Mechanical Engineer here. Awesome job. Shad, please listen to me! I used to study and work with composite materials for aeronautics. Dont Rivet carbon fiber. You Don't need custom metal pices you can work with the ones you have: Make holes in the metal blades stripes 1 or 2 inch apart, make the edges of the hole round, so it can't cut what pass trough it, sew kevlar lines in these holes like a shoelace conecting all the metal pices, side to side. Before aplying the resin and placing the other composite materials the base structure should look like a spiderweb holding all the metal with kevlar. It will keep the bades togather. they will never come off the sword. you could hang a Car in it. Then over it you layer the foam, the carbon fiber. Put the resing, aply vacuum and preasure. Also you can Sew the carbon mesh with kevlar so it will never delaminate.

Looking at this sword feels like glimpsing into an alternate universe where gunpowder was never invented and so ultra modern materials were used to make swords instead.

As much as it hurts, breaking it tells us how to make an even better one. Just a little expensive lol

Machinist here. For the new blades you could probably mill a stepped slot lengthwise into some thin bar stock for the carbon fiber to insert into and then grind the edge onto it once it's fastened onto the sword itself. You could even use shorter pieces of steel (150mm or so)since the gaps where they butt together wouldn't be as much of an issue since they'd be blended in by the grinding. If you can get the mold of the carbon fiber to account for it (if it would be strong enough) you might even be able to get away with cutting the slot in with a band saw with a relatively wide blade. In that case it might be easier to go with shorter segments (50mm or so). The length of the individual segments might not matter that much if you can butt them together and blend them with grinding. Even short enough for just 2 rivets each. Tyranth could probably rig up a jig for that. It'd be like a hypermodern Macahuitl with no gaps between the blades. you could also cut into a slot mostly into the bar stock as above so that only a thin bit of metal is left on either side and pound the two sides with a wedge or round bar so that it's shaped into a "V" terminating in a square section at the bottom that you could grind your edge into. feel free to message me if it helps and I can elaborate.

I work for a small steel fabrication company in the US and I can't 100% guarantee we can make what you need as I'm just a floor worker, but I have personally done the bending on small, one off orders several times so I'm reasonably confident we could help you.

A quote attributed to Edison, "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."

I am someone who works with composites quite a bit, I can say the reason that laminating steel in this way will not work is because the composite and steel have different rates of expansion and contraction, when you take a long piece of steel and sandwich it in composite like that, just the difference in night and day is creating great internal stress in the structure of the blade. What works against you even further here is carbon fiber composite has a NEGATIVE coefficient of thermal expansion, meaning it grows as it gets cold and shrinks as it warms. Because of this as the temperature fluctuates the sword is tearing it's self apart internally simply as the temperature fluctuates through the day. I would strongly consider starting with a steel blank that is 1mm thick, then cut it to the profile of the blade, then add a ton of lightening holes to it, then put composite pucks in those holes and epoxy them in place, once that has cured scuff the entire surface and then laminate the sides on to the blade. This would give an incredibly light but strong blade.

Tyranth and Shad look like a medieval swordsman and a crazy scientist who brought him to our times by a time machine

Shad's answer to the AK50

Hello from the Netherlands Shad. To keep the blades from being disloged or compressed you could try to place metal ribs trough the core of the sword. This way the blades on both sides of the sword would be connected. Using this would also allow you to place rivits through these ribs in the centre line of the sword instead of on the edge. In theory this method could also be used in you decide to go with the v shaped cap blades. If your interested I could draw it out. I am not a material engineer so do ask your carbon fiber expert if you can make a strong laminate if there is a piece of metal going through the centre core. Apologies for spelling errors this is not my first language.

Hum, while watching this I was thinking, you could make an entire sword out of rather thin steel, all one piece with very large cut-out in the center. It would be far too flimsy to work as a sword, but you THEN add the carbon fiber over the blade, all but the edges. This way all the steel reinforces itself as it is all one piece, and should only marginally increase weight.

1:54 Yeah that looks amazing. Even if it doesn’t have a crossguard lol

As a Product Designer BSc (hons) and an experienced custom motorcycle builder and gunsmith I recommend you use a skeletal structure as part of the blades for support, i.e. cut from a single sheet of high carbon steel the shape of the entire sword including the blades, then remove portions of the central mass in geometric sections to act as 'girders' in the form of a frame support system. Have no sharp angles in any of the connecting points (i.e. tips of a triangular cut out section etc..) but make sure they are rounded to reduce stress points. This can then sit as the centre of a 'sandwich' between all the composite layers you use and will greatly increase the structural support to both blades (now being one) and keep it light. I know Tyranth has a milling machine so it can be done cheaply that way or laser cut, plasma cut, a grinder even just watch the temperature and so on. I'm enjoying this build very much but wish I could include diagrams in responses! lol.

You guys are answering the question everyone has always wondered. Keep going! your channel is the greatest sword channel on KZfaq now. a single piece blade that slides over the whole thing then rivets on would work best i feel. if you don't make it one piece it wont have any strength. you may need to be willing to add another pound or a pound and a half at least for this method.

Oh my god we got a sponsor, its happening, we are SO BACK

The reinforcements actually look really good on it

I manufacture circuit boards, and those are usually copper cores stuck together with fiberglass and resin. In order to keep the copper from delaminating, it is oxidized with a chemical to roughen up the surface. It might be worth exploring if you haven't already.

I wonder if a thin metal "skeleton frame" that contains the edges, a spine and some cross beams for stability that is then covered with the carbon fiber would be feasible... Still this is a fun concept of yours and I wish you the best of luck going forwards ;-)

I mean it looks pretty fricken awesome for a not fully designed weapon. Cant wait for all future versions.

This sword plus the bullet proof wood are the keys to our sci Fi sword future

It seems like I and many other people in the comments have had very similar ideas, but are coming at it from different directions. Pulling ideas from what other people have commented here is a list of what I think are the best ideas. 1 Laser/plasma/water jet a sword blank from 1mm carbon steel sheet. 2 Cut structural (circular honeycomb etc) lightening holes leaving approximately 1/2" of steel around edge of blank and a rib down the center and into the handle. 3 Cut a row of small holes all the way around the the 1/2" edge and down the center rib for carbon fiber stitching. 4 layer foam and carbon fiber on blade and stitch the whole thing together. 5 Clamp and cure in vacuum chamber. No need for costly and hard to get custom machined parts. This would be relatively cheap and easy to manufacture while fixing the edge alignment, blade shifting, delaminating, and handle breaking problems.

Get it laser cut out of a single sheet. Skeletonize it and pur the carbon fiber in/over/around it. Single piece blade edge, keeps cost down, only adds a little weight. If you leave ribs crossing the center it will also take the brunt of the local impact.

Now this is cuttting Edge content, always love to see the CF sword videos

Bye bye carbon fiber greatsword, i'll miss you, you beautiful beast of a blade

Not our baby! 😭

I loved the banter halfway through, sounded like two brothers fighting to prove one is right, and in a way I guess it was.

You were a good sword. You will be missed. o7

One thing for consideration for the next iteration is that you could cut the steel edges out of sheet steel as one piece, making a sword blank. You could then skeletonize the sword blank, removing most of the inner material for reduced weight. That skeletonization can be very aggressive since the inner supports would mostly be providing rigidity between the two sides of the sword. With the blank minimalized, you could then start layering your composite materials on top of that. The main advantage you get out of this is that cutting blanks out of sheet steel is a very cheap process, and you get all of the steel in one connected piece. The hard part is getting sheet steel of an appropriate composition. Also, cutting the steel would require heat treating the blank afterwards, which can be tricky due to the size of the blank. If the size of the blank prevents heat treatment due to lack of large enough tools, you could still use this general concept and instead cut the finished blank into several segments, each still connecting the two sides of the sword, and heat treat each segment individually.

Hope you guys get the backing you need to create a more finished product, and thanks for all the work and love you put into this niche little hobby, that I enjoy so much

A moment of silence for our beautiful boy... It's for your own good buddy...

Finally a video notification when the video is uploaded and not 9 hours later!

awesome more on the titain sword project lets gOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

Great job! Love the banter. Very interesting results...

I mentioned before what I think would be the optimal solution would be to basically laser cut (or water jet cut; collab 👀) the entire outline (including tang) from steel and then build the carbon fiber onto it for rigidity. But that way the entire outside edge would be one piece of steel. Ofc cost will be an issue (where a channel collab might help). And rivers in addition to that would probably help. Just my thoughts 😊

Oh boy, another video!

MilCon and Master Gunsmith here- instead of riveting, what about a single piece of flat spring steel, skeletonized to be supported by the edge on the opposite side with minimal material? If you wanted to get fancy, modern tools for optimal voronoi calculations can give you an ideal strength to weight ratio. The use of water jet over plasma cutting can preserve your spring temper on very thin sheet stock. For handle material I would look at laminated sheets of UHMWPE- every time I play with hot laminated UHMWPE it’s practically magical- very low weight and insane performance. It’s also very cheap. In fact here in the states a lot of grocery bags are made of UHMWPE and it’s practically the right thickness for laminating.

right then. thank you Shad, I'll be stepping in shortly.

Have you guys considered wire running inside the sword from edge to edge to keep the blades under tension while you apply the carbon fiber? Could prevent them from falling out and no longer require the riveting from the outside. Personally, if budget wasn't an issue, I would waterjet cut the edges and tang of the sword out of some kind of hard sheet steel with a honeycomb or trusses from edge to edge to give it the rigidity blade to blade and then fill the honeycomb or trusses with foam and sandwich your carbon fiber on top of that to give its flats the rigidity you would want. This way the blades would have that internal structure to absorb more shock and prevent delamination's while the whole blade would still be much stronger as a whole. I hope that made sense.

I'm sure someone already posted on it but for testing purposes to test the V steel edge you could build/borrow/rent a metal break (a tool for bending flat stock into specific angles).

I love your channel shad I practice sword fighting in my yard and your channel had really made me realize that it's not wierd and that I am doing something I love

Love this content.

Maybe you should put a carbon fibre cross guard on the sword & test if a carbon fibre cross guard is viable for weight reduction & catching blades on other blade?

Two ways to get the V shaped cap, you can bend a flat piece to the angle you need or you can mill down an existing piece essentially cutting the groove needed to slot the sword in. If you know anyone who has the tools at home they can easily do it for you, or you can try hitting up a college or school if there are no places that let you rent machines or maker spaces.

Got an idea: 1. Get a steel rectangle for the blade (preferably wider than the ones you are using). 2. Make cuts perpendicular to the longer edge. Length of the cuts should be rather small. 2/3 the planned thickness of the base's (the composite laminate's) should be good length. The blade should resemble a hair comb. 3. Orient the blade so your line of sight goes along the edge (sorry, I have no better words to describe it). 4. Bend every other "fin"/"fishbone" to the left, and the rest to the right. Dont make the bend too agressive. 5. Heat treat. 5. Embed it into the base, with the fins going through the layers of carbon fiber etc. The fins should lock the blades securely, probably more securely than rivets. Preparing the blades and getting the fins to go through the fiberous layers will be a hassle though.

Someday we will have one of this but on graphene.

bellwright is awesome. I own it should for sure give it a try

If you're looking for v-shaped metal edges, you might be able to use some type of standard 90 degree steel edging trim and shape it to fit? I'm unsure how suitable the range of steel types are but it would be readily available and very reasonably priced if it was usable.

I would never fight with a sword that was engineered to be just good enough Number one rule of engineering: Make it good enough to survive the worst case scenario, and then some

This will be nice!

While I love this project Shad, you're doing it wrong. You don't want to build a "carbon fibre sword" - you need to build a COMPOSITE STRUCTURE. In which multiple materials are used to best advantage. You need a steel tang in the lower section so that the blade doesn't snap at the hilt. You need a cutting edge that fits OVER the carbon blade, not inside it. And when it comes to the Titansword, you will need a honeycomb layer within the blade to give rigidity without adding impractical weight. I used to work in aircraft maintenance, I know more about this than you do. And from the comments, there are people here who know a lot more than me. So FFS, READ THE DAMN COMMENTS and reach out to those who can actually make this work. Otherwise you're just wasting your time and money.

That fix right there looks nice and is the best way to solve the problem of the handle breaking off again, minus the bulky bit. In short, the next iteration of the blade gets the strip of metal going from pommel into the blade.

Steel Fabricator based in SEQld here, I would definitely suggest having a skeletal steel structure. You wouldn't increase weight by that much if you design it well (honestly would take 30mins max to design in autodesk) and it's easy to manufacture. CAD, send to laser cutter, then presto, you have your skeleton that you can then layer the carbon fibre and kevlar to. Happy to do the CAD work for you if you need someone

Basically what I’m getting at is this things is realy strong

Both of your ideas are not good. A blade stamped from plate steel, then holes drilled periodically through it to lighten it and allow the resins to penetrate through it will be your cheapest and strongest method.

11:01 What was the surface prep for that blade? It doesn't look like it was prepped for epoxy, the bond failure shows no remaining adhesive. > Adhesive bonding is a chemical process. Bond strength AND longevity depends totally on the chemical bonds (mainly covalent) that are formed that the interface at the time the bond is formed. THERE IS NO MAGIC PRIMER OR ADHESIVE. Every part of the process requires that the process addresses three things: > 1. The surface must be clean and free of contaminants that will inhibit the formation of chemical bonds. Please do not use detergents because surfactants wet the surface well enough to displace the contaminants but they leave a layer of well attached detergent that prevents adequate reaction. > 2. The surface must be chemically active. It is no use applying a primer to a fully oxidized surface. You must remove the existing oxide layer. > 3. you must IMMEDIATELY apply a primer to stabilize the surface. Of fundamental importance that the primer develops a chemical structure that is resistant to hydration. The most common form of bond failure is because the surface of the metal hydrates, for example titanium oxides hydrate to form hydrated oxides and in the process the chemical bonds between the oxides formed during original bonding processes dissociate leading to interfacial failure. The resulting separation at the surface will exhibit a total absence of adhesive… Wearing gloves, sand the area to be bonded with fine sandpaper (or bead blast, but that'll destroy the blade). Then clean in an ultrasonic cleaner with MEK. Then apply primer, *then* glue. Don't just try to glue straight to metal. Even though steel doesn't form oxides as readily as Aluminium or Titanium, it still needs to be thoroughly cleaned with all oxidation removed immediately before glue-up.

I will say it on every carbon fiber sword related video until you guys see it. This project was the very first we saw on Tyranths craftsmanship back in the day if I remember correctly. Also, one of the names you thought of originally was the "tyrant sword" which is very close to Tyranth. As such I believe it would be very fitting to call the finished, huge sword the Tyranth sword, to give Tyranth some well deserved thanks for his hard work and the craftsmanship he brings to the channel, without which this project would simply not be happening. The last time I commented this I got over 800 likes even though I didn't comment close to the videos release, which I believe shows that a lot of viewers agree that Tyranth sword would be a wonderful name for the end goal of this project. I will comment again until you see this Shad :'D

Watched most of this series from the beginning. The thing that I'm kicking myself about right now is realizing just how much this process sounds like building carbon fiber skis. Didn't even think about it until seeing how the blade delaminated from that final strike. I've seen skis do the same thing hitting a rock on a sketchy day on the slopes.

What You want to do to have the blade stay inside is make the blade insert perforated and use carbon rowing to tie it into place. Carbon rowing is like a carbon fiber tape or string, literally the material that the carbon fiber sheets are woven out of. You can then just make regular lacing alternating the rowing strands between blades on both sides of the blade and once that is laced in, you only THEN make the composite on top of the rowing, which will become part of the composite and the blades will be PERMANENTLY stuck in the structure of the composite that will not be going through the perforations in the metal insert. We use metal rowing to "tie in" some parts when making aerospace shells for UAVs, so if it can work in aerospace to survive turbulence etc, it should hold down a strip of metal as well. Just make sure the metal insert does not have sharp edges and does not cut the rowing before you incorporate it into the composite.

It’s 92 degrees Fahrenheit in the Midwest and it’s so refreshing to see a crisp autumn afternoon in Australia

- You don't need rivets. Drill holes in the blades and let the resin become the anchor during the manufacturing process. - 1 mil is too thin for impacts. When the metal deforms due to its thinness, it is causing the layers to delaminate from within. - A V-blade configuration, most likely won't work without rivets due to the moment of the impact the metal will deform the and cause it to delaminate from the composite. On the plus side you could easily double flush rivet the V-blades to a composite core. When riveting through the composite you would need to run a sleeve through the composite to protect the composite from the rivet swelling. - To make your V-Blade, make your composite core blank. Shape the edges to the final angles you would want. Then find your local welding shop and have them clamp 2 pieces of 1 mil steel to the beveled blade area and weld along the apex. - Replace the foam core with more composite plies.

On a future design I would suggest two things. First, The blade should be the full width of the sword, but with honeycomb holes. That would provide side to side strength so blades can't be dislodged. Second, build the carbon fiber up like RC hobbyists do with airplane wings. They first build a form that is the shape of the wing then fill it with the carbon fiber. So, it's the reverse of the way you laid the carbon fiber for this sword.

You might want to reach out to a local machine shop they should be able to mill the blade for you. also love the video wish i could support more.

Outside thoughts. 1. A solid single piece of sheet metal ( spring steel ) With holes drilled in it to allow the liquid to solidify in and through the metal core. This would keep the edge centered during the setting process and you can have a pseudo full tang. This could help with edge alignment and overall stability. 2. Doing a thin second 3-4 mm wide strip from tip to pommel on each side. ( not 100% on where in the layering it would work best but ) this would help avoid the flappy edge and overall structure.

I think a single piece of steel with a thicker center ridge area would be the best option. There would be no risk of the metal coming out. The thicker center ridge would help anchor it into the outer casing of carbon fiber. You will want to put some holes in the metal to allow the resin to flow between the two sides, and allow the outer casing to better hold and not want to separate. The center ridge would also help make the whole thing more stiff as well. I think the center foam core is also not necessary, considering how light for size this thing is already. So with how light this version the sword actually is, you have some room to add weight and not have the added weight be an issue. You should achieve more strength, better rigidity, and still be light weight for the size. Another option is a single thin center piece of steel, holes in it to allow the two halves of the outer carbon fiber to cure to each other. Then create a center ridge of aluminum that extends from the bolted on handle and runs up the blade length for reenforcement. It would make the sword stiffer, and prevent delamination.

I think the best option would be to do a very skeltonised but otherwise full-size one-piece core of very thin water jet cut steel, kind of like a butterfly knife trainer but with carbon fibre slabs.

I would try starting with a metal blank or cutting it out of a sheet of steel, say 2mm thick (if you want to make it thicker) in the shape of the sword. Then mill out or otherwise remove most of the interior save for some braces from edge to edge spaced about 10 cm apart. Drill or otherwise put holes in the interior and texturize the parts of the blade that need to bond with the epoxy, even hitting it with something like a dremal might work if you needed to save money. Then build your layers and see what you get. I'm not a phd in material science or anything, but it struck me that the epoxy would have had a hard time bonding the carbon fiber to the steel without a rougher surface to adhere to. Also having braces across the edge should keep the blade from dislodging like it did in testing. Hoping for the next one, which should be named BTW! 😁

To keep the blades in a bit better, you could try cutting both blades and a web or truss of reinforcement between them (think of a normal sword with large cutouts) out of a single thin sheet of steel using laser or plasma cutting, or maybe even electric discharge machining. That way, the blades can rely on their own tensile strength rather than just the adhesion of the epoxy to the blades.

The look on Shad’s face when he has a sword in his hand and he is looking at it. That hell yeah look. 😂

What about connecting the metal bars/ strips with a wire frame / skeleton sandwiched in the carbon fiber / fiber gas and mabye have a spin of metal with the wire connected to or just have the wire alternating the between the different layers so if one area delaminats it won't all come out and Anchoring mor firmly in the blade. And maybe twist the wire so it gets more rigidity and possibly make the resin grip more to the wire

For the edge retention within the sword try doing a skeletonized edge that connects both sides and is being held in via the lamination and the slabs that are retaining the handle.

Not an engineer, but another idea (I haven't closely followed the build, I apologize)... if the metal insert can be made "one piece" COMPLETELY around the perimeter of the blade (up over the point and back down the other side) so that it's basically like an "outline" of the entire blade (one piece) and goes all the way to the tang end, then by native shape it won't "come out" because it's shaped just like the sword. At the very tang end (if you could even follow the base of the blade, that much better) THERE you could rivet/pin the base of the steel insert at just that one point to keep it wedging out starting at the base, but if it's a single piece shaped just like the blade perimeter, it won't want to come out (but may easily rattle loose, the previous idea in the comments about kevlar weaving through holes, or even just having small holes in the blade that resin could lock into (not the best idea, but something) might further make this stronger. Anyhow, fun to watch!

Great work guys, I'm honestly surprised the carbon sword held up as well as it did with the current design.

Kenshi-style blade design, using advanced space-age materials, science, and design to build a big ass sword. Love it.

The fact that it has a foam core on such a thin cross section is the weak point. Solid carbon fiber with perhaps 90% of the fibers aligned to the blade axis is the right way.

If you want a capped blade (from how I understand it) you could essentially have 2 blade sections welded along the edges in a V and then have those hydraulically pressed onto the carbon fiber blade frame to shape them, then drilling your rivets. I do also support the idea of a separate handle section and only using carbon fiber for the blade and no tang. I have seen some very high precision fine welding machines come out recently so the thinness of the blade should not be an issue for the proper welders. A capped blade would also provide additional support against delaminating as it would have evenly spaced rivets folding the sheets together along with the blades.

If you have someone that can cut the steel for you, you could cut the edges to include triangular truss sections through the whole width of the sword. This would eliminate the need for rivets. You can also change up some of the length, width, direction and resin fill of the carbon fiber until you get the mechanical properties you need for each section of the blade and handle.

instead of long strips you could have the 2 sides connected together like an H and since the plan is to eventually make cutouts and hand holds those H parts could also double as the hand holds but for the current sword it might be possible to find offcuts to bring down the price

for the V edge cladding that you guys would like to have, instead of having 2 pieces of steel join at the edge, you could bend steel sheets (at heat ofc) or even better but more expensive mill segments of the blade then weld or rivet them to the carbon fibre flat, leaving a little more material at the edge so that the inner taper doesnt reach the very edge, there is also the option of metal 3d printing the parts although it would be significantly weaker. I asked chat GPT for some ideas and it gave me some pretty obvious material choices like steel alloys, titanium, aluminium alloys but then there were some interesting ones. polyether ether ketone is a plastic resin material that can be composited with carbon fibre instead of standard resin and could improve the bond with the various materials although it has a melting point of 343*c which would make it slightly harder to composite and work with. Dyneema is a plastic material that could be used instead of kevlar with it having a higher strength to weight ratio than kevlar and used frequently as strong rope material although more expensive. A quite funny idea it had was to ceramic coat the blade to reduce abrasion and wear resistance.

My suggestion would be to get inspiration with the macahuitl and put holes on the blades and stitch them to the carbon fiber with a carbon fiber or similar material cord before the epoxy

Some small pins along the frame of the carbon fiber might be a good idea in the end version, it wont add much weight, but it will hold it together well and help to resist splitting

So a few things I noticed: 1. because the blade is wider greater torque can be exhorted on the longitudinal axis of the blade in a 1:1 ratio. This appears to have been a significant factor in the “explosion” of this prototype. And it seems likely that because of the greatly changed proportions of this prototype and of the titan sword that this and other previously insignificant factors may become significant factors in the functionality, integrity, and/or usage of them. 2. Tyranth’s strikes did not appear to be at a right angle to the blade, which (all angles), in my ignorant opinion, would be a common occurrence in combat. But right angles (and similar) would also be common in combat and would have very different forces involved. So it might be a good idea to test the integrity of future prototypes from various angles. 3. V-shape blades: if you find a manufacturer that will produce 2-4 times as many blades as you need you could try using more, shorter segments. Alternatively you could try metal 3D printing (I can’t remember if this was already considered). But I’m sure you’re way ahead of me on this. Anyways, I’m excited for the next update in the carbon fiber sword series.

you don't need pins or rivets, just use spring steel with a bunch of holes trough it that way the resin can act like a pin, it's going to hold on to the steel better and also makes the edge itself hold together better

I think your best bet is instead of just using thin bits of blade at the edge, use a sort of skeletonized core of flat steel stock. Basically have the outside be the profile of the sword, and the inside just has a few braces going across. Either fill the core with carbon fiber, or the core stuff they used on the current sword. It shouldn't be hard to get the profile and interior shape cut using a water jet or a plasma cutter, though plasma may add to much heat and have adverse affects on steel properties. On the other hand, it may heat it up and actually harden the edge, depending on the plasma cutter settings. I don't know what your budget is on this, but here in America we have a supplier called McMaster Carr, they sell spring steel, and also tool steel, in sheets (thickness from less than half a mm to 3mm or even more) that you could make the core of a sword out of 2-3 sheets for less than $1,000.

This new handle design I think looks so much nicer. The original one with the cross guard didn't look terrible by any means, but this one blows it away imo. Really does make it look and give off "The Future" energy.

you have a single piece of steel cut for the blade part with a few braces through out the structure to keep it from separating. you can even weave the carbon fiber through it as you build it.

To hold the blade in place, you can try to do a kind of a "puzzle piece" protrusions that gets embedded in carbon fiber and epoxy. Should prevent the thing from dislodging..

Perhaps you could make it easy for yourselves and more durable by sandwiching a 1mm spring steel sheet to use as both blade and core between the carbon fibre, kevlar, etc. Then rivet (or whatever) the carbon fibre to and through the steel. So the carbon fibre is more of a body/exoskeleton to give a bit of mass and rigidity to, what is essentially, the razorblade inside 😄 To reduce weight you could strategically honeycomb the steel with holes, which would also allow resin, rivets or whatever to exchange between halves. Cheers guys. Great as always.

hello, engineering student here with top grades. The braced sword against wood could experience a much weaker pressure than if 2 swords (of equal mass) swung against eachother at full swing. this is because they perfectly balance eachothers momentum and come to a dead stop as fast as physically possible. the speed they come to a stop is the same as a perfectly braced sword (yours is not even close).

So essentially you've made a modern day ski. Same idea - use layers of foam, wood, plastic, carbon fiber and metal to achieve a balance of strength, weight and flexibility. It may as well be nice to study different modern ski construction methods to improve upon this idea. Like use something like titanal strips to add strength and so on.

I'll mention it again: I'd try to sew the layers together with kevlar or maybe dyneema or something similar, to avoid delamination. (before the resin) Loved the video!

If you find someone with a blacksmith background they should be able to form a blade with a v on the opposite side of the blade. It should be something a smith could make.

3:11 this is a great mutually benefic sponsor. 11:30-11:40 🤣🤣🤣🤣 the best part of the video. So funny. "It's not halfway, it's a quarter at most!". The great castle is only 20% destroyed right at the defensive wall!! 17:50 "shad later that day" 😂😂😂😂😂😂. 19:25 "cuz it has no pommel, it has nowhere for the vibration to go, so it goes right in your hand" interesting. I didn't know that's what pommels were for. 23:00 "I don't think we're gonna get much information from that" 😂😂.

If you guys ever have the chance it would be amazing to see you guys test the swammer sword-hammer

If you are going to V the blade, heat glowing yellow and bend a wider piece down the middle down the length. Heat glowing yellow and and forge the edge outward. Heat glowing orange or higher and spread the V out to take the carbon fiber. Then heat treat.

i believe the most optimal solution in terms of build quality and price is making an elongated trident and filling it foam and coating it carbon fibre. you essentially get the blade edge made of metal, reinforced core in the centre, and light weight and build strength from carbon fibre.

I'm unsure if the V-shaped metal pieces would work (I would just try wider metal pieces): We've seen that the de-lamination is caused by the metal getting pushed to further down in between the carbon fiber layers. In fact, the cut through the carbon fiber layers being about twice as deep as the cut through the metal tells the story of the de-lamination happening at or before the katana reached that half-depth point. The "slipping through" part of the problem would be solved with a V-shaped blade piece - because the blade piece would sit on top of the carbon fiber, and any force on it would need to crush the resin to dust in order for the blade piece to budge. But the way how the whole blade piece completely pops out after 2-4 strikes tells a different story. There just isn't enough adhesion between the metal and the resin (or not enough contact area). And the V-shaped piece of metal would have the same amount of contact area (carbon fiber sandwiched between two contact faces of metal instead of metal sandwiched between two contact faces of carbon fiber). I think you need *neither thicker* metal pieces (after all, Tyranth only got 1/4 the way through them) *nor differently shaped* metal pieces. I would just use *wider* metal pieces, at least double of what you have, taking you from - what's that? half an inch to one inch / from 1cm to 2-2½. That would not only increase the adhesion area, but also give the metal more resistance against the type of bending that we see at 11:01. Doubling the _thickness_ would only increase the stiffness by a factor of 2 (with no change in adhesion area), while doubling the _width_ would increase the stiffness by a factor of 2³=8. And both increase the resistance of the metal against being gauged/split by other blades by a factor of 2. And finally, against bending in the other direction and twisting only doubling the thickness would significantly help. But we see almost none of that in these tests. The metal is well supported by the carbon fiber (the support against bending is obvious; twisting is something that experiments would need to confirm). 11:06 No wait, this actually does look twisted there... 16:23 And that seemed to just have twisted the composite blade to lay flat on the wooden beam there... (Which is a macroscopic twist, not a twist in the local area of the metal blade, but still...) You know, with the test at 18:59, I would go to twice as tick (so you _hopefully_ limit gauges to less than 1cm in depth) AND twice as wide.

As a mechanical engineer, here's an approach I'd consider. * Design the blade as a "skeleton" structure using sheet steel (laser or waterjet cut) where the entire blade is a single piece with voids between the cross bracing. * Then, use pieces of foam core material and laser cut them into the exact shapes that fit into the voids. * Overlay that with carbon fiber. One challenge with this design would be keeping the carbon bonded to the sides. My experience with carbon fiber is minimal, but I wonder if it would be possible to have holes along the blades that could be used to actually weave some of the fibers through the blade from either side. It might be very tricky to manipulate while constructing the sword, but if the holes are somewhat coarse it might be achievable. A couple more things: * If you use this, the "depth" of the blade section is less important since the adhesion isn't what's holding it in. The cross bracing provides that. You could probably get away with using slightly thicker stock (1.5mm or 2mm) so the core can be thicker. * Instead of foam core, there are panels which are basically honeycomb structures bonded to backing sheets, sometimes called "honeycomb core" or similar. If you can get it to bond well enough, these could be dramatically stronger than simple foam core. They can be very expensive though.

Idea, spring steel sheet with the edges on the outside of course. The inner part you could make look like chain link then reinforced with the composite, that would keep it light but way easier than the v edge you're talking about. If you have 2 to 3 mill link between both edges it'll give it some more mass but not that much. Especially it the sheet is 2 mill thick

I'm impressed. It did not take you guys long to repair and upgrade the handle/hilt. Kudos. It wouldn't be cheating to use a wider one piece blade strip as long as it was only the edge, and the structural part of the blade is carbon fiber. But I get you. It would be expensive to get a solid one piece edge piece cut from one solid thin sheet of steel.

I love your videos, and now i want to see a compiliation of all your destruction tests.