Thorvaldr's Seax

I've been working on this seax for about year now.  Luckily the customer who commissioned it was very patient and we agreed up front that there was no set delivery date - it took as long as it took.

It's made in the style of baltic war knives from the Viking Age/Migration Era/Dark Ages - however you want to refer to the period of european history from about 500-1000AD.

 The blade is 10" and the handle is 6".  The blade is forged from 1084 carbon steel.  It's a full 1/4" thick at the spine and is flat ground.   The shape is referred to as a "broken-back", and as you can probably guess this is the great, great grandfather of the bowie knife.  The tang of the blade is a bit over 1/2" wide and 1/4" thick and extends all the way to the back of the handle, so it's a very sturdy knife.

I hand sanded this blade starting at 220 grit, and finished at 600grit.  It is inlaid with younger futhark runes that are a transliteration of "Thorvaldr owns me" on the right side, and "MHB made me" on the left.  They've actually found a number of viking weapons with inscriptions of a similar nature.  I guess that's one way not to loose your spear or knife ( "Dude!  Of course it's mine.  It's got my freaking name right on it!").  I used 18ga jewelers bronze wire for the inlay.  It's a bit brighter than regular bronze and just looks better against the polished steel.

The handle has a bronze plate that I cast up next to the blade.  It has a boar on one side of the blade and a serpent on the other.  The back plate is likewise something I carved and cast in bronze, with a design pulled from the handle carving.  The white spacers are moose antler that I carved a braid into using a dremel and burrs.  The main handle is a piece of cherry from a tree I felled myself about 5 or more years ago.  I carved a design found on a viking sled into the handle, with some changes so it fit the handle shape.  It's finished with 6 coat of Waterlox wiping varnish.

The sheath is 8oz top-grade tooling leather that I carved/embossed and dyed.  The design on the blade section is probably too complicated for leather, but I wanted to see if I could do it.  It came out fairly well, but I think the details are just a bit to small.  The beast on the handle section is really about the level of detail that is right for leather.  It has nice, clear delineation of the details.

The metal work on the sheath is all hand-stamped 20ga bronze, except for the rings which I carved & cast.  I made sure on this seax that I used the same alloy of bronze for all the metal parts 90% copper/ 10% tin.  That way the parts should all age to the same patina.

It's finished with a braided leather tassle & bone beads.

Christmas Presents

Holidays were busy.  In addition to a bunch of jewelry orders I had presents to make:

I wanted to try carving a very delicate ring in wax, so I made this moonstone ring for my daughter.  It all one piece of silver I cast.  The center is a 6mm moonstone and the two side stones are 4mm. I learned a lot making it and ended up making 3 more rings to develop my technique & knowledge.

These are two more I made for my wife.  The one on the left has amethysts, and the right one turquoise.   My daughter also got a turquoise one while I was at it.

I also had an idea pop into my head for a pendant, and i know my sister wanted one.  So I ended up making this one.  Again, solid cast sterling silver, this time with a 12mm moonstone in the center.

And last but not least is the biggest Christmas present - for me!  This is my new 24' x 30' shop in the backyard.  The barn and the interior are being done by contractors, and hopefully in the next week or two it will be my turn: painting, building benches, crafting cabinets, hauling anvils, etc.  No longer will I be a cellar troll!  I'll get actual sunlight to work by!

What makes a sword 'Real'? Some rules of thumb...

So first off I do not claim to be an expert in swords.  I've forged a couple swords that knowledgable people really liked. I've had some training from expert sword smiths.  I've had the opportunity to handle (as in swing around, find the node of vibration, the node of rotation, etc) some original viking era swords, and some old katanas.  I'm always trying to learn more about swords.  So I'm more knowledgeable than the average bear about swords, and have a good mix of practical knowledge and academic knowledge.
So with that caveat, here are my rules:

1) If it looks like sheet metal, it is sheet metal.  It's not a sword, it's home decor.
2) If it costs less than $400 new, it's not a sword.  It's a SLO - a Sword Like Object.  And I'm not talking about swords you find at estate sales, desperate buddies trying to sell their stuff to pay the mortgage.  I'm talking modern retail.  The economics of producing a quality blade even using CNC and all sorts of automation really dictate that a 'Real' sword will cost at least $400. You will find stuff that seems like a pretty good sword under $400, but it's probably a bad sword at best and will run afoul of rule #3
3) If you pick it up and think "Wow, I'd need to be stronger to wield this in a fight" it's not a real sword.  Real swords are light and fast.  I once was walking through a Ren Faire and we were passing a weapons retailer.  My buddy said "Wow.  Look at that two-hander.  You'd have to be a monster to wield that."  The retailer heard his comment and said "Naw!  It's only 16 lbs."
That's only about 11lbs over-wieght.  Most historical two handers weight about 5-6 lbs.  Most 1 handers weight less than 3.
4) If it handles like a baseball bat, it's not a real sword.  Real swords are carefully balanced for the type of fighting they do.  Which leads me to my last rule...

5) If you pick it up and it doesn't immediately feel right, it's not a sword.  A real sword tells you what to do with it.  You don't need to be a fighting expert.  You don't need to do a sword kata with it.
I got to handle an original Ulfberht viking sword.  I just picked it up off the table and my brain/body said "Oh yeah..."  No questions, no reservations.  I knew what to do with it.    It was light, fast and went where I wanted it to go.  I started looking around for some unsuspecting Franks...

And no, I have no interest in debating the meaning of the phrase "a real sword".

Busy,busy, busy

Too damn busy to even post until now.
I went to a gem setting class in August at Peters Valley.  These pictures are pretty crappy, but you get the idea.  Modern jewelry with faceted stones in a variety of settings.

Yes, you will start seeing gems in knives and jewelry now.

The second thing that kept me busy was putting up a timber frame I made for my brothers shed:

I felled the trees and cut the raw beams probably 4 or 5 years back, then I did the cutting to size and the joinery a couple winters ago.  Because of various reasons we didn't get around to assembling it until this August

It's real post & beam joinery with  giant mortises and tenons, and the corners are the classic english tying joint

The third thing that kept me busy was secretly making a bowie knife for my brother's 50th birthday in September:

 The blade is about 8" long, made from 1095 and 15N20.  This is one of the first billets of damascus I ever made.

 The fitting are made from old wrought iron we dug up at our mom's house (she lives in a 1815 farm house).  I etched them in ferric chloride and t hem hit them with a wire wheel, and now they look as much like wood as they do like steel.

 The handle is spalted Japanese red maple that I stabilized.  It came from a dying maple in my mom's yard we used to play in when we were kids.

I ran some vine pattern file work down the length of the spine.

And just to keep things interesting, I also made 3 custom rune rings, two of which were wedding bands.

I think it's time for a nap. 

And now for something completely different...

So my newest tangent is a bottle opener based on a viking ship figurehead:

Cast in solid bronze, they do a good job of ripping the top off a bottle (and pulling your pants down).

This one is based on a figurehead in the British Museum found in the river Schelde, Belgium.

I'm going to make some more based on other figureheads, but the others will take more time as they are sculpturally more complex.

Broad Seax

I finally finished the blade I've been working on this winter.

It's a broad seax - a style of knife from the dark ages common in continental Europe.  Mine is fairly historical in it larger features, but it's decorations are mostly pulled from my addled imagination so I guess this should be labeled a 'fantasy' seax ( a seax fantasy?).

The blade is 11" long, made from 1075 carbon steel.  It's quite thick (1/4" at the spine) right up until the curve of the tip.  I've inlaid two decorative lines of Nu Gold on both sides.

The handle is 7" long and the wood is caramelized, stabilized maple.  I sanded it to the profile of the two end caps, and then laid out  series of 3/16" deep saw cuts around the handle which I rounded into the ribbed pattern.  The front & back end caps (ferules) are bronze castings I carved a ways back in my casting class and haven't had a chance to use yet.  I carved the wood very carefully so it goes up inside both ferules quite tightly.  I epoxy everything together, but my goal is make everything nice and snug so the epoxy is really more of a sealer, and the real structural strength of the knife comes from the mechanics of how it fits together.  The tang of the blade is very thick and goes all the way through the handle where it is peened over to hold all the parts together tightly.

The sheath is fairly historical in most respects, but the embossing on the leather is purely stuff that just came to me.  Lots of tangled vines, a wolf/hound doing something to a deer, moon-phases, women's faces and a skull all are mixed up in it.

This blade has no name.  Funny how some of them seem to spawn name right away, and some never do.

The next project is another seax someone commissioned from me.  The blade is done, but it will be a while in the works I suspect.

Winter Jewelry

It's nice out now so I'm working on knives, and I should have another one done in a week or so.
I never posted some of the jewelry I made this winter, so here it is:

I carved a wolf head terminal and used it to make bunch of bracelets and arm rings.

I  also did a  lot of different sizes of the Kingmoor ring, and started casting it in silver as well as a couple flavors of bronze.

I've got  couple more jewelry projects I will do over the summer, but not much.  It should be mostly knives until the snow hits again.