I used to make fire swords as one big piece of metal covered in material which was then covered by wire. This instructable shows you how to go about it so that the flame illuminates your actual sword. For this instructable, I used machetes you can get at Harbor Freight for about $5.00. All in all, you'll need 4 machetes, a hand drill, a 1/4 inch COBALT drill bit - most other types won't work, and they didn't have titanium bits in that size, A DRILL PRESS AND LOTS OF PATIENCE, a dremel with a cutting wheel attachment. welding blanket, and some nuts and bolts for each hole you make on your fire swords.

Step 1: Disassembling the Machetes

Normally, I would suggest using sheet metal, as it's way easier to drill through, but I liked the handles on these little guys, so I figured why not. Here's the easiest part - take out the screws from the handles, and set the handles aside for later use. Make a mental not of where the hilt of the handle comes to on the machete.

Step 2: The Lovely Drill Press

Now's the time: take that big hunk of metal and lay it on a block of wood under a drill press, again, using the Cobalt drill bit, or anything harder than that. I put 5 holes from the tip to about 4 inches above the handle, in order to keep the flame away from my hand just a bit. If you don't go slow, you will snap your drill bit in half.

Step 3: The Dremel

Stick your finished piece of machete in a vice, then use a dremel with a metal cutting wheel attachment and fix up that hole, cutting off any extra bits that are not necessary. Sorry for the pictures being dark, it was taken by my cell hpone, in my garage. Wear goggles when you cut with the dremel, btw.

Step 4: Assembling Your Swords

Like the title says, wrap a 2-3 inch section of welding blanket that travels the distance of the holes drilled for every machete. You want a little bit of your material (welding blanket, Kevlar, heavy duty canvas, etc.) to come out a little bit (bout a centimeter) from your sword's edge. Yeah, remember that when these babies are soaked, their weight increases based on the amount of material present, so think about that before making the whole think look like an Italian beef sandwich. Then you will take another machete and put it over the first one, so that they are perfectly even (you should also have the mind to put the first one on top of the second one when you drill, so that the holes match up.

Now, bolt the swords together and tighten each nut so that there is no movement (you'll have to retighten them after each time that you spin. I'll post fire spinning photos once I get them. So, that's it on all this. Cool new way about making swords, but yeah, lots of exposed metal, not to mention the sword itself...the cool thing is though that these are fully capable combative swords