As I've said recently, 2018 has been a year of intense change in my life and my opportunity to be creating with metal has had to take a backseat to the remodeling of my life. That doesn't mean it hasn't been on my mind. I find that even if I can't swing the hammer my self, I get pleasure and inspiration from watching others being creative. Most of this comes in the form of watching other create. I am an avid fan of Forged In Fire (which I greedily consume via Amazon.com) and I subscribe to several channels on YouTube. There is a channel in particular that I want to talk about right now.
Let me set the stage.
One Friday afternoon I found myself in a particularly foul mood, I took up residence in a chair in the living room in full grump-mode. These are not particularly flattering details about myself but it's important to the story plus the more I call these traits out, hopefully the more I will be able to recognize their onset and be able to subvert them. Anyway, Jessie was trying to brighten me up a bit and asked if I wanted to watch a blacksmithing video or something. I responded with a indifferent grumble of syllables so she turned on the TV, pulled up YouTube, did some searching and hit play and I soon found myself watching a guy with a birds-nest of hair and beard grinding on a large plate of metal with an angle grinder while NOT WEARING A SHIRT! Such was my introduction to Michael Cthulhu.
Believe me when I say I have spent more than a few hours removing metal with an angle grinder and the idea of not wearing a shirt during this process is ludicrous. This brazen disregard for everything my previous Safety Coordinator had spent decades pounding into my brain proved to be a worthy opponent to the gloom that had been holding me captive and soon I was fixated on this crazy guy who, it turns out, makes giant swords for people.
In fact, what endears this artist to me is that he does amazing work with what looks like a crazy mix of in various states of ill-repair. While I know from experience what it takes to make videos like the ones he produces, the average viewer is left with an impression of a madman in the woods using scrap metal and cobbled together tools to create beautiful and detailed works of art that happen to be absurdly large swords.
He started off making short "smash" videos using swords he created for customers to destroy various chunks of wood, ice and mannequins, some of which were on fire. These are often quite theatrical and only 3 or 4 minutes long. He then posted a "build" video where he filmed his creative process of laying out and fabricating these swords from scratch which were often over an hour long and discovered people, like me, would watch these as well.
My goal here is obviously to get you to watch a couple videos from Michael and hopefully subscribe to his channel so that when we are together next we can sit and talk excitedly about this build or that. With that in mind I spent some time and picked a couple videos hoping to entice you into checking him out.
A great deal of the swords he builds are from video games so I am quite ignorant about them, however, he did do a build related to something I am at least aware of and have interacted with.
Star Trek
These videos are related to Michael's build of "The Sword of Kahless" which, in Star Trek cannon, was the first bat'leth ever forged. Here is the "Smash" video for this build.
See, wasn't that FUN!!! He used a Sharpie to paint his face like a Klingon! It's a beautiful piece of work. However, to really grasp the level of detail and effort he put into this weapon, you really should check out the build video. It's a little bit longer but it shows just how talented Michael is. He's pretty good about explaining what's happening on the screen at any moment. Also, he has an accent which makes him even easier to watch.
Man, what did I say about detail. All that pattern grinding by hand!!
As I said before, I really connect with how these videos turn out because it reminds me of how I am when I'm working on something. I'm muttering to myself, trying things that sometimes work and sometimes don't. I like the realism of the videos. The Discovery Channel did produce six episodes of a show called "Big Giant Swords" where Michael and a crew of people he assembled built some swords. I have watched clips from the show on YouTube but it just wasn't the same. It seemed too polished and gimmicky. I believe that was cancelled shortly after it was started so now he is back to being his own entity.
It's kinda strange because, as a fabricator/blacksmith, I don't really have a desire to build stuff like this. We are talking about swords that are sometimes over 100 lbs and 6 feet long. I'm not really even into blade-smithing, I just really enjoy watching people being wonderfully creative in whichever medium excites them. Plus some of the skills, tricks and equipment are transferable.This isn't to say that if someone approached me about making a knife or a sword that I would reject the idea right away. I'm more than willing to discuss any idea. I've made knives and at least one Uruk Hai sword for a friend and it was fun but they aren't my main focus. He has started a patreon to help pay for the immense time it takes to make these videos. He has said that most swords take about a month to build and each build video takes about a full work week to edit and assemble. I hope to be able to jump in on that in the near future. Until then I will be waiting eagerly for the next build video to be posted.
