Bronze Sword Casting Birthday Present

For my 30th birthday my wife decided to do something special. She happens to be an excellent gift giver, and this time she had outdone herself. With my background in history, and my interest in all things nerdy... My wife had found a local Bronze Sword casting class! Now, I didn't actually know a whole lot about bronze swords - just a general idea that they existed and that they fell by the way due to Iron. That said - the class sounded really exciting! 

The class was over a period of three days. The first day involved packing a sand cast. A sand cast is one inexpensive method for holding molten bronze while it quickly cools. It's also reminiscent of making sand castles. Here you can see the impression left by the mold I chose.

After choosing the mold, the next step was to heat the bronze in a kiln, and poor it into the cast.

After the bronze had cooled, which made time go slowly because of anticipation, the sword was removed from the cast. As you can see, some of the sand stuck to the bronze, and, the bronze itself was quite rough.

On the second day, a considerable amount of time was spent sanding down the sword. It was quite a noisy endeavor! The first pass was a rough sandpaper. It made the metal gleam, but, was still quite rough. After we stepped through the levels of finer sandpaper, the sword was really starting to take shape.

The final day, we put the handle on the sword. This involved a hammered rivets. The handle we added reminded me very much of Chicago Cutlery.  

Many Hammer strikes later, and after a little bit of polishing of the handle, the sword was complete.

Bonus: After the class was over, I headed over to Hobby Lobby and picked up some leather. I used this to put together a sheath. Here is the final product. All in all, it was a great birthday present from my wife. :)