+scholagladiatoria Nice work. Firstly, 3-point bending is pretty much what is used in industry to make point bends or arcs (using rollers), so it's little wonder that it worked :-) Secondly, you may find it interesting to watch some elderly masters at work at a gun manufacturer. Every barrel is straightened by hand after machining, of course they use more professional tools, but the principle remains the same.
This gave me the same warm feeling as a Bob Ross painting episode. The video had a great dramaturgic composition like the way he paints. At first you go "no Bob/Matt what are you doing? You're mental. Your're going to ruin this whole endeavor!" And then before i know it they have dadgummit done it again and *saved* art. Good video!
So basically, straightening a sword is like stringing a guitar. No matter how many times I do it, I always have a nagging feeling in the back of my head that the string will snap, and whip into my face. Luckily, the one time a string did snap, my hand was over it, so it didn't have a chance to stab my face.
+Vykk Draygo It's even worse with violins. During the first part you can hold it well away and aimed in a different direction, but when it comes to actually tuning it for the first time things are a bit scary.
This was a great video, I'd love to see more videos of this type in the future, showing how to care for/clean/repair antique swords. It would probably be a nice addition to the channel, providing more variety.
Hi Matt! I am an amateur blade-smith and was making a knife that developed a distinct bow in as I was making it. Dimensions: ~ 33cm L x 4.5cm W x 4.5mm in thickness. I saw this video and used your technique, replacing the dowels with some large nails (about 2.8 cm diameter) and your work bench with my largest vice. I WORKED SPLENDIDLY! Thank you very much for this video! I was at a bit of a loss and this saved my project! Best regards, Vic Casados
Late to the party on this one but a method for accurately finding the apex of a bend is to place the piece onto a flat and level surface so the bend contacts the level surface at two points with the bend uppermost. You can then take a ruler and measure along the piece from the level surface. The longest measurement is the apex of your bend.
It's astonishing how tense I felt watching this. Your title and some of the dialog (I've never actually broken a sword using this technique...) somehow makes it seem inevitable disaster is going to strike.
I did the same thing with a Del Tin 5143 that I once purchased. It had a nice set from mail transit. A wood workers vice with 3 small wood blocks straightened out the sword in a minute. I taped the blocks to the sides of the vice to keep them in place.
Very interesting, and something we don't get to see every day! Will you be doing a follow up video on cleaning the blade? It would be neat to see all the stages of restoration between "before" and "after".
From a materials perspective, you are correct, it won't make any difference if you leave it over night - steel will flex a certain amount before it begins to actually permanently deform so, once you've taken it past it's elastic limit, the bend is set instantly and permanently. The elastic flex will be released so you need to over-bend to actually straighten it, but time won't change anything.
Hey, I bend metal professionally and making a setup with three rollers is probably one of the cheapest and most efficient ways to get a job like that done. Just have to set the distance correctly and move it through the rollers back and forth a couple of times, very similar to what you were doing around the 17:00 minute mark. If it helps to check the flatness, you could use a pane of glass in a similar manner to a surface plate to see if any light passes under it.
I know this video is a bit old, but I didn't see any comments explaining your observations so I thought I'd have a go. As you observe in this video, its much easier to break a blade by simply lifting with the hilt while holding the blade flat against the ground than it is to break the blade using the clamp system. Your observation is correct for the same reason its easier to break a long stick than a short stick. Torque. When you bend a sword using your foot and hand, what you have effectively done is given yourself a 1-2 foot long lever to lift on, resulting in a very large torque on the blade. When you use the clamp, the points at which you apply pressure are so much closer together and concentrated that, even though force is much higher than what you are capable of applying by hand, the torque imparted on the blade is much much lower, meaning you are very unlikely to snap the blade.
Nice improvised rig. Good initial point too. At university, we also used to scrap foils which became rather bent and beaten up, precisely because of the danger of snapping and injuring our teammates. Stay safe.
Great video Matt. I'd always been under the impression that you had to heat a sword in order to get it back into shape etc. Nice to be proved wrong. Hope you get a new workbench for your birthday.
I don't know how that type of steel behaves when it breaks but some types have a tendency to split into three or more pieces when under strain. Two large at the ends and smaller shards being ejected from the center at high speed. A full face mask would be highly recommended if that were to ever happen.
Can you do a video showing the complete process of cleaning/ lightly restoring an antique sword (particularly talwars and replacing eroded pitch glue) to an appropriate level for display or dry handling?
I used my bathroom door jam to correct a slightly bent model 1860 Light Cavalry sabre. Viola - worked like a charm. I just took it slow, a little opposite pressure at a time...
Matt Have you ever tried to use a modified English wheel to straighten a blade. Typically used to put curves into fenders by the use of dies and variable pressures it appears to me using a modifies device with two similar wheels might allow you to straighten with a bit more precision. All that extra bending leads to metal fatigue. What about some applied heat and re-tempering? That whole apparatus reminded me of a floating leaf spring setup. Considering the distances involved that's a lot of leveraged force.
TY for such an informative video, I would've assumed wrongly that applieing heat would've been the correct method. I was told that might mess w/its temper & weakened it even if it straightened it. Their are a lot of sword owners w/similar problems & this technique may fix the majority of them
Is there a more "professional" way to do this? In case someone owns a more valuable/unique antique? Or are the collectors just left with "risk it or keep it bent" choice?
+zenek bembenek The only way to do it without any real risk of breaking is to anneal (soften) the blade, by heating to glowing red and letting cool slowly. This will remove the hardening and spring temper from the blade and leave it possibly to be bent easily by hand. It will no longer be a functional sword however.
No highly computerized machines to do it with less risk then? That sucks a bit ;) How was that done historically though, if you don't mind me asking? Were they just re-forging the whole thing? Cause I highly doubt most people just retired such pricey thing as a sword, even if a badly bent one...
+zenek bembenek Short answer: we don't know. Probably most people did something like what I did in this video, but in later periods it is likely they just bought a new sword if they couldn't straighten the one they had. We know that lots of 19th century officers bought new swords when their previous sword got damaged.
Thanks for the answer! I am actually more curious about earlier periods, XV - XVIII century, so it's a bummer there is lack of data on this subject. The method you used, bending the other way by foot/side of a table, you don't suppose it is useful for sabers and other curved blade, do you?
Interesting, similar to a technique for straightening wire. If you're going to do it a lot then make up some dogs to fit the dogholes in the bench. Also, the bench broke largely because of the uneven pressure being applied. Basically, the jaws were canted, use both lead screws to tighten evenly.
+kleinjahr Was thinking the very same thing. Or at least he could've used some string or bungee cord to tie down the two long pieces to make handling the whole assembly less awkward.
Thanks for covering bent out of place blades! ( Will take caution for potential blade failure. Have at least just under a dozen bent rapiers, foils and similar type blades with from sport fencing alone. )
Get well soon! And true, how long you leave the blade in makes little difference..and perhaps something like a heavy clothe or canvass on top incase the blade jumps up and to the side..Safety first..
hiya mr. Easton🤓 watching your video i couldnt stop thinking you should use longer pieces of wood. so that they would reach the flor and therebye support them selves. please excuse my english its a bit rusty 😅 cheers and keep on the good work.
Glad you didn't get hurt and, if it turns out you do get yourself a workbench for a present, I hope you'll do a product review so us laymen will know what you were looking for, what features you managed to get, and what parts were on your wishlist but didn't make it into the model you ended up settling for.
One small tip. while doing the hand straightening might want to hang a cloth or hand towl over the bend. Admittedly more awkward to work that way but if something goes wrong always better it affects fabric than flesh.
To find the center of the curve more precisely, I think you could suspend the sword so that the tip and forte are level with each other, then lower the blade to a horizontal surface. The point at which the blade touches the surface should be the center of the bend. (This assumes a simple bend rather than an S-curve, of course.)
You might be interested in learning about PDR (paintless dent removal) as used to repair cars. Although it takes a lot of skill, their results are excellent. One Technique they use while fixing a shiny surface is to use a card with black & white stripes. They look at the card through the reflection in the metal & it makes spotting the center of the dent easier.
Mmmmm, Sweaty Matt. Huzzah, I'm always the type to over compensate bend and then have to unbend my over corrections with metal poles or strips. Happy Birthday Matt!
Someone below was questioning if the work bench actually made it to Valhalla or not... Well if it didn't I would say that it made it to Sto-vo-kor at least. Kahless himself probably uses it to prop his feet up on while he feasts in the halls of the honored dead, while they sing songs loudly in Klingon... I hear them now: "Koi Keh-less pook load Koi pook beh poo Yech bow math bow je shuv wee...!!!" They keep singing... I can't keep up with them But your work bench holds and honored spot in their hall and will preform it's duties as best it can, and will do very well. =) Helping to bring about a lasting peace between our peoples, the federation and the Klingon people. What a great service a little work bench can provide!
I wonder if putting the 2 pieces of wood on the edge of a table and using a sturdy C-clamp on the middle point would be a little easier. Of course I don't know if that would be able to apply enough pressure, but setting it up would be a lot easier.
I know that a lot of people think that the early to mid 1800's three bar hilted sabers are boring and average, but I quite like them. In fact, it's probably my favorite guard design for a saber hilt... Speaking of 1800's sabers. What year is that? I'd say (using my very limited knowledge of sabers) that it was maybe 1820's... But I'm probably wrong.
+scholagladiatoria And I apparently still have a lot to learn... Do you have any recommendations on a good book (or two) about historical arms (and armor) that would be good for a beginner? Preferably something from the Napoleonic period to maybe WW1.
Users might want to put a towel or tarp over the sword while tightening the clamp to help prevent flying debris. Use small movements and check tension when the pressure isn't actively changing.
If you're using a similar setup in future, nail the dowels to strips of wood so they hold themselves on the vise jaws. A roller bender would probably work even better - more bending finesse over larger radii. Similar in action to the sliding motion you were using later. Maybe unnecessarily complicated for your purposes/frequency of use, though :) Happy birthday, btw.
Wouldn't even have to be nailed, just a cutout large enough so that it won't fall out without the tension would do it. And for this infrequent work I'd probably use the same pieces of wood and tie a bit of cord to it that holds some weight on the other end suspended above ground. If it's tied to the wood above the center of mass it should stay upright without external assistance.
Would it not be helpful to put a fencing mask or similar on when bending over a blade under tension? Seems it would be an extra measure of safety in case of breakages...
The reason why it doesnt matter if you straighten it for minutes or hours is the concept of thermal creep, whereby creep behaviour only occurs above about 0.4*melting temp (in Kelvin) which would be roughly 400°C for steel. Below that time has no influence on a bend.
In my experience this abrupt bend happens when you strongly cut something resisting, with the blade not perfectly aligned with the plane of the cut. The blade will get stuck, and the blade above the stop bents sideways in the direction of the tilt.
Consider drilling a hole in your two dowels and running a countersunk screw through them into the work bench. It'll hold them in place for setup and make that process much easier.
You know, if you do end up with another similar bench, you could find some 3in or 4in rounds of wood and drill out the centers for a dowel the same diameter as those holes on the bench. Then you could slot them into the bench like rollers when you need to straighten the blade and not have to worry so much about holding everything in place while you try to clamp it.
I could see some dealers knowing a sword was bent and not telling a buyer. so now that it's straight again is there anyway to tell that it was bent, and is it prone to bending again? thanks for the informative video.
+Ibpn Well, I have a sword that was very bent and I straightened it and have been using it for test cutting ever since, without a problem. So just because a sword has been bent and straightened once, does not mean that it will fail in use. It just increases the chance or failure slightly. And no, once a sword has been straightened, there is no realistic way that a person would be able to tell.
A side note. It's probably better to keep your straightening jig centered in the clamp and use *both* cranks to apply the pressure. Not only will that make them a fair bit easier to turn, it will keep the slide rails from jamming up. I suspect that as caused the bench's demise as much as age. Great video though! :)
Matt, I think the cold is going around EVERYWHERE. I'm sick too and so is everyone I know. ;o All the way from Chicago. I was gonna say, your best bet is to do some sort of clamp straightening on a table. My birthday is this week too! My friend from Southampton actually sent me a Scholagladiatoria shirt in the post for my birthday. :D
Matt Easton: Sword Rescue. Season 01 - Ep 01: 1821 Light Cavalry Sabre VS Matt Eason w/ Cold, featuring War Bench and Birthday Biceps. Coming to a Netflix near you (hopefully).
+scholagladiatoria Honestly though, great video. Hopefully I didn't totally butcher the model / year of the sword. I just did some quick searches on the fly before my morning university class.
I used to do blacksmithing as a hobby, so I had the question of why wouldn't you remove the handle and heat the blade to make bending easier (either with a forge or slowly with a torch.) It would need to be re tempered, but wouldn't that be a safer way since it would relax the stress on the blade? Or would that kind of repair damage it's value as an antique?
Well, it could still get damaged in the process (especially the re-temper) and would remove any sort of petina. I can only imagine it would damage its value as an antique, plus you'd need to find and pay a good smith. But if you planned on using it in battle, that'd probably be a good idea.
It went out with its boots on Which English sword of the 19th century would you recommend buying as a first antique sword purchase? I've seen some of the swords from the Nepalese cash that ima USA has and they've interested me, are those swords a rip off for some reason? Or are they a good deal? I'm looking for something that would go well with my Brown Bess, martini Henry and SMLE, idk if any one sword is a match for all those eras but if there is then that would be awesome.
Just some advice, if you're going to straighten blades, get a couple slabs of hard wood, heat the blade to a few hundred degrees F, and clamp the blade between them to normalize. it shouldn't damage the temper and the blade will straighten.
I wonder if the foot method is more prone to causing breakages just because of the bouncing. Kinda like when you stretch your body, bouncing (or 'ballistic stretching') is to be avoided.
My problem is I have a sword where about the last inch is bent and it's a manufacturing defect rather than damage. My current plan is to fix it to an aluminium straight edge and pound the bent tip with a plastic hammer. Any better ideas before I do it?
Just a question: why not using heat on the bent part? It would allow you to apply less pressure and thus less stress on the blade. The process therefore would be less risky for the blade, for you and for your workbench :)
+scholagladiatoria you could heat it to 300-350 degrees with out effecting temper, and steel is more malleable at that temp, but if you can do it with out it and don't have the equipment to do it right I'd do it your way, when I was young I tried forging a knife with no heat, failed, then I tried a zippo and actually was able to flatten out my round bar I was beating on, then I bought a propane torch and was like whoa baby it's a knife lol, the point of all that is that a zippo got it hot enough to start deforming and was way under 350 degrees. If you ever try to heat things up remember as long as it doesn't go past the point where it starts changing colors it's good, if you get it to blue/purple/red (all are over 500 degrees) it's ruined, straw is ok and yellow is questionable. Straw coloring happens around 350-375 yellow is like 400. Anyway if you have a big oven 300 degrees would make breaking a blade pretty much impossible with your method. Idk anyone with a 5 foot oven though lol.
+P226nut one of those huge contraptions in pizza places might be able to fit it. But it'd ruin the hilt most likely and if that is peened I wouldn't risk disassembly and would either leave it bent or try this method.
put a bucket or something under the bench to prop the two larger bits of wood on or tape the sticks and put the sticks on a sheet of cardboard to make a more evenly spaced press. just an idea been in the same bind before wood works better than metal pipe because it compresses
YOU BROKE AN ANTIQUE WORK BENCH!
congratulations.. you broke one antique to repair another :3
+Sokmund The King is dead! Long live the King!
I can't be the only one who was tense as hell through that entire process. When the bench broke, I nearly crapped myself.
+ShivaX51 Me too!
+scholagladiatoria Nice work.
Firstly, 3-point bending is pretty much what is used in industry to make point bends or arcs (using rollers), so it's little wonder that it worked :-)
Secondly, you may find it interesting to watch some elderly masters at work at a gun manufacturer. Every barrel is straightened by hand after machining, of course they use more professional tools, but the principle remains the same.
Watched it for the first time after having been spoiled by the top comment, and yeah. I was tense as hell.
I didn't realize that this video was actually going to be a gun show.
Well, that was a horror to witness. I was expecting a metalic snap any second there.
This gave me the same warm feeling as a Bob Ross painting episode. The video had a great dramaturgic composition like the way he paints. At first you go "no Bob/Matt what are you doing? You're mental. Your're going to ruin this whole endeavor!" And then before i know it they have dadgummit done it again and *saved* art. Good video!
The suspense was killing me.
Yea..unbending aspherical pommels are much more fun to watch..
"...and all those vikings will go "What's that workbench dong there?"." XD
So basically, straightening a sword is like stringing a guitar. No matter how many times I do it, I always have a nagging feeling in the back of my head that the string will snap, and whip into my face. Luckily, the one time a string did snap, my hand was over it, so it didn't have a chance to stab my face.
+Vykk Draygo It's even worse with violins. During the first part you can hold it well away and aimed in a different direction, but when it comes to actually tuning it for the first time things are a bit scary.
jared tafoya I never thought about that. Gotta be nerveracking. xD
"The blade tries to wrap around the target and goes fplump."
- Matt Easton 2015
Hi Matt! Great work! Personally, I think the cleaning up bit would also make a nice video. I'm hoping to see one :)
+Maratus volans Actually, it would be nice to see a "professional" restoration vid, wouldn't it?
This was a great video, I'd love to see more videos of this type in the future, showing how to care for/clean/repair antique swords. It would probably be a nice addition to the channel, providing more variety.
Hi Matt!
I am an amateur blade-smith and was making a knife that developed a distinct bow in as I was making it.
Dimensions: ~ 33cm L x 4.5cm W x 4.5mm in thickness.
I saw this video and used your technique, replacing the dowels with some large nails (about 2.8 cm diameter) and your work bench with my largest vice.
I WORKED SPLENDIDLY!
Thank you very much for this video!
I was at a bit of a loss and this saved my project!
Best regards,
Vic Casados
"You may be the first to see me break a blade..." -- A few minutes later *work-mate explodes*
I'd have pissed myself.
Late to the party on this one but a method for accurately finding the apex of a bend is to place the piece onto a flat and level surface so the bend contacts the level surface at two points with the bend uppermost. You can then take a ruler and measure along the piece from the level surface. The longest measurement is the apex of your bend.
Good job Matt! Good work with that sword, and an interesting and informative video, as always.
+LoricSwift Also that Valhalla reference XD
I love seeing pieces of history saved and restored. Good work
Be interesting in seeing some other renovation methods on antiques Matt, along with guidelines on sharpening and maintenance :)
An interesting technique and a good demonstration of the properties of a tempered sword blade. Very cool, thanks Matt.
It's astonishing how tense I felt watching this. Your title and some of the dialog (I've never actually broken a sword using this technique...) somehow makes it seem inevitable disaster is going to strike.
I did the same thing with a Del Tin 5143 that I once purchased. It had a nice set from mail transit. A wood workers vice with 3 small wood blocks straightened out the sword in a minute. I taped the blocks to the sides of the vice to keep them in place.
Love your two-hander with the invisible blade behind you!
Well technically something antique *did* break...
Vintage.
Very interesting, and something we don't get to see every day! Will you be doing a follow up video on cleaning the blade? It would be neat to see all the stages of restoration between "before" and "after".
From a materials perspective, you are correct, it won't make any difference if you leave it over night - steel will flex a certain amount before it begins to actually permanently deform so, once you've taken it past it's elastic limit, the bend is set instantly and permanently. The elastic flex will be released so you need to over-bend to actually straighten it, but time won't change anything.
Hey, I bend metal professionally and making a setup with three rollers is probably one of the cheapest and most efficient ways to get a job like that done. Just have to set the distance correctly and move it through the rollers back and forth a couple of times, very similar to what you were doing around the 17:00 minute mark. If it helps to check the flatness, you could use a pane of glass in a similar manner to a surface plate to see if any light passes under it.
sword in french accent: "hon hon hon, i broke your precious workbench"
I know this video is a bit old, but I didn't see any comments explaining your observations so I thought I'd have a go. As you observe in this video, its much easier to break a blade by simply lifting with the hilt while holding the blade flat against the ground than it is to break the blade using the clamp system. Your observation is correct for the same reason its easier to break a long stick than a short stick. Torque. When you bend a sword using your foot and hand, what you have effectively done is given yourself a 1-2 foot long lever to lift on, resulting in a very large torque on the blade. When you use the clamp, the points at which you apply pressure are so much closer together and concentrated that, even though force is much higher than what you are capable of applying by hand, the torque imparted on the blade is much much lower, meaning you are very unlikely to snap the blade.
its been a treat watching this video :) hope to see more in the future like how to properly clean a rusty antique sword/knife.
cheers mat!
Thanks for straightening that candle! That's why I visited this video. ;)
+Crusader Jin I worked out how it got bent - it had gone soft in the sun light through the window! In England! Incredible.
Please make more of these videos, they are fun to watch.
The suspense was killig me and then the work bench died and i laughed my ass off !
I replayed that part lots of times
Nice improvised rig. Good initial point too. At university, we also used to scrap foils which became rather bent and beaten up, precisely because of the danger of snapping and injuring our teammates. Stay safe.
Great video Matt. I'd always been under the impression that you had to heat a sword in order to get it back into shape etc. Nice to be proved wrong. Hope you get a new workbench for your birthday.
I don't know how that type of steel behaves when it breaks but some types have a tendency to split into three or more pieces when under strain. Two large at the ends and smaller shards being ejected from the center at high speed.
A full face mask would be highly recommended if that were to ever happen.
Matt you're a stud, you even broke your work bench!
The idea of vikings wondering about the work bench is very amusing.
Can you do a video showing the complete process of cleaning/ lightly restoring an antique sword (particularly talwars and replacing eroded pitch glue) to an appropriate level for display or dry handling?
I was totally expecting the blade to snap. Way to beat expectations!
I used my bathroom door jam to correct a slightly bent model 1860 Light Cavalry sabre. Viola - worked like a charm. I just took it slow, a little opposite pressure at a time...
Matt
Have you ever tried to use a modified English wheel to straighten a blade. Typically used to put curves into fenders by the use of dies and variable pressures it appears to me using a modifies device with two similar wheels might allow you to straighten with a bit more precision.
All that extra bending leads to metal fatigue. What about some applied heat and re-tempering?
That whole apparatus reminded me of a floating leaf spring setup. Considering the distances involved that's a lot of leveraged force.
"Wear leather gloves when handling a sharp sword like this", proceeds without leather gloves...
TY for such an informative video, I would've assumed wrongly that applieing heat would've been the correct method. I was told that might mess w/its temper & weakened it even if it straightened it. Their are a lot of sword owners w/similar problems & this technique may fix the majority of them
Is there a more "professional" way to do this? In case someone owns a more valuable/unique antique?
Or are the collectors just left with "risk it or keep it bent" choice?
+zenek bembenek The only way to do it without any real risk of breaking is to anneal (soften) the blade, by heating to glowing red and letting cool slowly. This will remove the hardening and spring temper from the blade and leave it possibly to be bent easily by hand. It will no longer be a functional sword however.
No highly computerized machines to do it with less risk then? That sucks a bit ;)
How was that done historically though, if you don't mind me asking? Were they just re-forging the whole thing? Cause I highly doubt most people just retired such pricey thing as a sword, even if a badly bent one...
+zenek bembenek Short answer: we don't know. Probably most people did something like what I did in this video, but in later periods it is likely they just bought a new sword if they couldn't straighten the one they had. We know that lots of 19th century officers bought new swords when their previous sword got damaged.
Thanks for the answer! I am actually more curious about earlier periods, XV - XVIII century, so it's a bummer there is lack of data on this subject.
The method you used, bending the other way by foot/side of a table, you don't suppose it is useful for sabers and other curved blade, do you?
Yeah, it seems so. But it would be cool to know for sure...
exciting video! Was not expecting the surprise when it happened.
R.I.P. work bench. Job well done.
Interesting, similar to a technique for straightening wire. If you're going to do it a lot then make up some dogs to fit the dogholes in the bench. Also, the bench broke largely because of the uneven pressure being applied. Basically, the jaws were canted, use both lead screws to tighten evenly.
+kleinjahr Was thinking the very same thing. Or at least he could've used some string or bungee cord to tie down the two long pieces to make handling the whole assembly less awkward.
Thanks for covering bent out of place blades! ( Will take caution for potential blade failure. Have at least just under a dozen bent rapiers, foils and similar type blades with from sport fencing alone. )
Get well soon! And true, how long you leave the blade in makes little difference..and perhaps something like a heavy clothe or canvass on top incase the blade jumps up and to the side..Safety first..
Many blade bents out of storage, in between use and storage..
Have broken swords using foot on blade, or soon after in a match..a lazy way to straighen blades..
Well now I know why you are in such good shape. That seemed like a good workout.
Valhalla joke cracked me up. :-) Good video.
hiya mr. Easton🤓 watching your video i couldnt stop thinking you should use longer pieces of wood. so that they would reach the flor and therebye support them selves. please excuse my english its a bit rusty 😅 cheers and keep on the good work.
Hi Matt, if you haven't already cleaned that sword, I'd really like to see a video of you cleaning it! I love the content as always.
Glad you didn't get hurt and, if it turns out you do get yourself a workbench for a present, I hope you'll do a product review so us laymen will know what you were looking for, what features you managed to get, and what parts were on your wishlist but didn't make it into the model you ended up settling for.
One small tip. while doing the hand straightening might want to hang a cloth or hand towl over the bend. Admittedly more awkward to work that way but if something goes wrong always better it affects fabric than flesh.
To find the center of the curve more precisely, I think you could suspend the sword so that the tip and forte are level with each other, then lower the blade to a horizontal surface. The point at which the blade touches the surface should be the center of the bend. (This assumes a simple bend rather than an S-curve, of course.)
You might be interested in learning about PDR (paintless dent removal) as used to repair cars.
Although it takes a lot of skill, their results are excellent.
One Technique they use while fixing a shiny surface is to use a card with black & white stripes. They look at the card through the reflection in the metal & it makes spotting the center of the dent easier.
Mmmmm, Sweaty Matt. Huzzah, I'm always the type to over compensate bend and then have to unbend my over corrections with metal poles or strips. Happy Birthday Matt!
Will you be showing any more of this blades journey to become a clean and shiny sword?
Thank god for the english! At least someone on the internet pronounces aluminium right :D
Yay! I love it when things get fixed.
Valhalla for the work bench!
Someone below was questioning if the work bench actually made it to Valhalla or not... Well if it didn't I would say that it made it to Sto-vo-kor at least. Kahless himself probably uses it to prop his feet up on while he feasts in the halls of the honored dead, while they sing songs loudly in Klingon... I hear them now: "Koi Keh-less pook load Koi pook beh poo Yech bow math bow je shuv wee...!!!" They keep singing... I can't keep up with them But your work bench holds and honored spot in their hall and will preform it's duties as best it can, and will do very well. =) Helping to bring about a lasting peace between our peoples, the federation and the Klingon people. What a great service a little work bench can provide!
Happy Birthday Mr. Easton!
+anpu Thanks
next video: Birthday special- Unboxing 20 workbenches.
That would need a lot of ECXITORAMA! to be bearable ;-)
Sun's out, guns out
I look forward to seeing that sword cleaned up. I think the tang/hilt area may still have a slight angle on it, could be wrong though.
The work bench gave up a little bit of it's soul to make the sword straight.
I wonder if putting the 2 pieces of wood on the edge of a table and using a sturdy C-clamp on the middle point would be a little easier. Of course I don't know if that would be able to apply enough pressure, but setting it up would be a lot easier.
I would recommend taping the 2 dowels to the bench, and the 3rd to the blade to require less juggling.
I hope you make more restoration videos, it's really interesting!
The ancient Celts would be proud!
Great bending back skills.
I know that a lot of people think that the early to mid 1800's three bar hilted sabers are boring and average, but I quite like them. In fact, it's probably my favorite guard design for a saber hilt...
Speaking of 1800's sabers. What year is that? I'd say (using my very limited knowledge of sabers) that it was maybe 1820's... But I'm probably wrong.
+Stephen F. Austin This sword actually dates to 1899.
+scholagladiatoria And I apparently still have a lot to learn...
Do you have any recommendations on a good book (or two) about historical arms (and armor) that would be good for a beginner? Preferably something from the Napoleonic period to maybe WW1.
Users might want to put a towel or tarp over the sword while tightening the clamp to help prevent flying debris. Use small movements and check tension when the pressure isn't actively changing.
If you're using a similar setup in future, nail the dowels to strips of wood so they hold themselves on the vise jaws.
A roller bender would probably work even better - more bending finesse over larger radii. Similar in action to the sliding motion you were using later. Maybe unnecessarily complicated for your purposes/frequency of use, though :)
Happy birthday, btw.
Wouldn't even have to be nailed, just a cutout large enough so that it won't fall out without the tension would do it. And for this infrequent work I'd probably use the same pieces of wood and tie a bit of cord to it that holds some weight on the other end suspended above ground. If it's tied to the wood above the center of mass it should stay upright without external assistance.
Would it not be helpful to put a fencing mask or similar on when bending over a blade under tension? Seems it would be an extra measure of safety in case of breakages...
+TatooineWindAndFire Sure, that would help!
File the dowels flat on two sides and put a C-clamp on each one. you can set the clamps on the bench and the dowels will stay put while you set it up.
Have you considered using slightly longer dowels that you could rest on the floor during the initial alignment?
You have a Workmate! Best portable bench ever!
The reason why it doesnt matter if you straighten it for minutes or hours is the concept of thermal creep, whereby creep behaviour only occurs above about 0.4*melting temp (in Kelvin) which would be roughly 400°C for steel. Below that time has no influence on a bend.
In my experience this abrupt bend happens when you strongly cut something resisting, with the blade not perfectly aligned with the plane of the cut. The blade will get stuck, and the blade above the stop bents sideways in the direction of the tilt.
That sword was a real trooper!
Consider drilling a hole in your two dowels and running a countersunk screw through them into the work bench. It'll hold them in place for setup and make that process much easier.
hope you got that new workbench! happy birthday, too, even though i'm probably late
that my friend was interesting for sure! .......and the blade looked like it might have an interesting pastern?
I've actually got the same workbench at home, it's super old and belonged to my great grandfather.
You know, if you do end up with another similar bench, you could find some 3in or 4in rounds of wood and drill out the centers for a dowel the same diameter as those holes on the bench. Then you could slot them into the bench like rollers when you need to straighten the blade and not have to worry so much about holding everything in place while you try to clamp it.
I could see some dealers knowing a sword was bent and not telling a buyer. so now that it's straight again is there anyway to tell that it was bent, and is it prone to bending again? thanks for the informative video.
+Ibpn Well, I have a sword that was very bent and I straightened it and have been using it for test cutting ever since, without a problem. So just because a sword has been bent and straightened once, does not mean that it will fail in use. It just increases the chance or failure slightly. And no, once a sword has been straightened, there is no realistic way that a person would be able to tell.
scholagladiatoria.. thank you for the reply.
A side note. It's probably better to keep your straightening jig centered in the clamp and use *both* cranks to apply the pressure. Not only will that make them a fair bit easier to turn, it will keep the slide rails from jamming up. I suspect that as caused the bench's demise as much as age. Great video though! :)
Well, I expected something to break... but that was really a surprise.
Matt, I think the cold is going around EVERYWHERE. I'm sick too and so is everyone I know. ;o All the way from Chicago. I was gonna say, your best bet is to do some sort of clamp straightening on a table. My birthday is this week too! My friend from Southampton actually sent me a Scholagladiatoria shirt in the post for my birthday. :D
+Ó Slatraigh Hah, cool :-)
Matt Easton: Sword Rescue.
Season 01 - Ep 01: 1821 Light Cavalry Sabre VS Matt Eason w/ Cold, featuring War Bench and Birthday Biceps.
Coming to a Netflix near you (hopefully).
+Dominator046 lol
+scholagladiatoria
Honestly though, great video. Hopefully I didn't totally butcher the model / year of the sword. I just did some quick searches on the fly before my morning university class.
I used to do blacksmithing as a hobby, so I had the question of why wouldn't you remove the handle and heat the blade to make bending easier (either with a forge or slowly with a torch.) It would need to be re tempered, but wouldn't that be a safer way since it would relax the stress on the blade? Or would that kind of repair damage it's value as an antique?
Well, it could still get damaged in the process (especially the re-temper) and would remove any sort of petina. I can only imagine it would damage its value as an antique, plus you'd need to find and pay a good smith. But if you planned on using it in battle, that'd probably be a good idea.
How did you straighten the sword sir? "By the sweat off my bald head I did!"
+Daniel Taylor Tru dat
It went out with its boots on
Which English sword of the 19th century would you recommend buying as a first antique sword purchase? I've seen some of the swords from the Nepalese cash that ima USA has and they've interested me, are those swords a rip off for some reason? Or are they a good deal? I'm looking for something that would go well with my Brown Bess, martini Henry and SMLE, idk if any one sword is a match for all those eras but if there is then that would be awesome.
Just some advice, if you're going to straighten blades, get a couple slabs of hard wood, heat the blade to a few hundred degrees F, and clamp the blade between them to normalize. it shouldn't damage the temper and the blade will straighten.
Working that long narrow object so hard that sweat starts dropping from your brow
I wonder if the foot method is more prone to causing breakages just because of the bouncing. Kinda like when you stretch your body, bouncing (or 'ballistic stretching') is to be avoided.
My problem is I have a sword where about the last inch is bent and it's a manufacturing defect rather than damage. My current plan is to fix it to an aluminium straight edge and pound the bent tip with a plastic hammer. Any better ideas before I do it?
+sambuss90 Personally, I'd recommend the method I show in this video, just on a smaller scale as it's near the tip.
I did this with a 1790 smallsword months ago, turned out great. Wish I had validation on the method, because it stressed me out crazy.
Just a question: why not using heat on the bent part? It would allow you to apply less pressure and thus less stress on the blade. The process therefore would be less risky for the blade, for you and for your workbench :)
+madpearTube One reason - because it would remove the temper and leave the blade soft.
+scholagladiatoria you could heat it to 300-350 degrees with out effecting temper, and steel is more malleable at that temp, but if you can do it with out it and don't have the equipment to do it right I'd do it your way, when I was young I tried forging a knife with no heat, failed, then I tried a zippo and actually was able to flatten out my round bar I was beating on, then I bought a propane torch and was like whoa baby it's a knife lol, the point of all that is that a zippo got it hot enough to start deforming and was way under 350 degrees. If you ever try to heat things up remember as long as it doesn't go past the point where it starts changing colors it's good, if you get it to blue/purple/red (all are over 500 degrees) it's ruined, straw is ok and yellow is questionable. Straw coloring happens around 350-375 yellow is like 400. Anyway if you have a big oven 300 degrees would make breaking a blade pretty much impossible with your method. Idk anyone with a 5 foot oven though lol.
+P226nut one of those huge contraptions in pizza places might be able to fit it. But it'd ruin the hilt most likely and if that is peened I wouldn't risk disassembly and would either leave it bent or try this method.
put a bucket or something under the bench to prop the two larger bits of wood on or tape the sticks and put the sticks on a sheet of cardboard to make a more evenly spaced press. just an idea been in the same bind before wood works better than metal pipe because it compresses