Well the weather wasn't 90°f+ or torrential rains Tuesday, so I figured it was time to pull out the forge. I was recently rewatching AWEme's series Man at Arms, and I saw them build TMNT sai. Looked like an interesting challenge, so I figured I'd take a crack at it.
The first thing I did was take stock of the materials I had on hand, and all I could find was some half inch round and some half inch scrap rebar.
These were my reference pieces, professionally made training sai. For comparison, here's my starting material.
The Forging
The first thing I did was determine the length I wanted the blade, handle, and pommel to be. I then began to square off the metal down the length of what will be the blade.
The next thing I did was work on the pommel. Because I hate working with thick chunks of metal, I elected to scroll the extra length of the stock into the pommel instead of upset it enough to forge it into a 12 sided pommel, as you tend to see on many sai.
Here you can see what the main body looked like after the first round of forging.
With a good idea of what the body will be like, I moved on to making the guard. Because I was out of my standardized stock, I had to use a piece of scrap rebar. The thickness was too large at the ends, and the overall piece was too short. This meant I had to draw it out to length, then taper it down to the points.
After beginning work on the second half, I made it about 1/3 of the way to being done when I ran out of fuel, leaving me this.
When I resupply and finish the project, I'll post part 2.
A look at what the final project will resemble.
Final Thoughts
At this point in the project, here are my thoughts. The reference sai I am using are six sided, so when I get more fuel, I'm going to do sever things. First, I'm going to hammer on one of the edges of the blade to add the fifth and sixth sides to the blade. Second, I'm going to finish the guard, and make it symmetrical. Third, I'm going to likely drift a hole in the guard, slide it down the blade, then weld it in place. This plan may change. Finally, after everything is attached, I'll true everything up to get the piece straight and in symmetry so it is ready for heat treat, tempering, and grinding.
Comments (2)
They are amazing. And how good are man at arms!!!!!
Cool cool cool. Keep us updated this looks sweet!