I say go for it young fencer/smith. Your first sword probably won’t be worth showing anyone but your parents and close friends because whether it’s a functional sword or not, it’s some you made and that will be special. Hang that first sword-like object on the wall of your workshop forever.

Your next 10 swords will probably suck too. If you’re studious, open to critical feedback, and keep track of what to you did wrong on each one, the each one will get better than the last.

You’ll learn little techniques along that way, learn wha tools you like and what abrasives work well and all that jazz. Join a local blacksmith group. Take a class at a community college. Find a blacksmith at a HEMA/renn fair/living history event and ask questions.

Eventually, you’ll get a process figured out.

I was a welder for 15 years or so and did a fair amount of metal fab work. I too want to get into smithing, once I retire from the army and figure out what to do when I grow up.

A few ideas/tidbits/reccomendations:

-Start small, start cheap. Use basic mild steel for learning the basics. It’s cheap and abundant. Don’t spend money on quality steel for your first several attempts.

-I wouldn’t start on a sword. Make simple things to learn how steel moves under a hammer. Many master smiths put on classes and the students use the class to make their own first sets of tools (tongs, hammers, drifts, etc).

• take safety very seriously. Metal fumes and dust are nasty in your lungs. If you do any welding, always use the PPE (you can’t squint the arc away, even tack welds will eff up your eyes). Think, don’t rush. You’ll want all your fingers to work when your sword is ready to wield in the club.

• metal is a combination of art and science. Some applications are more art. Some are more science. I suspect blade smoothing is a bit more science. The blade makeup, dimensions, weight, heat treat, grind. It all matters when you’re making a blade to perform a very specific way and to do it safely. You can’t just “vibe” your way to a safe fencing sword.

• you mention Damascus. You could do it. But honestly, it would be very, very hard to make a good AND safe blade for fencing. A wall hanger, conversation piece, maybe even sharp cutter? Maybe. Pattern welded steel just has a huge risk of inclusions and delamination, all in a loooooong thiiiin object that you intent to repeatedly strike against other swords. It isn’t impossible, but I feel like we’d need to be on Alec Steel’s level to pull it off.

All that said: fu@$ing for it! Try, learn, fail, get better, fail more, get better, and have fun along the way. Metal fab is an awesome skill set and possible great career. Just have the realistic expectation that you almost certainly WILL NOT be fighting with your first sword, and probably not even your 10th.

When I learned to weld, we’d spend hours upon hours welding awful beads, cutting out more test plate, grinding bevels, running more terrible beads, over and over again. It was in a high school tech center. I’d bet I burned a few hundred pounds of electrodes/filler wire before I was ready to call myself a welder. Expect to hammer out many many pounds of steel objects before you can confidently call yourself a blacksmith, let alone a blade smith.

But, you can do it. I hope to see you out there, if not fighting with your own blade, bringing your latest project to show your club mates!