I was going through youtube a couple of days ago and I had two links come up on my recommended vids section on the front page.
Well I was pretty damn impressed and in the case of Man at Arms filled with unholy want.
Tony Swatton has made movie, video game and anime weapons. I really enjoyed watching the build process and I am really impressed.
Next up is Smooth McGroove who does Video Game music acapella style, and this guy is incredible.
I thought a lot of the people on the forum would like these videos.

Oh, I recognize that guy -- he was the blacksmith who reproduced the "+ulfberh+t" sword for the NOVA/National Geographic show "Secrets of the Viking Sword". (Great show, btw, and demonstrates that the cheap knockoff with the obvious fake name -- like Sony/Somy -- is not anywhere close to a modern idea.)

And I just got done watching the "Sokka's Meteor Sword" vid. Cool. I'm going to have to watch the rest of these later. Thanks for the heads up!

-- Bob
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My race is pacifist and does not believe in war. We kill only out of personal spite.

>Oh, I recognize that guy -- he was the blacksmith who reproduced the
>"+ulfberh+t" sword for the NOVA/National Geographic show
>Secrets of the Viking Sword".
>(Great show, btw, and demonstrates that the cheap knockoff
>with the obvious fake name -- like Sony/Somy -- is not anywhere
>close to a modern idea.)

Noooo...? No, the guy in the Viking Sword show is Richard Furrer. The guy in the Man at Arms vids is Tony Swatton.

Just as a note, both shows/vids are quite interesting.
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Gott's Leetle Feesh in Trousers!

>Noooo...? No, the guy in the Viking Sword show is
>Richard >Furrer>. The guy in the Man at Arms vids is
>Tony Swatton.

Ah, my mistake. Blame my malfunctioning memory and having no time to rewatch the Viking Sword (as I'm at work) to make sure I was right.

-- Bob
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My race is pacifist and does not believe in war. We kill only out of personal spite.

I've lost a bit of interest in Man At Arms since it seems half of his builds are "I cut the blade from 0.25 inch steel using a template, polished it up, and put an edge on it".

But he has done some nice pieces...

>I've lost a bit of interest in Man At Arms since it seems half of his
>builds are "I cut the blade from 0.25 inch steel using a template,
>polished it up, and put an edge on it".
>
>But he has done some nice pieces...

I really have to agree. I mean, in all honesty, that comment he makes in the beginning, about having worked on X number of movies? All that mean is that he's, more or less, mass-produced things meant to look somewhat sword-like, as far as I translate it. If he'd actually make a sword from 'scratch', as it were, instead of pound and grind a piece of cut-out steel plate, it'd be much more interesting.
Not to mention the 'weld on a tang' which makes he cringe when I hear it, having seen just such a thing go from the wielder being in midst of an exhibition to being left with the hilt in his hand, the rest of the sword suddenly being more akin to a spear...or weird manga-type missile. With a crowd of onlookers that suddenly and VERY urgently was caught in the need of MOVE AWAY!

Still, he has indeed made some nice pieces.

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Gott's Leetle Feesh in Trousers!

Yeah, the weld on a tang thing makes me cringe as well. You'd think having a rat tail tang at the least wouldn't add all that much time considering what he's doing, still I think a lot of the welded tang incidents are mass produced/shoddy workmanship/people who don't know what they're doing related.

Belated, but...
I've now watched pretty much every episode of Man at Arms, both the old and the new, and I have come to the conclusion that,
Tony Swatton is a clueless, talentless hack with absolutely no place in the business he is in, and he should, for the good of blacksmithing in general and bladesmithing in particular, be forbidden from working in the profession and EVER appearing in any video where he does any more than stand around looking stupid, if that.

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Gott's Leetle Feesh in Trousers!

>Belated, but...
>I've now watched pretty much every episode of Man at Arms, both the
>old and the new, and I have come to the conclusion that,
>Tony Swatton is a clueless, talentless hack with absolutely no place
>in the business he is in

Gosh.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>Gosh.

Unfortunately, that's not even harsh. The number of things that he he says and does is...there is not really even words.

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Gott's Leetle Feesh in Trousers!

Reforged (the newer episodes) are much more interesting to watch. They actually FORGE stuff, instead of making the equivalent of cardboard cutouts.

Indeed. While I do have a number of quibbles with them, too, they mostly originate from their site rather than the videos, which are quite impressive, particularly the latest one, with Narsil, where they do all the work truly oldschool, no modern machinery or equipment.

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Gott's Leetle Feesh in Trousers!

>Belated, but...
>I've now watched pretty much every episode of Man at Arms, both the
>old and the new, and I have come to the conclusion that,
>Tony Swatton is a clueless, talentless hack with absolutely no place
>in the business he is in, and he should, for the good of blacksmithing
>in general and bladesmithing in particular, be forbidden from working
>in the profession and EVER appearing in any video where he does any
>more than stand around looking stupid, if that.
>

Yeah, he's neither a blacksmith nor a bladesmith.

He's a prop fabricator. He makes pretty stuff that wouldn't survive the first parry, and is probably duller than a baseball bat.

I haven't watched his videos - does he pretend that he's doing anything more than Making Pretty Stuff?

Peter Eng
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Insert humorous comment here.

LAST EDITED ON Jun-09-15 AT 12:21 PM (EDT)
 
>I haven't watched his videos - does he pretend that he's doing
>anything more than Making Pretty Stuff?

Oh, yes. Every video starts with "I've been a blacksmith armorer for 30 years".
Even if he then continues with "I've made weapons for over 200 feature films", which then I take as an admittance that he's a glorified propmaker.

The thing that gets me, though, is that even a PROPMAKER, if he knows the area that he makes props in, wouldn't say and do the sort of idiotic things he does.

Beyond this, he is utterly lazy and incompetent in quite a few of the videos, making things, and being OH so proud, of something that looks like hacked-together shit that not even an apprentice would be satisfied with.

As an example of what he seems to be satisfied with letting out there:
Ugly-ass piece Be warned, large pic.

EDIT:To add an example

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Gott's Leetle Feesh in Trousers!

He's quite fond of using rivets where there should be none. I wanted to strangle him over that POS Elucidator knockoff.

Wow, that's specific. I generally want to strangle him, period. But yes, I have to agree that that is a fairly hideous thing. Not to mention that he admits to fucking it up during...construction? Can't really say that he forges much of anything, despite their claims. So, during construction, so he decides to weld on an extension of the tang. Because that's not a dangerous thing to do, oh no.

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Gott's Leetle Feesh in Trousers!

The fuck did he do to that shield, fire a rocket launcher at it? You'd be pissed off with that if you got it as starting gear in an MMO.

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"She's old, she's lame, she's barren too, // "She's not worth feed or hay, // "But I'll give her this," - he blew smoke at me - // "She was something in her day." -- Garnet Rogers, Small Victory

FiMFiction.net: we might accept blatant porn involving the cast of My Little Pony but as God is my witness we have standards.

I'd be pissed off if anyone tried to GIVE me that thing. Gods, it's hideous!

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Gott's Leetle Feesh in Trousers!

IHNTA, just that when I see this thread title, I keep expecting it to be about a collaboration between this guy:

and this guy.

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"Mathematics brought rigor to economics. Unfortunately, it also brought mortis."
- Kenneth Boulding

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