Artist: Brendan Olszowy

Email: brendan@fableblades.com

Benger, Western Australia 6223

Mobile (Australia): 0411 470 663

I am just a kid that refuses to grow up I guess, choosing to embrace a world of unlimited creativity and fantasy. And I am here to equip you with your fantasy designs to help you manifest your internal world into your world of form. I feel very blessed to have a role which is very rare in this world - to be able to make people very special items which they are inspired by, and to give creation to their dreams. I give people a rare avenue of creative power in a world permeated by cheap mass produced form. I turned from a successful professional career in sales to undertake this role with solemn commitment.

I guess my love affair with swords started like most peoples', through popular fiction. For me it was He Man as a child, and later the Conan movies, and then Braveheart. More recently I've enjoyed the Narnia, and Lord of the Rings film recreations of some of my favourite books. When I realised I could buy a fully functional sword I became engrossed in the study, and it wasn't long before I started spending looong hours in the workshop customising and upgrading my pieces.

However due to my disenchantment with the questionable quality of 3rd world made 'production' swords, and with my wife encouraging me to just make my own, I started making swords from scratch in 2007 and I have not looked back. (She's hardly seen me since hehe.) In truth, since embracing my craft I have had so many gifts from the universe to facilitate my journey. And so many fantastic customers who've helped me develop my craft. I've always been handy making whatever we needed, and doing all my own work on my motorcycles and cars, taught by my dad and granddad through childhood.

I really enjoy helping my Pagan clients create their ritual tools as well. While I do not practice myself, I have long followed a very spiritual path.

I enjoy Celtic, Classical, New Age and Instrumental music, along with a little Metal. I also spend a bit of time listening to inspirational teachings form Eckhart Tolle and others.

I ride my Motocross Bike as often as I can. I enjoy a Vegetarian Lifestyle. I live on 23 acres of rural land at beautiful dairy and orchard country of the South West of Western Australia with my beautiful wife, Bec and our fur family. Bec is an Holistic Veterinarian here in the South West. You can check out her natural petcare website here: Cherished Creatures. It's full of great resources and products for supporting your pet naturally.

To help build a picture of me: I am a fellow working from my home workshop, I'm my own boss :). Rather than relying too heavily on machines I do a lot of work by hand and pay very close attention to detail to ensure my pieces are crafted with excellence. Slow and steady making sure the work is done to my best standard. Hours of drawfiling, and hand sanding with a cork block go into each piece. Spray from my angle grinder cements the walls of my grinding & forging shed though I try to keep it pretty orderly. Though there may be found blunted files and torn up sheets of sandpaper kicking around the floor. I am blessed to have a great workshop on a great property and a nice set of machines to help me out with some of the fiddly jobs. In my Machinery Shed I have a pretty sophisticated new hand operated Milling Machine and Lathe - my favorite tools - alowing me to machine straight slots in hilt furniture, and fullers in blades, and the lathe for shaping pommels.

The swords I make are REAL swords. Fully functional. Built for durability, and to perform as a live sword for performance cutting. They are not toys, wallhangers, or stage props. They are built to perform to their purpose, with excellent heat treatment qualities and excellent blade geometries. All blade steel stock used is brand new 9260 high carbon spring steel cut new from the length and annealed.

All swords are hand sculpted individual pieces - earning all of my attention. Being handmade they rely on a steady hand, a keen eye, and a feel for how the metal is taking shape. As such they have a smoother, more organic look and feel about them, compared to a machine finished piece. I do spend a long time fussing over trying to get little details just right. I think I am my toughest critic. The pieces are not computer cut, but made with painstaking attention - by a loving human hand.

Each piece has endured many hours at my hands, being crafted into it's final form. Through these hours at my hands I feel the result is true meeting of imagination and the form that lives within the wood and steel. Each piece is a true one off and unlike anything else.

Blades won't come with a mirror polish, but rather a satin finish (approx 400 grit). Historical swords were not mirror finished, and mainly lower end third world forges generally offer their swords in a mirror finish, to suit the wallhanger market. The satin finish is beneficial to maintenence throughthe sword's active life.

All blades are stock removed via grinders and files, and finally hand sanded and custom fitted with their hilt components.

Pommels and guards are (unless stated) sculpted by hand from solid blocks of mild steel, not cast. Grips will have a hardwood core if they are leather covered. Though I love featuring exotic wood grips from Australia and around the world too.

All swords have broad full tangs with radiussed shoulders for strength; built to be a fully useable tool. The temper of the tang and shoulder is drawn back with a torch to low 40s hardness, to enhance durability, and becoming softer yet back to the pommel mounting.

I control the heat treatment in a purpose built electric kiln, which I made myself to suit my needs. This provides uniform heat to the whole blade, and precise digital readings and accurate control of the temperature. Heat treatment of blades includes normalisation cycles, quenching in oil to harden, and multiple tempering cycles giving a resilient edge hardness of approximately 50-54Rc. depending on the design spec of the sword. Theres a little vid below showing my testing of some sample pieces of steel, and destruction of a thin knife blade I forged.

Clip: testing of steel samples heat treated in my kiln: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzBEqmva7yE

If you have any questions or need more information or detail on sword construction, please don't hesitate to ask. :)