The art of sword making is ancient.  From raw materials different forms of weapons and armor emerge.  Fortunately Jim does not have to start with raw metal.  He uses coil springs from cars.  These springs are usually 1065 high carbon steel and are easy to work with and inexpensive.  From the average coil, you can get 3-4 swords and they only cost about 10$ each.  Once these have been in a car, the internal latice structure gets fractured up so these MUST be throughly worked in the forge before they make good knifes.  Start by straightening the coil out and then cutting the straightened metal into parts, one for each knife blade.  Then he goes the length of the metal heating it up very hot and creating a long square metal piece.

After this you heat it up very hot and let it cool down slowly, this is called annealing and makes the metal even throughout.  Jim is then ready to beat out the tang on the end.  This is where the sword handle will go.  Once the tang is done, he goes down the whole length of the metal making a bevel on both sides (for a two edged sword) making sure that he works both sides evenly.  He has to make sure not to beat to much in one spot otherwise that area gets very tough and unworkable and you'll have to anneal the blade again.  After a lot of effort, he gets a rough blade.

Whitesmithing  (files and grinding)

This blade is far from done, it requires grinding, sanding and polishing.  He also adds a blood letter (grove down the middle) which helps make the sword lighter and detective notches and marks.  Then the sword is ready to be tempered.  This is a process where the sword is hardened by heating up hot, cooling it quick and then reheating it.  This is where the sword is either made or broke.

We have come to the part of the sword that seems to take the longest (from a wifes point of view).  The creation of the guard, handle and pommel.  Jim creates these by taking solid blocks of metal (brass, stainless, steel, wood, stone, etc) and hand working them into detailed arts pieces.  Band saw to blow-torch to hand file to sanding to smaller files to needle files to polishing.  He also embeds semi-precious/precious stones into the handle. That part takes the most effort / time and the design usually goes through several cycles before it finishes.