Sting 2

After some thinking about how to approach this, today I forged a point on the wrought iron core, and then upset the first inch and a half of the edge bars to develop a bit more mass at the tip, forged them down to points, and roughed in the curve to match the core.

I then hot fit them to the core, ground the mating surfaces clean, and wired them together. Finally, I forge welded the whole lot together. (Slideshow below.) This one fought me all the way, and while I think it's now solid, I won't know for sure until I forge in the profile and do some aggressive forging on the bias to flatten and taper it.

I also managed not to burn myself until literally the last second - putting down my tongs, I brushed the tip of the hot blade, which I'd set on the anvil after normalising, along my forearm and across an old scar...

Sting

Someone on the Bladesmith's forum posted a design based on Sting from the Rankin and Bass animated Hobbit film from the 70's, and I decided I wanted to take a run at something similar, so today I fired up the forge, and knocked down 11 inches of 3/4" square wrought iron into a flat bar, 5/16ths x 1 1/4" x 15", and forged out a couple of 5/16ths square silver steel edge bars from rounds.

stingdesign.jpeg

First time swinging a heavy hammer in about 3 months, and now I'm knackered, but it's a start. Shooting for a 14" leaf blade, with a wide shallow fuller. Blackened wrought guard and pommel, with copper accents, and a carved walnut or ash handle...

 

stingforge.jpeg