Who We Forge For
People buy blades from us for very different reasons, and the same sword is a different object depending on who is holding it. A collector wants a piece that is right. A reenactor needs one that passes an event inspection. A HEMA practitioner cares about weight and balance to within a few ounces. A cosplayer needs presence on stage and a blunt edge to get through the door. A hunter wants something that works in the field and does not care about any of it.
We hold no stock and forge every blade after the order is placed, which means we do not have to sell one object to all of them. What changes between communities is rarely the blade itself — it is the edge, the tip, the fittings and the paperwork. This page sets out what each group actually needs and what we change to meet it.
Everest Forge — Forged to Order
Tell Us What It Is For, Not Just What It Is
The single most useful thing you can put in an order note is the purpose. Display, cutting practice, a specific event, a stage production, a hunt. It changes the edge, the tip and sometimes the fittings, and it costs nothing to specify.
What Actually Changes Between Communities
Before the individual sections, the short version. Four things vary, and the blade profile is usually not one of them.
| Community | What matters most | What we change |
|---|---|---|
| Collectors | Accuracy of form, fittings, provenance of the design | Profile and fittings to a specific reference; sharpened or not, as you prefer |
| Reenactors and living history | Period correctness and passing event inspection | Rebated or blunt edge, rounded tip, period-appropriate fittings |
| HEMA and historical fencing | Weight, balance and handling within a narrow tolerance | Distal taper, pommel mass, grip length, balance point |
| SCA | Meeting the group's published weapon standard | Blunted edge profile, rolled tip, secure fittings |
| Stage combat, theatre and film | Safety at speed, and looking right under lights | Rebated edge ground from the start, rounded tip, peened fittings |
| Cosplay, anime and gaming | Silhouette accuracy and convention rules | Blunt training edge at no extra charge; oversized or fantasy geometry |
| Hunters and outdoors | Toughness, edge that resharpens, sheath that carries | Working edge, robust grind, practical fittings |
| Gardeners and smallholders | Clearing real vegetation without buying a machine | Length matched to the growth; robust working edge; lanyard |
| Campers, hikers and bushcraft | Weight on the belt, and an edge that comes back | Compact lengths, carry-friendly sheath, tough grind |
| Chefs and kitchen use | Durability and character over ultimate sharpness | Kitchen profiles, thinner grinds, food-safe finishes |
| Researchers, museums and teaching | Accurate dimensions and something people may handle | Blunt handling replicas, documented specification |
| Martial artists | Matching a school's specification exactly | Length, weight, balance and edge to your instructor's spec |
| Retailers, wholesalers and dropshippers | Margin, consistency, and a supplier who answers | Wholesale pricing, repeatable specifications, white-label options |
| Content creators and reviewers | Something worth filming, and a maker who answers questions | Product for honest review, custom builds for projects, sponsorship where it fits |
| Gifts and commemorative pieces | Meaning, and getting the engraving right | Engraving, presentation finish, display mounting |
Read the last column. Almost every line is a specification rather than a different product, and almost every one is free to ask for. The blades are the same steel and the same construction throughout — 5160 spring steel, oil quenched and tempered by hand, full tang. What differs is how they are finished for you.
Collectors
The collector's question is not "is it good" but "is it right". A piece that is beautifully made and typologically wrong is worth less than a plain one that is correct, and anyone serious knows it within seconds of picking it up.
What we can do that a reseller cannot is build to a reference. Send a museum photograph, an auction listing, a line drawing or a written description with dimensions, and we confirm profile, tip geometry, distal taper, grip and fittings before anything is forged. If the reference calls for a length or a hilt configuration that is not in our catalogue, that is a specification rather than a problem.
What we will not do is claim more than is true. We forge in mono-steel 5160 and we do not pattern-weld, so a reproduction of a laminated blade is accurate in form and not in construction — and we say so rather than selling you a look. Our guides to pommel types and guard types exist because collectors ask these questions and deserve real answers.
Reenactors and Living History
Reenactment has the hardest constraint on this page, because it is not about preference — it is about whether a marshal lets you on the field.
Most groups publish a weapon standard, and it will specify edge treatment, tip profile and often fitting security. The commonest requirements are a rebated or blunt edge and a rounded or spatulate tip. Some groups also require that fittings be peened rather than threaded, on the reasonable grounds that a peened assembly cannot be loosened by accident.
Send us the standard, not a summary of it. Groups word these documents precisely and the difference between "blunt" and "rebated to 2 mm" matters. A blade ground rebated from the start is a different object from a sharpened blade with the edge taken off afterwards, and only one of them looks right to an experienced marshal.
Period correctness matters here too, and we are happy to be told we have it wrong. If the fittings on a pattern are a century out for your impression, say so and we will change them.
HEMA and Historical Fencing
HEMA practitioners are the most demanding customers we have, in the best sense. They know what a sword should weigh, where it should balance, and how quickly it should recover — and they can tell within three cuts whether it does.
The variables that matter are distal taper, pommel mass and grip length, and all three are things we set rather than discover. Tell us the point of balance you want and we work backward to the pommel weight, rather than forging a blade and reporting where it happens to balance. Our sword balance guide sets out what those numbers do in the hand.
Be honest with us about intended use, because it changes the build. A blade for cutting tatami and a blade for sparring against another blade are heat treated toward different priorities — one toward edge retention, the other toward toughness, because a blade hard enough to hold a fine edge indefinitely is a blade that chips when steel lands on it. We will ask, and the answer changes what we do.
For paired work, the parrying dagger should be sized to the sword rather than chosen separately. Send both blade lengths.
SCA
The SCA publishes its own standards and they are stricter than most people expect, particularly on tip profile and on anything that could come apart under load.
The practical approach is the same as reenactment: send the document. We would rather read the actual rule than work from a description of it, because these standards are written carefully and paraphrasing them loses exactly the detail that gets a piece rejected at inspection.
Typical requirements we build to are a blunted edge profile and a rolled tip, with fittings secured so that nothing works loose. None of that costs extra — it is a specification.
Stage Combat, Theatre and Film
Stage work has a requirement none of the other communities share: the blade has to be safe when two people are moving fast and one of them is being watched by an audience.
That means a rebated edge ground that way from the beginning, a rounded tip, and fittings that will not loosen through a run of performances. It also means the piece has to read correctly from twenty metres under stage lighting, which is a different visual problem from looking right in the hand.
We have written about this in some depth, because the failure modes are specific and worth understanding: our stage combat blades page covers the standard, and there are companion pieces on why stage combat swords fail and how to inspect one before a run.
One honest note for production budgets: a blade used eight shows a week needs inspecting on a schedule, and no maker can supply something that never needs checking. Build the inspection into the plan.
Cosplay, Anime and Gaming
This is our fastest-growing group and it has two requirements that pull against each other: the silhouette has to be exactly right, and the piece has to get past convention security.
On the first, we work from screenshots, concept art, sketches or a written description, and we will tell you honestly which parts of a design can be forged in steel and which cannot. Fantasy geometry that ignores how metal behaves is common in games, and there is usually a version that keeps the silhouette while being a real object. Our custom anime weapons page is the place to start a request.
On the second: a blunt training edge is free. Ask for it. Every convention has its own rules and many require blades to be unsharpened or peace-tied, and it costs you nothing to specify at the point of order rather than discovering the problem at the door.
If the piece is going to be carried all day at a convention, tell us — weight matters far more than most cosplayers expect, and an oversized blade that looks correct in photographs can be genuinely unpleasant after six hours.
Hunters and Outdoors
The outdoors group cares about none of the above, which is refreshing. What matters is that the edge takes abuse and comes back, the handle stays secure when wet, and the sheath actually carries.
Everything we make is 5160 spring steel reclaimed from leaf springs, which is chosen for exactly this: toughness and fatigue resistance rather than maximum hardness. It will not hold a razor edge as long as a hard powder steel, and it will survive things that would chip one. That is the trade and we think it is the right one for field use.
Our knife size guide covers choosing a length by use, and the kukri and khukuri range is worth a look for anyone processing wood — the forward cant does more work than length does.
Gardeners and Smallholders
A surprising share of our machetes and kukris go to people clearing land rather than to collectors, and it is the group most often sold the wrong thing.
The mistake is buying for the photograph. Long machetes look impressive and catch on the very vegetation you are cutting; dense growth is cleared faster with a shorter blade, and the machete you can actually swing all afternoon beats the one that tires your arm in twenty minutes. Our machete size guide matches length to what you are actually cutting.
Tell us the vegetation and the ground. Bramble and vine want something different from standing cane, and woody growth is a job for a kukri rather than a machete at all. Ask for a lanyard hole on anything over about 16 inches — on a long blade that is a safety feature, not an accessory.
Campers, Hikers and Bushcraft
The constraint here is what you are willing to carry, and it is stricter than most people admit when ordering.
A blade that annoys you on day one gets left at home by day ten, so weight and sheath comfort matter more than any specification on the page. Four to six inches covers almost everything a camp needs — carving, food, cordage, splitting small wood — and past six inches you are carrying a chopper that a small axe would do better. Our knife size guide works through it by use.
Our steel suits this well and it is worth saying why. 5160 is chosen for toughness rather than maximum hardness, so it will not hold a razor edge as long as a hard powder steel and it will survive things that would chip one. In the field, where you sharpen with what you have and hit the occasional buried stone, that is the right trade.
Chefs and Kitchen Use
We forge chef and kitchen knives, and this is the section where we have to be most careful about what we promise.
A thin, hard, high-ground production knife will out-slice a forged 5160 blade, and no amount of hand work changes that — it is geometry and hardness, not craftsmanship. If pure slicing performance is the whole requirement, buy for slicing.
What a hand-forged kitchen knife gives you instead is durability and character: a blade that shrugs off the treatment that chips a hard thin one, that takes an edge back easily on a simple stone rather than needing specialist equipment, and that can be re-handled and re-ground for decades rather than replaced. For a working kitchen where knives get used hard by more than one pair of hands, that is a real argument. For a precision slicer, it is not, and we would rather say so.
Tell us what you cook. A blade for breaking down whole fish is not the blade for vegetable prep, and grind and profile change accordingly.
Researchers, Museums and Teaching
This is a small group with a requirement nobody else on this page shares: they need objects people are allowed to touch.
A museum cannot hand an original around a seminar room, and a photograph does not teach anyone what a sword weighs or where it wants to move. Accurate handling replicas solve that, and the specification is unusual — correct dimensions, correct mass and balance, blunt edges and rounded tips, and a written record of what the piece is based on and where it departs from the original.
We are comfortable with that last part and it is the reason to come to us rather than to a decorative supplier. Where our construction differs from the historical original — most often because we forge mono-steel rather than laminated blades — we state it plainly rather than leaving a student to assume otherwise. A teaching replica that misrepresents itself is worse than no replica.
If you are working from a specific find, send the excavation report or catalogue entry. We would rather build from the source than from a photograph of it.
Martial Artists
If your school has a specification, send it. Length, weight, balance point, edge treatment, sometimes fitting style — these are usually written down, and working from the document is far more reliable than working from a description.
Where a school does not specify, ask your instructor before ordering rather than after. We can build to almost any set of numbers, but we cannot know which numbers your tradition uses, and a blade that is wrong for a school is wrong however well it is made.
Retailers, Wholesalers and Dropshippers
If you sell blades rather than buy them, we supply on wholesale terms. That covers established retailers, online stores, market and event traders, martial arts and reenactment suppliers, and dropshippers who never touch the stock.
Forging to order works differently for a reseller, and it works in your favour more than you might expect. There is no minimum you have to warehouse and no dead stock in a size or finish that turned out not to sell. There is also no shelf to pick from, so lead times are real and have to be built into what you promise your own customers. That is the trade, and it is worth understanding before you commit rather than after.
What we can do for a trade account that we cannot do for a single order: hold a specification so repeat batches match, quote on volume, and produce to your own spec rather than only from the catalogue. If you want a pattern nobody else stocks, that is a conversation worth having — an exclusive line is more valuable to a retailer than a discount on something twelve other sites also carry.
Two things we will be straight about. We are a forge of around ten smiths, so capacity is finite and we would rather turn down volume we cannot deliver than miss your dates. And every blade is hand-made, which means pieces vary slightly within a specification — if your customers expect machine-identical units, hand-forging is the wrong supply chain for you.
Wholesale and trade enquiries →
Content Creators and Reviewers
If you make blade content — reviews, forging and making videos, HEMA or bushcraft channels, cosplay builds, historical or collecting content — we would like to hear from you.
We sponsor products. Depending on the project that can mean a piece sent for review, a custom blade forged to your specification for a specific video or build, or a collaboration where we make something for a series. We also answer technical questions from creators whether or not there is a product involved, because a channel getting the metallurgy right is worth more to us than a mention.
Two things we ask, and both are non-negotiable.
Your review stays yours. We do not ask for approval over a script, we do not ask you to remove criticism, and we would genuinely rather you said a piece was wrong for your use than pretend otherwise. A channel that only praises its sponsors is worth nothing to its audience or to us. If the blade is not right for what you do, say so — that is useful to your viewers and it is useful to us.
Disclose the relationship. Gifted and sponsored products have to be declared under advertising rules in most countries — the FTC in the United States, the ASA in the United Kingdom, the ACCC in Australia, and equivalents elsewhere. Follow whatever applies where you are. We will never ask you not to.
Be aware that we are a small forge with around ten smiths and everything is made to order, so we cannot say yes to everyone and lead times are real. Tell us what you are making, roughly when you need it, and where it will be published, and we will give you a straight answer either way.
Contact us about a collaboration →
Gifts and Commemorative Pieces
A commissioned blade for a retirement, a wedding, a milestone or a service record is one of the few gifts that genuinely lasts, and it is a category where getting the details right matters more than anywhere else.
Engraving is where most of the risk sits. Check spellings, dates and any heraldry carefully at the approval stage, because an engraved blade cannot be undone or resold — our guide to engraving a family crest or coat of arms covers what can be done and, importantly, what claims about family arms are worth checking first.
Allow more time than you think. Engraving adds a design conversation before forging rather than after, so if the piece is for a fixed date, work backwards from it.
What We Say No To
Being clear about this is part of being useful.
We do not forge pattern-welded or Damascus blades — everything is mono-steel 5160, by choice, and we will not etch a pattern onto monosteel and call it lamination. We do not make phurbas, which are consecrated ritual implements rather than weapons. We will not build a piece to a specification we think is unsafe, and we will say so rather than taking the order. And where a design genuinely cannot be forged as drawn, we will tell you what is possible instead of promising and disappointing.
If what you need is outside what we do, we would rather point you elsewhere than sell you an approximation.
Everest Forge — Hand-Forged in Nepal
One Forge, Many Purposes
Every blade is forged after the order is placed by kami blacksmiths in Kathmandu, from 5160 spring steel, oil quenched and tempered by hand. Tell us what it is for and we will build it for that, not for an average of everyone.
Explore More
> Battle Ready | The Everest Forge Standard
> Request Custom Forge | Built to Your Specification
> Build Your Own Blade | Configure Length, Grip and Finish
> Stage Combat Blades | Rebated Edges and Event Standards
> Training Blades | Blunt Swords, Kukris and Machetes
> Custom Anime Weapons | Cosplay, Gaming and Fantasy Designs
> Personalised Blades | Engraving and Commemorative Pieces
> How Big a Blade Do You Actually Need? | The Size Guide
> Wholesale & Trade | Retailers, Stores and Dropshippers
> Blade Finder Quiz | Not Sure Which Type Yet?
Frequently Asked Questions
Do you charge extra for a blunt or rebated edge?
No. Edge treatment is a specification rather than an upgrade, and a blunt training edge costs nothing extra. Ask for it at the point of order. It is far easier to grind a blade rebated from the start than to take the edge off a sharpened one afterwards, and the result looks correct rather than improvised.
Can you build to my reenactment group's weapon standard?
Yes, and we would rather read the actual document than a summary. Groups word these standards precisely, and the difference between "blunt" and a specified rebate thickness matters at inspection. Send the standard with your enquiry and we will confirm before forging whether we can meet it.
Can you match a specific weight and balance point?
Yes. Tell us the point of balance you want and we work backward to the pommel mass, rather than forging a blade and reporting where it happens to balance. Distal taper, pommel weight and grip length are all things we set deliberately. This is the most common HEMA request and it is a specification, not a special order.
Will my blade pass convention security?
That depends on the convention, and rules vary widely. Most that restrict blades require them to be unsharpened, peace-tied, or both. We supply a blunt training edge at no extra charge on any piece — ask for it when you order. Check your event's published policy, since we cannot know it and it changes year to year.
Can you reproduce a specific historical piece from a museum photograph?
Yes. Send the photograph, an auction listing, a line drawing or a written description with dimensions. We confirm profile, tip geometry, distal taper, grip and fittings before forging. Where a reproduction differs from the original — most often in construction rather than form — we tell you plainly rather than letting you assume otherwise.
What can you not make?
Pattern-welded or Damascus blades, because we forge mono-steel 5160 by choice and will not etch a pattern onto monosteel and call it lamination. Phurbas, which are consecrated ritual implements rather than weapons. And anything we consider unsafe as specified. If what you need is outside what we do, we will say so rather than sell you an approximation.
Do you make blades for film and theatre productions?
Yes. Stage work needs a rebated edge ground that way from the start, a rounded tip and fittings that survive a run of performances, and the piece also has to read correctly from a distance under lights. Tell us the production and the choreography distance if you know it. Build a regular inspection schedule into your plan — no blade in daily use should go unchecked.
Are your kitchen knives as sharp as a Japanese chef's knife?
No, and we would rather say so. A thin, hard, high-ground production knife will out-slice a forged 5160 blade — that is geometry and hardness rather than craftsmanship. What a hand-forged kitchen knife gives you is durability: it shrugs off treatment that chips a hard thin blade, takes an edge back on a simple stone, and can be re-handled and re-ground for decades. Buy it for a working kitchen, not as a precision slicer.
Can you make accurate handling replicas for teaching or museum use?
Yes, and it is a specification we enjoy. Correct dimensions, correct mass and balance, blunt edges and rounded tips, with a written record of what the piece is based on and where it departs from the original. Where our construction differs from the historical piece — usually because we forge mono-steel rather than laminated blades — we state it plainly rather than letting a student assume otherwise.
Do you offer wholesale or dropshipping?
Yes. We supply retailers, online stores, event traders, martial arts and reenactment suppliers, and dropshippers. Because we forge to order there is no stock you have to warehouse and no dead inventory, but lead times are real and need building into what you promise your own customers. We can hold a specification so repeat batches match, quote on volume, and produce to your own spec rather than only from the catalogue.
Can you make an exclusive product line for my store?
Yes, and it is usually a better arrangement than a discount. A pattern nobody else stocks is worth more to a retailer than a lower price on something twelve other sites also carry. Send us the concept or a reference and we will quote it. Bear in mind we are a forge of around ten smiths, so capacity is finite and we would rather decline volume we cannot deliver than miss your dates.
Do you sponsor YouTubers and content creators?
Yes. Depending on the project that can mean a piece sent for review, a custom blade forged for a specific video or build, or a collaboration on a series. We ask two things: that the review stays yours, including any criticism, and that you disclose the relationship under whatever advertising rules apply where you are. We are a small forge and everything is made to order, so we cannot say yes to everyone — tell us what you are making, when you need it and where it will be published, and we will answer either way.
What is the most useful thing to put in an order note?
What the blade is for. Display, cutting practice, a named event, a stage production, a hunt, a gift. That single line changes the edge, the tip and sometimes the fittings, and it costs nothing to specify. It is more useful to us than any other detail you can give.