Whilst clearing out an old shed I came across a very rusty and crusty sword, I could not resist the urge to see if it would clean up, at the outset I should say that this is one of the hardest items to photograph but I have done my best :)

Supplies

The only supplies for the sword were emery cloth and polish, tools used were die grinder, whetstone, oilstone and elbow grease.

Other "supplies" would come later as the clean up turned into a major project :)

Step 1: Grinding and Polishing

This sword is nothing special, it is very basic and relatively plain so I had no worries about attacking it aggressively!

A die grinder was used to remove the worst of the crustiness from the hand guard and blade, then coarse emery, finer emery and finally for the blade an oilstone to get a nice shine. That could have been the end of it but then this happened......

Step 2: The Hand Guard Gets Replaced

I was cruising around eBay listings and came across a seller who was clearing out the workshop of a master cutler and amongst his listings were a number of sword-related items including a bronze hand guard. I bid and won it for a song!

Step 3: Side Hinge

The new hand guard is the type with a hinged piece so that the sword hangs better in the scabbard, I set to to make the parts.

Starting point was a brass door hinge, the pin was knocked out to separate the two plates then followed a lot of cutting to size. The flap was made from a piece of brass sheet and a length of square brass was bent to shape which was silver soldered in place, this assembly was pickled in acid to clean it up.

The hinge parts were then soft soldered to the flap and the guard ready for assembly.

Step 4: Assembly

The hinge pin was slipped into place and the hand guard was assembled onto the sword

Step 5: Scabbard Part One

The sword looked naked hanging in a baldric with no scabbard, remember the ebay seller with sword parts? Well he was also selling the belt hangers for a scabbard which were bid upon and won.

The sheath started life as a length of plastic conduit that was heated with a hot air gun and flattened to the right shape to fit the top belt hanger. The tube was then slit and a piece cut out to taper it down in the same manner as the sword blade. The plastic was then taped together and glued with super glue and filled with JB weld to smooth it off.

Step 6: The Drag

The only piece of scabbard furniture I could not find was the piece for the very bottom called the drag (it protects the scabbard should it drag on the ground). Mine was made from a piece of brass tube, slit and reshaped to a taper, a piece of brass sheet was cut to shape and soft soldered onto the reshaped tube.

Step 7: Scabbard Part Two

Scabbards are usually leather bound... so I went for sticky-backed plastic, this was cut to size and carefully wrapped around the scabbard with the join on the underside where it would not be seen.

Lastly the belt hangers and drag were glued in place.