Now that we are in the middle of summer, we get to the sea, see the boats… who hasn’t dreamed of joining a pirate ship at some point? Maybe getting our own ship is out of reach, but we can start by making our own pirate sword.
In this article, Matthias makes one out of wood using the table saw, band saw, horizontal drill… “his toys” he likes to call them. I really think that with a jigsaw, a regular drill, and some sanding work, we can achieve a result as good as his. We start with coarse sandpaper wrapped around a wooden block and shape the edge. Then we use finer sandpaper to remove the marks and make it smoother.
For the sword guard, it might be tricky to cut thin strips to shape it through curved lamination. If we can’t cut them that thin in our workshop, we’ll have to find someone who can—do you have a carpenter nearby? Maybe with marquetry, but I bet the heat and humidity used to bend the wood will spoil the glue binding the layers. I don’t know, we might spend the whole summer trying to make it, then autumn will come with its winds, swells, and first storms, and we’ll rethink this pirate thing. Mmmm, how long until Carnival?
You can find the link to the article in Spanish under the “woodworking projects” tab and then go to “woodgears translations” (no. 16).