David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

  • http://twitter.com/digitalArtform Joseph Francis

    They had a shop tour and activities (like belly dancing) there a little while back. Don’t know if it’s a regular thing, but it was pretty neat.

    My favorite creation of theirs:
    http://www.swordandstone.com/armour/armourimages/metalshoes.jpg

    • http://www.lightning-rose.com/ LightningRose

       Those shoes…

      *swoon* *thud*

  • JoeKickass

    Is cutting the pattern out of a sheet of steel a modern convenience? It seems to me traditional sword makers would not have done it that way, rather they would have pounded it out from a raw slug.

    • nowimnothing

      I agree, but he probably has to crank out a dozen or so identical copies so it doesn’t really bug me. It is a prop that has to withstand some abuse, but nothing like a real sword. I am sure it does not have much of an edge either.

      You can watch some of Niels Provos’s videos if you want the feel for making real items: http://youtu.be/4fgXGs07W0U

    • fuzzyfuzzyfungus

      I suspect that traditional sword makers with access to sheets of contemporary-quality steel, along with cutting tools suitable to the task, would have swooned for joy and then cut the pattern out of a sheet of steel…

      • http://twitter.com/incarnedine_v Dan Hibiki

         Yeah that would have probably taken an army of apprentices to do back in the day.

    • ryuthrowsstuff

      You’d be surprised. Archaeological evidence points to both options. Mass production of sword blades dates back to pre-Roman times, where you’d have large numbers of blade blanks or billets made in steel/iron manufacturing centers. These would then be sold, traded, transported etc to craftsmen else where or finished on site. A blade blank wasn’t much different than the bar steal this guy is using and would be ground into shape before being mounted and sharpened (often by a 3rd craftsmen elsewhere). A billet would have to be hammered into shape. Like wise a craftsman could make his own steel and move forward from there. Doesn’t seem to have been much difference in quality between the two approaches, since final quality was very much a factor of initial steel quality and final heat treating. So basically both were an option pretty far into the past.

      • ryuthrowsstuff

        Forgot to point out that in either case beating/working the steel was technically necessary to make steel (or steel with the right properties). But with pre-made steel that work was just being done before hand when the steel was made, rather than as the sword was formed. Like wise modern tool steels will have all that taken care of.

    • Rich Keller

      They’ve been making swords from blanks of steel and grinding them to shape on (water powered) wheels at least since the fifteenth century.

  • http://www.facebook.com/scott.m.berry.9 Scott Maurice Berry

    Just for the record, that ain’t forging. that’s machine-shopping. The only bit of ‘forging’ in this (still very cool) vid is the hilt

    • fuzzyfuzzyfungus

      Conveniently, if you claim that you did forge it; but didn’t, it is in fact a forgery!

  • CSBD

    Lets complain that none of it is real

  • legsmalone

    This is the same as the outrage that happened when some folks decided to sell horse as beef. It’s not forging, it’s machining. Stock removal, while it is a convenient way to make blades, is nothing compared to actual smithing.

    • http://twitter.com/incarnedine_v Dan Hibiki

       Being technically wrong is the worst kind of wrong.

  • http://twitter.com/sirkowski Sirkowski

    Posting comments with a computer on the Internet is not really commenting.

  • Rich Keller

    Okay, he lost me at “blood groove”. I’ll stick to buying my swords from Chris Poor.

    • http://tenpou.myid.net/ tenpou

      I did a double-take at this point, as well. Like, not this shit again, blood groove? And he calls himself “blacksmith”.

  • http://twitter.com/Malarky67 Stephen Henderson

    OK he is making a prop – I’m not going to knock him for that. 

    If you want to see a proper sword (and a meditation on ritual as the forerunner of science) then this clip from the Ascent of Man is the business.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8C3Nc_AOUs

    NB this guy cant just plunge it all back in the furnace if it comes out of the water bent.