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The first production run does NOT have it. Both ways are screen accurate, but was decided not to have it on this version. A lot of collectors wanted it though, so it may be added for future runs. It's just gold paint, so anyone can add it if they want to.

1 - Possibly, but I would not suggest it. It is not designed to be a functional sword. 2 - I think it is, but only you can decide that. JN

I agree, but that's why it's on the back. It's a requirement of the license, and also helps protect against knockoffs.

I don't think you become a sword though

Possibly, but we do not have one yet and we had very little to do with the development.

The first production run does NOT have the gold dot - JN

@@Raeworks-gv5rmThanks for answer

@@Raeworks-gv5rmby first production run do you mean the 600 or so that’s been released already? Does that mean the batch slated to come out later this summer will have it?

@@biojc28 Possibly. Both ways are screen accurate, but was decided not to have it on this version. A lot of collectors wanted it though, so it may be added for future runs. It's just gold paint, so anyone can add it if they want to.

There is care sheet included with he sword. Coating the blade with oil is just to prevent oxidization of the carbon steel. If the sword is wiped down after handling, lightly coating the steel with oil a few times a year is sufficient, but how often really depends on how much the sword is handled and the humidity. The steel can also be coated with wax protectant if you do not want to oil it periodically. Metal Glo is a metal cleaner/polishing paste. Flitz and Autosol are similar products. If you handle the sword with sweaty hands or leave fingerprints on the steel for a long time and those places oxidize or tarnish, those products are what you use to remove the tarnish - JN

@@Raeworks-gv5rm Thanks, this is very helpful! And could you also let me know if it's acceptable to keep the sword in the scabbard? Or would that just make it more likely to rust?

@@slu9622 It will not be any different in or out of the scabbard - JN

@@Raeworks-gv5rm can you explain what to do with the sword? could you awnser some questions ;D 1) when I first get it, should I remove the oil with a cloth or with cloth+ metalglo 2) right after that, should I oil it? 3) when I use metalglo to clean the blade, do I always need to oil it again right after? 4) what to do with stainless steel blades?

@@savitarr1162 1) You can wipe the ould off with a cloth. Metal Glo is not for removing oil. It's metal cleaner/polishing paste. If there are any stains/marks from the plastic wrap during shipping, Metal Glo will remove that easily. If you handle the sword with sweaty hands or leave fingerprints on the steel for a long time and those places oxidize or tarnish, Mtal Glo (or Flitz or Autosol) is good for removing the tarnish. 2) That's up to you. If you will be touching the steel a lot and not wiping fingerprints off after, then a light coat of oil is a good idea. If you keep the steel clean and polished, and the sword in in a humidity controlled room, you may not want to oil it at all. 3) Again, that's up to you. 4) Are you asking how to care for stainless steel blades or regular LOTR swords? If so, you really don't need to do anything. Just wipe them down periodically or wipe dust off. Stainless requires almost no care in an air conditioned environment. -JN

It will vary from scabbard to scabbard. It has been in production for around 20 years and the thickness specs have changed over time. Some may fit loosely, some tight. I think UC's more recent scabbards were made to fit looser than earlier production because there were some issues with scabbards fitting too tight and jamming. Some people mod them by gluing a thin piece of felt to the wood core just inside the blade hole - JN

@@Raeworks-gv5rm Thank you!

why would you hide the blade quality? :p you pay extra for the carbon steel just to hide it, then just get the normal one

​@@savitarr1162 Agreed, I'd never be hiding that beauty in the scabbard. Have it pride of place on the wall.

There are sword care instructions on the back of the wall display instruction sheet. Autosol, Metal Glo, and Flitz are metall cleaner/polishers. Those can be used to clean up oxidization or tarnish as needed. How often depends on how often tarnish forms, but here in the shop we do this with some carbon steel swords once or twice a year. If the swords are handled a lot and finger prints are not cleaned off regularly, you may want to do it more often. Ren wax is a preservation wax. If you clean all of the oil off and apply it, it helps prevent oxidization and tarnish. applying once or twice a year is usually sufficient for display swords. JN

So far the BF line is only going to be swords made in India with lost wax cast brass hilt components. Those are easy to cast and get a fairly accurate shapes close to the movie props. A BF Isildur sword is also in the works, but nothing with a steel cross guard and pommel at this point. That's a completely different process, and will result in much less accurate, and more simplified, hilt part shapes than the props. We are not sure collectors will have much interest in less accurate replicas, functional or not.

It had already been leaked that a blue Sting is in the works for the MC line, but we cannot comment on anything past that. I would love to see a better looking Glamdring get made though.

A blue sting would be insane I always dreamed that UC would make one

For the hollow grinds, the huge machine grinder UC uses for this long blade has a max limit on the grind length. Past that, it has to be stopped manually, which results in all four grinds having a large tolerance on where they stop. So one grind could be 1/8 to 3/16" longer than the other on the same side, which is not acceptable. Even with that, now that they have done one run, they are testing to see if there is a way to control the tolerance better and make them longer on the next run. Probably nothing will change, but I always push them try. The wrap was a simulated wet wrap look, not a real wet wrap. What was tested were a few ways to shrink the wrap tighter after it was applied, but those did not really work, and the new stitched wrap on the MC ended up looking tighter than the UC1380 anyway. The BF Herugrim is made in India, and they have tested doing real wet wraps in that factory, but Herugrim won't have it. UC just got to the point of getting some wet wrapped leather grips tested on a few Honshu swords that are in the works there now. It's very expensive, but if they can pull it off in production, it may get used on some future BF swords. For the gold dot, no idea. Collectors used to complain that UC got it wrong on the UC1380 because most of the prop images out there do not have it, and the MSSC did not have it, so maybe it was decided to drop it at some point. It was a 4+ year project, so lots of things changed over that time. There was a discussion at UC a few years ago about keeping it or dropping it, since either way is technically correct, but I thought it was being kept.

@@Raeworks-gv5rm Thank you so much for your detailed reply! It is rare, that we fans have the chance to interact so directly and in such detail with the people involved with the design/production of the collectibles we buy. So, you mean that even if the factory could come up with a way to do the extended hollow grinds, this replica probably wouldn't be changed in any way now that it is out on the market (which would be totally understandable)? In this case, an expensive customization or the MSSC are probably the only two ways for collectors who want that extra accuracy. - The probability of a further improved (BF) Anduril is probably very very slim, right?

@@tirmo8110 No, I mean the chances of the factory being able to control the longer grind lengths successfully are slim, but if they can, they will. Any time an improvement can be made - in construction, finishing, packaging, or whatever - they will try and do it.

@@Raeworks-gv5rm Okay, thank you for the clarification. I'll keep my hopes still but it's a beautiful replica either way and customization will always be an option.

The blade is functional, but the tang and hilt construction are not. The diagram at the beginning was the original wish list of ideas, most of which never happened. The tang and hilt revisions were tested, but it did not hold up to extreme abuse so it was abandoned. At that point the focus switched to just trying it make it look as accurate as possible.

Thats a shame. So it has a typical rat tail tang? Sounds like it'd be pretty fragile.

@@Judah_Benjamin They all have a rat tail welded to the tang, and none of the UC LOTR replicas are functional. Even the first test for this one with the longer pinned tang had a welded rat tail on the end. As I said in the video, the 2020 test with that tang did not hold up. I could not break it, but the pommel definitely loosened, so that whole idea was scrapped early on.

@@Raeworks-gv5rm Hi Kit. Could you please share compared to the first drawing (the wish list), how much shorter the original tang ended up being, and how much longer the rat tail was? Did the tang extend into the pommel? Thanks.

​@@rapture2028 I'll double check with Kit, but I'm pretty sure the drawing you see at the 20 second mark in this video is what that functional "battle forged" version tested in 2020 was based on. The tang was longer, not shorter, and extended into the pommel. The welded rat tail and long cast metal nut were just to have a long structure for the steel pommel to be attached to. None of that worked though, so the product was cancelled -JN

Get a tube of Metal Glo, Flitz, or Autosol metal polish. From what I have heard, all of the production have splotchy marks on the steel from the high heat in the shipping container baking the plastic wrapping against the metal. Very hard to wipe off, but it polishes off easily with any of those products.

@@Raeworks-gv5rm Metal Glo worked fantastic! The sword is so beautiful in person. You guys truly blew it out of the park! I’m over the moon happy with it 😄😄 thank you again!

#1-4 in that photo are all plating effects, with a tumble polish added. I think #1 was silver plating, and the rest were different types of nickel plating. There was no paint weathering in any of those images though. Muratic acid was used to make the dark tarnish in those last 4 or 5 photos. Yes, the Shards on the shield is still being considered for the MC. If it happens, it will have a scaled down shield like that.

Please make that shards MC happen​@@Raeworks-gv5rm!

@@tylermclim7806 Yes, I agree. It would be a must have for me.

Are you talking about lordoftheringswords.com?

No, I sold the prop many years ago. The molding process it went through when the original helm was developed stripped a lot of the paint off and discolored what remained. That ruined it for me, so I had no interest in keeping it after that. I still had all the measurements and and the shell and profile patterns I made from it, as well as all the original paint swatches, so I did not need the prop.

I have not seen any like that. If you have not cleaned it up already, send a few photos to nasnandos @ kitrae.net (take the spaces out) and I'll pass them along to UC, just so they are aware of it. You could always return it, but I know these are back ordered out the wazoo.

So the new one is even smaller?

You didn't return it? The ones that were sent back and finished have been in stock for several months now.

There is not more I could do at the moment, but I'll definitely do videos for the Boromir dagger, Aeglos, and Lothlorien bow when the time comes. Unless one of those comes out very bad in production for some reason. Then I won't waste my time.

14" x 29 1/4" are the assembled display dimensions. The depth with the sword is around 2 1/2"

Thank you that helps immensely

The old UC tried it once, and collectors did not seem to care. I don't think the current UC has much interest, but I don't think collectors have really asked them for it either.

@@Raeworks-gv5rm thanks Kit! That’s so bizarre to me. Some of the most valuable Star Wars collectables are limited edition ones that came with signatures. I would LOVE a “signature issue” MC Blue Sting with a plaque signed by Elijah. I guess I’ll just have to get a custom one made and get him to sign it at a convention or something. Really appreciate all you’ve done for the LOTR collector community, Kit!

Um, thats crazy. what number did you get?

@@bradyramirez 520. Found it kinda interesting that they didn't have an "out of xxxx" to say how many they're making. If I am able to get it replaced, I'm guessing I'll have to wait until the end of the year.

@@SirSethery Who did you order with.

@@bradyramirez Secret Compass

@@SirSethery These aren't limited to a set amount, just serialized and numbered.

All the differences are shown in the video.

Yes. The mounting hole on the back of the display are on the outer edges so there is room to slip the banner behind. Most collectors I have talked to don't want to cover the banner up though, but it was always intended to be displayed that way. That's going to be standard for all the swords in the new MC line.

Those streaks happen in high heat during shipping. In high heat the plastic reacts to the oil and out gasses marks on the blade and hilt parts. You just needs a micro polish like Metal Glo or Flits to remove it. The sword I opened in this video also had those heat streaks. It only too about 20 minutes with Metal Glo and microfiber cloth to clean it up like you see in the video. It comes off easily, but I recommend using those to polish the sword anyway, even if it does not have the heat streaks. You can get a nicer polish than the factory finish in minutes. I would not use nail polish remover to remove oil. That's basically acetone, but I have never heard of acetone tarnishing the metal like that. I'll have to try it, as the actual hero props did have a more tarnished look on the hilt. EDIT - tried it. It did nothing.

@@Raeworks-gv5rm sounds good, I ordered some metal glo last night. And I will get some very fine microfiber cloth. I will keep you updated on how it works. If you would like I could send you a picture. It just looks very slightly tarnished. I don’t mind, but I would like it to be back to mirror polish.

@@karatekid91792 Oh, I know what it looks like. Both production swords I opened were like that. It something I have see since the mid 1990s on swords, especially when they ship in the Summer heat.

The cross guard and pommel shapes are identical to the standard version. The only difference is the standard is nickel plated and the MC is polished metal. As far as functional, these are display collectibles, not functional swords. The blade is hardened spring steel, and will cut if you put an edge on it, but the hilt will not hold up to a severe beating. The tang and pommel structure are einforced differently that the standard version, as MC version idea started out as a way to make a fully functional Anduril. I tested a prototype about three years ago that held up great to normal cutting and some wood chopping abuse, but I was not trying to break it. I'm sure the pommel would have broken off had I run it through the typical type of tests I do for functional swords.

th-cam.com/video/HB-ckpYsKQw/w-d-xo.htmlsi=v5hxG7locwRxBJjJ

It is actually a prototype that has gold fill on one side and no fill on the other. Some of the early UC1380 standard production did have gold in the runes like the limited edition, but later production just had gold in the dot in the cross guard. The first run of the MC edition has no gold in either place.

I have had a youtube channel for about 16 years. This is a side channel I just made to post some sword/knife specific content. The MC Anduril came out even better than I hoped. There is one small detail wrong - the pommel should not have black paint in the runes - but otherwise, it's a beautiful replica.

@@kitraestudio Well, surprised with something LOTR related I s'pose. But nice. If you're happy with it the collector's community will be ecstatic I'm sure. Well done on your part as well.

​@@kitraestudio any advice for getting rid of the black paint in the crossguard runes?

@@RevAnakin I have not tried removing it. I am going to fill it with a dark gray, as it was supposed to have. Hopefully UC's next run will have that improvement.

@@Raeworks-gv5rm I know the MSSC has no paint or resin in the letters. It is just raw engraving. Would be cheaper for them to just engrave and don't put anything in there right?