Fine Weapon Making Volume 1 Basics
There is an art and much skill to making weapons that few people see. Sure many people can make crude weapons, but they have no real power. When you have completed reading these volumes I will have passed the wisdom I have gained
| through years of making weapons of varying quality. Each weapon made with this process will have at least one spot where the user can place a gem. This gem will enhance the abilities of the item and allow you to customize it to what you desire.
Many materials are used in
|
|
making weapons, the higher the quality of the material the better the weapon. This includes many types of the ores and pelts used in the making of culturally inspired armor. You will also need the more rare materials that are also used in the culturally inspired armor as these materials help give the
| metal the correct hardness and flexibility combination.
While some will want to go right to creating the weapons, I am going to start with the basics. Certain parts will have to be made separately before you can combine them into a weapon. These include some
|
|
small metal parts, leather parts, and wooden shafts.
To make the barbs, simply file the ore that you plan to use to the shape of a barb and allow it to cool naturally without quenching it after removing it from the forge. For studs, you will use a similar process, but instead you will use a
| smithy hammer to pound it into the proper shape. Finally, for fill you will need to use a smithy hammer to pound it small enough, then a file to break it into the small pieces.
The only leather part you will need is a hilt wrap. These are made from the same animal pelts that
|
|
culturally inspired armor uses. In your sewing kit, carefully cut the leather into strips with hickory handled shears.
You will find that there are many more hafts and staves that you will be required to make. After cutting and planing a normal bow staff into a
| better shape as a haft, you will need to polish it with some spider silk. Sullied silk goes with hickory bow staves, crude silk with elm bow staves, fine silk with ashwood bow staves, superb silk and flawless silk with oak bow staves, and exquisite and immaculate silk with darkwood bow staves. To cut them the
|
|
correct length you can use a knotted measuring string and the cutting tools that come standard in your fletching kit. Two knots for a handle, three knots for a short haft, four for a haft, five for baton and six for a long haft. To make a full sized staff weapon, you do not need to cut the bow staff, but you
| will still need to plane it and polish it like the handles and hafts.
The final sets of items you will need are casting molds. These molds are not recoverable, as you will destroy them on each use, breaking the mold away from the cooled metal. The molds will need silk worked
|
|
into the clay. Each tier of weapon will need increasing quality of silk. There are fourteen different molds. I will go over the details for the unfired step of each mold in the following volume. For firing, you will need a firing sheet for simple and ornate molds, a quality firing sheet for intricate
| and elaborate molds, and a high quality firing sheet for any more advanced molds.
|