Surprise, surprise. Hollywood has it wrong.
Here’s a documentary showing how historical swordfights really happened.
swords
A History of Sword Making
Here’s an interesting article on the history of sword making.
Modeling Swords
Carmen’s Fun Painty Time blog has a tutorial on making swords from wire.
Minimal Melee Combat
Minimal Melee Combat is a set of free wargames rules designed to depict combat between sword armed adversaries.