How long does it actually take to forge a sword?

There are countless scenes in games where weapons are forged or tempered. But usually either the screen blacks out, the smith tells you to "come back later," or the weapon just appears in front of your eyes in seconds.


I read something about tempering taking anywhere from "a few minutes to a few hours," but what about forging?

In real life,It takes days

It looks like good swordsmiths can take 1 month to make a good sword.

Wow, I see. Thanks!


Is the bit about tempering correct? Also, what can be done about rust? For example, in Secret of Mana, you take the rusty Mana Sword to Watts, and you hear a few pings with his hammer followed by him dumping stuff in the trash a few times. Is this anything like the actual process (I mean, I'm sure it's much longer and more intensive, but still)?

it depends on the quality of the sword, and also the materials used (better materials = more time needed for them to have full effect).


Simple iron swords might be done in a few hours, but they won't stay sharp long.


High quality, multiple-folded swords will need a master smith several months of work...

I think a master swordsmith could reforge the blade, but unless the metal is literally not available (mithril anyone?) I don't know what advantage it would be to making a fresh sword out of fresh material.   

The reason:  the process is very much the same to "reforge" a blade as to make a new one.  

It can take anywhere from a few days - a few months.

Depending on the type of sword you are making.

Thanks everyone for your answers.


Can someone elaborate on the process of reforging? How would that deal with rust?

When you are forging or re-forging a blade, you are heating it to several thousand degrees (otherwise the metal could not be shaped).  That heat is sufficient to break the chemical bond between iron and the oxygen which together make up rust.    According to http://chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/5035/chemical-methods-to-extract-oxygen-from-rust this happens around 1000 degrees or so.

Thanks so much, this has been very enlightening. :)

I think common swords were mass produced and done quickly.


Your typical soldier in an army wasn't expected to survive that much anyway if it was something like militia or hardly got to train before entering to his first real battle.


Still offering such sword to someone rich or king would probably have been seen as an insult.


I know this might be a bit derailing but I felt that it should be pointed out.

Mass production of swords before the modern era, really only existed in China(they had to figure out a way to arm hundreds of thousands of people, at any given time, and they were always mass recruiting people, so they were in constant need of weapons.

Everywhere else, if someone couldn't afford a sword, they would just use cheaper weapons(Spears, axes, Flails/maces, bows, ect).

Sword Forging!!! I love doing that here's a pic for proof (and not really to show off because i not good, the guy next to me is though! )

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151095138552471&set=t.582780673&type=3&theater

and to answer the question the time varie depending if you want something shiny and also if you got either good arm endurance of power tools

In either cases to make a rough sword it'll take you about 3-5 day of constant hammering, if you got something as magical as a power hammer you can cut that to a tenth.

If you want something super good looking, fancy and usable, it'll take, by hand about 1 week if you're experienced and maybe two days with power tools.

Back in the days sword were not really made to last but most to equip a huge amount of manpower so even if you were good at fighting you would hope to have a decent sword that would not break on first impact.

For rust, it's not that complicated, you can mostly brush it away with sand paper or some kind of metal brush but if it's too rusty, don't even bother, you're metal is going to be porous and will become very fragile.

In secret of mana we're talking about a SUPER AWESOME MAGICAL BLADE OF AWSOMNESS, we don't really have that today...well thats not really true.

There's 2 kinds of blade that can withstand the test of time, 1 a katana made with really good tamahagane (it's a kind of metal, either look it up or read the manga "the sacred blacksmith" for more info)

and 2 the viking sword called Ulfberht, a sword that is considered on par with the katana for it's durability and incredible craftsmanship, vikings were the bawses.

Anyway hope this helps