sword, which is approximately .75 x 1.5", at the thickest point of the handle. Tracing the image in an illustration program and scaling it up to 26" puts it, from the farthest forward point to the farthest backward point, at 1.75". I think the curve is throwing us off - it certainly appears thicker, but I trust math more than I trust my eyes. Thanks for the help, and encouraging me to doublecheck my math.

[Mark Reuten]

Rather than get distracted with a shaving horse project, I would suggest you leave about 12" of extra square section at the hilt end which you can clamp to a bench or even better a riser block on a bench. I carve a lot of paddles and this sort of the method I use. The spoke shave is the tool of choice for sure. This project is a good choice for working green wood as you can look for some stock with a natural sweep and start with a little hatchet work.

[TheFatBaron]

A quick update: I went a little nuts over my break between Christmas and New Years and was able to finish off 3 tantos (knives) and a shoto (short sword). Attached are pics. The wood is Eucalyptus. Forming was from a combination of a hand plane and a SurForm, with a scraper plane and spokeshave for the back curve, and a chisel for some details. The finish is Minwax Tung Oil Finish (note: I am aware the that it's nowhere close to pure Tung Oil - but it's not a bad finish for things like this).

Anyway, thanks for the help and suggestion. To Mark - I used my bench clamp at the back (leaving an extra 8" or so as Mark ended up suggesting) and a block of 4x4 under the front end to keep from gouging my workbench. I may still build a shaving horse at some point in the future, but for now, the process I used (which you suggested) works just as well.