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  • (thrilling music)

  • - I'm Matt.

  • - I'm Kerry.

  • - [Matt] We are the Stagmer brothers

  • of Baltimore Knife and Sword.

  • We're going to be building some of your favorite weapons

  • and some weapons you've never seen before.

  • - [Kerry] This is Man at Arms. Reforged.

  • - So if you've been watching

  • our League of Legends builds before

  • and we've talked about playing,

  • you'll know that I mostly play ARAMs.

  • When you're playing ARAMs,

  • that one champ you don't want to see on the other team,

  • especially from a competent player,

  • is Master Yi.

  • To create Master Yi's blade,

  • I'll be using 3.5 inches of 4140 stock.

  • I'll be knocking this down,

  • getting it down to a bar form using the Nazel power hammer.

  • It'll take me about a half an hour to get it down to a bar

  • and then we'll work from there.

  • - [Matt] Now that Kerry's done a lot of the brute forging

  • and really broken down this round stock

  • into a nice long bar,

  • Ilya's going to take over from here

  • and start forging the blade.

  • He's going to continue drawing it out.

  • He's going to work on both the flat

  • and on the sides to make sure

  • everything stays nice true as he draws it out.

  • Here, you can clearly see where Ilya's spraying water

  • onto the blade as he's working

  • and the scales popping from the surface.

  • The reason we want that scale to pop off

  • is it can leave really deep pits in the metal.

  • We have a really limited amount

  • of material to work from this time.

  • We've got to make a pretty large blade

  • so we can't afford any loss.

  • (thrilling music)

  • You can see now, Ilya's turning that symmetrical point

  • that he forged in into the more Tanto,

  • katana-like point that we're used to seeing in the game art.

  • You've seen Ilya do very similar work

  • on the Kill Bill katana episode.

  • Ilya's quickly become one of the major masters

  • in this country at forging super large blades.

  • Not too many people even take those commissions.

  • Many customers come, asking all different sword makers

  • if they'll make super huge large blades

  • like you guys request.

  • Ilya has now forged more than

  • probably any of them in this country, maybe worldwide.

  • He's quickly become a master

  • and it's fun to watch him work.

  • At this point, Ilya's removing the handle section

  • so that he can define the tang.

  • Doesn't need that handle on there for leverage anymore

  • now that the blade's drawn out so long.

  • He's flipped it over.

  • He's using a hot cut tool underneath the power hammer.

  • He's just going to remove that material,

  • allow him to forge that section.

  • Now that the power hammer work is done on this blade,

  • Ilya's going to move to the anvil

  • and start forging in the bevels.

  • You can see, as he works to get these really steep bevels,

  • he's working on the very edge of the anvil.

  • This is so that when he holds that blade at an angle

  • and strikes it matching that angle,

  • he doesn't hit the face of the anvil,

  • dinging it or possibly chipping the anvil.

  • To give you guys a sense of time,

  • Ilya's been hand-beveling now for about an hour.

  • He's now at the point where he's joining

  • the tip bevel into the shoulder bevel.

  • He's got about a six-inch section to go.

  • This is a long process,

  • takes about 20 heats to get the bevel forged in

  • on a big blade like this,

  • so he's just going to stay at it

  • and then I'll be ready to do the grinding.

  • Now that the forging is done,

  • it's time to start the grinding.

  • I have a few things I gotta work out before I start.

  • This is a hybrid between a Chinese ring sword,

  • which has nine rings down the back of the blade.

  • this only has two,

  • and a Japanese katana.

  • The Chinese ring swords are very flimsy and very light,

  • used in traditional forms.

  • Japanese katana's very thick and has very prominent edges

  • so I have to do a blend of them both.

  • I'm going to start by profiling just slightly

  • and then start on those heavy bevels.

  • (thrilling music)

  • - Today, I've been working

  • on the League of Legends ring sword

  • and I'm doing the rings

  • that are going to hang from the sword.

  • We're going to do them out of bronze

  • and we decided to do them

  • as the stylized snake that's eating its tail.

  • Now I'm in the process of carving the scales on it

  • and once the scales are carved on it,

  • we'll cast it in bronze and then finish it tomorrow

  • and any place where I've lost the scales,

  • I'll be able to put them back on with the chasing tool.

  • - [Kerry] We'll be doing these castings with lost wax.

  • First we take the waxes and screw them into a tree.

  • Then they're set into a flask

  • and plaster is poured around them.

  • It's a special plaster called investment.

  • It'll go into the kiln.

  • We slowly ramp up to 1350,

  • lowered to a thousand.

  • It'll be placed into the casting machine

  • and then I'm going to bring in

  • molten, 2100-degree bronze

  • and pour it into the vacuum machine.

  • After it reaches 900 degrees,

  • we'll take it to the water,

  • it'll steam off the investment,

  • and show us our bronze.

  • - The last step before heat-treating the blade

  • is to get those holes located and drilled in

  • where our rings will go after.

  • Now that we got our blade ready for heat treating,

  • its time to move onto the guard portion.

  • Just like in some previous League of Legends builds,

  • the splash art doesn't always match with the end game art

  • so I've had to do a little figuring out,

  • see where I want to go with this guard.

  • This is the main splash art for Master Yi

  • for his basic standard skin

  • and this is what we've based our design off so far.

  • Unfortunately, all the pictures I can find of it

  • have that guard and the blade off angle

  • so what I had to do was kind of zoom in here,

  • take a good look at everything,

  • and I just freehand drew

  • what I thought the guard would look like.

  • What I'm going to do now is I'm going

  • to mirror it over from the center point here.

  • Just gotta fill in a few lines.

  • The blade will come out of this section.

  • Probably going to set a stone

  • or something like that in the middle,

  • cut some overlays to make those borders rise out.

  • We'll be good to go.

  • (thrilling music)

  • So we have six different pieces that make up this guard.

  • We have our central wings,

  • we have the quillon block,

  • and then the outer pieces

  • which are going to make it look like a nice rise border.

  • What I have to do now

  • is I gotta take both of these quillon block pieces

  • and instead of them being nice and flat,

  • we want them to angle towards the blade

  • so they're thicker at the handle

  • and thinner at the blade.

  • (suspenseful music)

  • - (mumbles) heat treat Master Yi's sword, his Da-dao.

  • This blade is made out of 4140 steel.

  • It's an excellent steel for jackhammer bits,

  • hammer dies and other impact tools.

  • 4140 has approximately 0.4% carbon,

  • means I don't have to watch my temperatures

  • as carefully as some other higher carbon steels

  • but it has tons of manganese and tons of chrome in it.

  • This means if I were to try to hamon this blade,

  • it would not show any hamon

  • because it's a deep-hardening steel

  • and the quench goes all the way under the clay to the spine.

  • - [Kerry] Ilya now goes into our long furnace

  • brings this piece up to critical temperature

  • to where it's non-magnetic,

  • brings it out, and takes it to the quench.

  • - So I quenched Master Yi's Dadao.

  • It is at full hardness now.

  • However, because it's 4140,

  • it doesn't get hard as the high-carbon steels.

  • Check this sound out.

  • It doesn't have that glassy sound because it's 4140.

  • Its highest hardness I can get on this blade

  • in oil quench is about

  • let's say 55, 51 Rockwell.

  • The highest hardness it can get out of 1075, 1095

  • can be up to 60-61 Rockwell in an oil quench.

  • Master Yi's sword has been in the tank

  • for about an hour already.

  • In the tempering, this is actually the last opportunity

  • to straighten out any warps produced in the quenching.

  • So, I'm going to take it out

  • and go to the vise to quickly yank some of them straight.

  • So Master Yi's sword is basically straight.

  • Any other warping along the edge will be fixed in the grind

  • when it's being made sharp.

  • - Now that we have Master Yi's Wushu blade

  • completely heat-treated and tempered,

  • I can move onto the polishing.

  • My first goal is to start at the 80 grit

  • and remove all the deep scale

  • and then I'll go through the grits from there.

  • (uptempo music)

  • All right, so I just ran this blade through the grits,

  • 120, 220, I got a little more polishing to do

  • before I move onto the Scotch-Brite

  • but I was able to define that kissaki,

  • which is where the two different bevels come together.

  • I add a small back bevel on the spine.

  • Just think it looks a little more aggressive and I like it.

  • Really happy with it so far.

  • Time to get that hilt and the pommel on.

  • - The pommel for Master Yi's sword

  • will be constructed from three pieces

  • of black iron pipe and a couple pieces of round bar.

  • It'll be forged into two arrowhead finials.

  • When forging finials like this,

  • the pre-form is very important.

  • So I'm going to take a piece of this round bar

  • and I'm going to flatten it out,

  • and then I'm going to form two shoulders

  • and then using the edge of the anvil,

  • I'm going to buck that shape

  • to get a shape like this.

  • And then from there, I'll bevel them

  • and draw that point more

  • and then it'll get cleaned up to look like that.

  • So one, two, three.

  • - So for the pommel on Master Yi,

  • Sam's already forged out a couple of the points

  • that go to the left and right.

  • I'm going to be basically turning a spike out the top

  • and then we'll probably do

  • some faceting on it to get the fit.

  • It'll lock down into a pipe section

  • that'll become the main part of the pommel.

  • All that's going to get welded solid

  • and that'll hold the whole sword together.

  • - [Matt] For the construction on our pommel,

  • we're going to use two pieces of pipe.

  • One's going to get a notch in it, the other a V.

  • They're going to be put together and welded solid.

  • We'll start by cutting the two pieces of pipe on the saw.

  • Then I move to the sander

  • to sanding the notch and the V shape

  • that will allow these two pieces of pipe to join together.

  • What we have is a cross-pipe with a notch in it

  • and a top pipe with a V in it.

  • It's going to get welded solid.

  • Then we have these nice arrowheads

  • that Sam forged.

  • Then the lathe turn spike that Kerry did.

  • It'll go in the top.

  • Now that the base of our guard is polished out,

  • it's time to add those borders on.

  • John's going to use the MIG welder

  • and weld all the way around the perimeter

  • and then he's going to move to the sanders

  • and blend that weld off.

  • WIth time winding down, the pressure's on.

  • No time for us to go one at a time

  • so while John's fastening the pommel,

  • I blend the welds on the guards.

  • - [Kerry] We're going to put some bright green paint

  • into the background on this piece.

  • But before that, the entire piece has to be brassed

  • because that's going to be the highlight

  • on the raised sections and all the way around the border.

  • After pre-heating the guards,

  • Sam takes a solid brass wire wheel

  • and runs it over the surface.

  • The friction from the wire wheel

  • and the pre-heat on the material

  • lays the brass permanently onto the guard.

  • So for the handle on Master Yi,

  • we've got this small flange that mounts here

  • that goes on top of the guard.

  • I'm going to be cutting that on the lathe,

  • just a couple steps in here,

  • and then we'll take it over to the mill

  • and make a larger slot to go over the tang.

  • We use a three-eights cutter on the Gorton mill,

  • make a slot where I'd placed the hole using the lathe.

  • So we' have a small area that we've cut.

  • It's about a half inch.

  • These are 12 millimeter stones.

  • We're going to be setting sterling silver bezels in place.

  • Then we'll drop the stones into them afterwards.

  • I'm using a torch, low temperature solder,

  • about 500 degrees here, and an acid-based flux.

  • That's going to burn that surface nice and clean for us.

  • As soon as I feel like I'm getting the heat,

  • I'm going to put a little bit of solder in the bottom,

  • pick up the bezels, put a little flux on the bezel

  • and drop them right onto the solder

  • and they should adhere perfectly.

  • Afterwards, I'll use a bezel pusher

  • to lay in the edge and keep the stone in place.

  • - It's time to move onto our handle portion.

  • The handle on Master Yi's sword

  • is a very long, spiraled handle.

  • It's in two parts but I'm going to make my job easier

  • by leaving it one part to start with.

  • Then I'll split it in half

  • and make a nice spacer in between.

  • Reason being is I want that spiral

  • to remain real fluid through both pieces

  • so we're going to leave it this length.

  • I'm going to go diagonal on the sanding belt

  • and get her carved up.

  • (exciting music)

  • All right, those of you that are League of Legends fans

  • know that Master Yi's sword glows green.

  • To create that green,

  • we've added a couple gemstones

  • but I also am going to paint the inside

  • of our recess on the guard neon green.

  • - So we're closing in on Master Yi.

  • The sword's fully assembled now.

  • We're going to put the rings in.

  • We've got to do some polishing.

  • We'll go back over the paint.

  • The handle has to be finished out.

  • It's gold so this ring will have to be golden as well.

  • And then we'll be finished with the entire sword.

  • (thrilling music)

  • (exciting metal music)

(thrilling music)

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