Swords are cool*.
You know what’s even cooler than fictional swords? People who forge awesome fictional swords – like Final Fantasy VII’s Buster Sword – in real life.
The Sword and the Stone team, better known to the interwebs as Man At Arms on the AWEme YouTube channel, make their living forging dangerously realistic (and realistically dangerous) weaponry. The team, led by Master Swordsmith Tony Swatton, have made their living over the years forging working props for TV and movies, as well as replicas for historical re-enactments and private collectors.
The world of video games have given them a fresh and rich seam of ridiculous weaponry to build – from The Legend of Zelda’s Master Sword and a vast assortment of standard-issue Skyrim kit, to the Halo 2 Energy Blade and Kratos’ Blades of Chaos – but we know what you’re here for: Cloud’s Buster Sword, from Final Fantasy VII.
It’s a combination of old-school blacksmithing and modern metal fabrication techniques – hammer-forging, drawing out and edge-quenching meets CAD design, CNC plasma cutting, and a TIG welder – and the results are seriously freaking cool.
Check out the video to see the sheer level of detail they pour into every build, and marvel at how ridiculous putting together and wielding the Buster Sword in real life actually is:
[youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xogheZdAO18″ autoplay=”no”]My Buster Sword’s been looking pretty lonely…
Then, not learning a lesson from how stupendously foolish it was building (and attempting to wield) the Buster Sword, check out the next video as they build a scale replica – all seven feet two inches of it – of Sephiroth’s giant Katana, Masamune:
[youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ySQratOnwk” autoplay=”no”]The Sword and the Stone team are no longer affiliated with AWEme so we haven’t seen a new video from them in a year, but the announcement of the Final Fantasy VII Remake prompted us to revisit their builds of the Buster Sword and Masamune.
Bonus: GunBlade
And as an added bonus for you all, the video of the time and effort they put into building Squall Leonheart’s GunBlade from Final Fantasy VIII – including working trigger, hammer and barrel action – is a sight to behold:
[youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GgijhlKbSc” autoplay=”no”]* Parent-friendly disclaimer: Swords are very cool, but only if you’re old (and responsible) enough to own them.
