ok, here's my dilemna. a lady friend of mine asked me to make her a sword after seeing my knives that i forged. i have made swords before, out of aluminum, for mock combat with my friend. they were ugly, and it was dangerous. but, here's where the problem comes in: the last sword i made from steel was 1/8" plate steel, just for a show piece.
now i'm using 1/4"x2" flat bar, of unknown (to me, anyway) composition (1050, etc). i was hoping you guys could advise me on how to make the furniture properly, because this poses a slight problem for me. here's the hoped for specs:
36" total length
30" blade, 1 3/4" wide at ricasso
non fullered (at present, maybe advice for grinding one in?)
simplistic quillan (not yet forged)
pommel to match (again, not yet forged)
wire wrapped handle (best wire to use?)
no final blade weight yet, i'm not done grinding the bevels and distal taper yet.
any and all advice is welcome, constructive criticism, etc. i am aware that HT is difficult for projects this long (i have been swimming through the forums here) butit is STRICTLY a show piece, not for even the slightest use other than hanging on the wall or her belt at a convention, and that's pushing it. i'll shut up now.

Don't bother to try a HT first you are not able to with out building special equipment, also you said its only a wall hanger. Anneal well after forging so it doesn't shatter if it is some how dropped or even used, and your good. As for the rest... well read more :D

actually, i kinda cheated a lil bit.....the blade is made from 1/4" flat bar, cut out with a plasma cutter. no forging was done on the blade itself. all i really need to figure out is the furniture. Quillon, pommel, and wire wrap. and i dont want to make a flat quillan, like i've seen on your (i think it was your)sword under "the finishing bug" post. thanks for takin the time to read my post

So "The Complete Bladesmith", Hrisoulas, wasn't enough? Has a lot of great information on swordmaking and the advantage that it's already typed out with pictures!

Never figured out why folk thought that somebody typing a page or two on the internet was better than 50 pages in a book written by an expert.

If you are in the USA and your local public library doesn't have a copy; ask at the desk to ILL it. In this small rural New Mexican town I can ILL books that AMAZON wasn't able to find during a standing 2 year book search!

"ILL"= inter library loan, this is a system where any library will loan a book to another library for a period of I think two weeks with one renew for another week and then it goes back to the lending library. Postage and all that is paid for by the libraries and it doesn't cost the library patron anything. When I was a young buck and in college and needing to do weird research and such it was a life saver on my papers to get these out of print books. This was before the internet. Great system the ILL. :D

thanks, guys. as familiar with the i.l.l as i am, depending on it in a small town, i have no idea why i didnt think of that sooner...somebody hit me with a hardy tool, please

I love it to "preview" books before I fork over my tightly clutched dinero. Nothing worse than to blow your book budget on a book only to find that it didn't meet your needs while a different one would but you can't afford it until your budget recovers.