Old Ways Are the Best Ways for Sword Maker

Growing up in Brooklyn, 39-year-old Warren Lieberman learned to use his hands early in life--to defend himself. Today he uses his hands to craft swords--not for protection, but for show.

And showy they are. In the workshop of his Mint Canyon home, Lieberman turns 10-foot aluminum bars and 10- to 50-pound brass cylinders into gleaming 3 1/2-foot, 20-pound swords inspired more by artist Frank Frazetta’s fanciful paintings of hulking men slaying fire-breathing beasts than by actual historical periods.

They are the type of sword that Conan the Barbarian might wield. Indeed, Lieberman created one for Richard Brose, an actor who portrays the character in Universal Studios Tour. Brose mounted the handcrafted sword over his fireplace at home and uses it only during personal appearances as the character.

Lieberman started making swords as a whim in 1983. The first ones were awarded as trophies in the annual Cal Coast Invitational body-building contest produced by him and the Valencia Health Club, which he then co-owned.

In the first year of the contest, plastic trophies were awarded, he recalled disdainfully.

Trophies Draw Praise

“I said, ‘We ought to come up with something that would be a real trophy, a hey-look-what-I-won.’ I said, ‘I’ll make a sword.’ It was just to separate the show from everybody else’s.

“The audience went berserk. Phone calls came in from all over.”

Over the next several years, Lieberman made about 30 swords, many awarded in subsequent contests. He sold some of them for as much as $1,500.

Lieberman said he has made only a few “real” swords--with steel blades forged to the handles--partly because he doesn’t own a forge. “The swords are just made for display purposes. They’re oversize, like the drawings,” he said, thumbing through a book on Frazetta, who illustrated many early Conan books.

Aiming for Archaism

“I try to stay at the starting edge of the Industrial Revolution,” he said. “I could weld it together, but I try to be as archaic a machinist as possible.

“I use machines only out of desperation, when I run out of hand skills. I don’t use them to make work quicker or easier.”

His swords are unique, Lieberman said. “Even if I sit down and try to carve out another one, I can’t. There’s no way I’m going to hit it on the money because I use no patterns.

“Even when I paint, I don’t sketch. It’s got to be a test from the start to the finish. That’s the key for me.”

The sword-creating process, however, is far from capricious.

Lieberman cuts a three-foot section from a 10-foot-long aluminum bar, then cuts the blade on a band saw. “I shape it down and look at the edges until it has the shape I want.”

Using a lathe, he typically forms the handle and guard from 10-pound brass cylinders. Recently, he carved a handle from a 50-pound brass block to resemble an eagle’s head, an eight-hour process.

After the pieces of the sword and handle are shaped and polished on a buffer, he and his wife wrap them in cloth and assemble them. One holds the blade while the other slides on the guard and handle. Then he puts the sword between two blocks of wood and forces its pieces together.

Lieberman drills lengthwise through the handle twice and through the guard once. He drives in brass pins and trims them just above the sword’s surface.

After all the pieces have been assembled and the pins inserted to position the pieces, the pins are removed.

Then he adds his trademark.

Lieberman cuts a round piece of leather and inserts it between the handle and the guard. He reassembles the sword.

“What the leather does is try to push the pieces apart. And it keeps tension on the pins so as the metal gets hot or worn, the sword doesn’t start to jiggle,” he explained. “All the leather does is work as a spring.”

Lieberman’s artistic talent was discovered during a two-year stint in the Army. He was stationed in Germany, where he made maps. When he returned to the United States, he attended Miami-Dade Community College on an art scholarship. He later received an art scholarship from the University of Miami, but he chose to open a business instead.

He painted pictures on the gas tanks of customized motorcycles for seven years until he was stricken with emphysema. He moved to Chicago with his wife, Melissa, and started building custom motorcycles.

After living in a few other homes in the Northwest, Lieberman moved to Mint Canyon five years ago. Here he lives reclusively, eschewing occasional offers of art projects. “All I am is a gifted laborer,” he said.

His house exudes the eclectic style of its artist-in-residence--from an old Sears swamp cooler, sitting prominently in the front yard, to a 1912 coal-burning potbelly stove and untold numbers of books, paintings and prints filling the living room.

Inside the three-car garage that serves as Lieberman’s workshop are a 1890s-era red metal lathe--a $75 acquisition that he rebuilt--drill presses, torches, vises, files, saws and a 500-pound industrial buffer bolted to the floor.

“When I plug it in,” he said, “the whole building shakes.”