A Tiny Sword from Nails

No, that’s not a plastic drink stirrer you see in the picture above, it’s an actual metal sword made from two nails. If you have some simple tools, like an anvil and hand drill, this sword takes the prize for best awesomeness-to-cost ratio.

If you watch the video below, you might be confused by the first few steps, where a small hole is drilled into a fairly large nail, and the bottom is then filed using the drill as a mini-lathe. As revealed later in the video, the bottom has been cleverly shaped into a tiny round hand grip, and the hole is meant for a smaller nail to be inserted. This small nail is then bent and beaten into a clever cross guard. Prior to this, the top part of the nail is heated, then beaten and polished, into the cutting (stirring?) surface.

Given the amount of foresight this tiny project involved, I would guess that several attempts were made before perfecting the process. I’m sure I would have simply started shaping the end into something sharp-looking before thinking about how to add a nice cross guard. Maybe that’s how light sabers originated. Given the new movie trailer, apparently that “problem” has now been fixed!