How to Forge a Khopesh

Hello everyone! I have just finished one of my coolest projects so far (in my opinion). So my cousin being a blacksmith and me a carpenter, we often like to get together and combine our talents. This means, of course, SWORDS. And, me being of Egyptian decent, I decided to make one of the sexiest, and most well designed swords know to man: The Khopesh.

Over the course of two days, my cousin and I both worked on our weapons (his a Bowie knife), one day on the blades and the other on the handles. This Instructables, will be mostly pictures with a little text, however, I tend to ramble and will likely write a 2 page paper in the process. Anyways, enough talk, let's begin!

Materials

Spring Steel

Wood for handle (I used rosewood as it contrasted the steel nicely)

Wood Plugs (optional but makes the handle stronger)

Epoxy

Wood-glue

Polyurethane

Tools

Forge

Hammer

Anvil

Power hammer

Long drum of quenching oil or water

Band-saw

Angle-grinder

Lots of clamps

Sander

Drill-press

Using the forge, heat up the steel then unravel it and flatten it like a raccoon on the highway.

This is pretty self explanatory, sketch out the outline. I just free-handed it from a picture on the interweb onto the worktable using a grease pencil. The overall length of this sword is around 43 inches.

Begin to draw out and flatten the steel, then start to give the Khopesh its curves.

Clamp the Khopesh to the table with the blade sticking off then, using the angle-grinder, sharpen the edge.

Just to brake up the uniformity, I added a grove along either side of the steel between the blade and the handle.

Of course, no project is complete without a few quality distractions, and in our case, it was one of my cousins goats getting stuck in a net. We had a fun time getting her out of that one.

I apologize, but I got a thing for puns. Anyways, drill holes in the handle so that you can connect the handles to the blade.

To temper it I followed the advice of a couple instructables. Of course, tempering is not necessary however, if you plan on using this in battle or as a practice weapon, I highly recommend it. However, be warned, as this is a long sword it can be difficult to temper, and can be curved or cracked in the process, so proceed with caution.

https://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Build-a-Kni...

https://www.instructables.com/id/Fixed-Blade-Knife/

Trace the blade handle onto the wood. Then cut it out and get it as close to the blade handle as possible. The next step is to sand down the handle to the thickness and curvature you want, which must be done before the attaching, so any finishing you want done, make sure you do it now.

Then, once you have the wood handles where you want them, Clam one of the wood handles to the blade handle and drill holes into it from the steel side so the holes line up perfectly. Then epoxy that side to the blade. Once the other side is dry, take off the clamps, match the other wood handle to the blade handle, then clamp it and drill the holes threw the already drilled wood and metal handles and into the new wood handle so that the holes all line up perfectly. Then epoxy the other side to the blade as well, clamp it and wait till it is dry.

Once the handle (collective of all three) is dry put a little glue on the wood joiners (little wooden dowels) and hammer them through the handle. This gives it extra strength connecting all three pieces. Next, cut the excess of the joiners off and sand them down to be flush with the handle.

To finish it put several coats of polyurethane on the handle. Let it dry and you're finished (last one I promise).

Well, that's all folks, hope you enjoyed it, let me know if you have any comments or question.

Thank you and God Bless!