Joe Davidson

Thank you everyone for the brilliant ideas I'll try some of them and see what works for me. @Thomas, thanks for your fire shaking shovel idea, I think I most definitely will give that a crack. I reckon that I will try to combine a number of the advice together too, I think it boils down to just staying alert and aware of the fires conditions, and not letting the ash build up to much. Thanks for all the advice.

@ everything Mac, I'm using generic lump hard wood charcoal. @ Brian, Thanks for the advise, I have some old towels lying around that should work for making a mop. I have seen that before now that you mention it. Thanks again

cheers for that video, very handy. thankyou joe

Okay, thanks Glenn. I'll try that next time I get a chance to fire it up.

very nice, beautiful photography in the last couple of photos.

Hey everyone, At the present I am using a forge like those that smithed 1000 years prior to now. Yep, a good old lovely hole in the ground. All that my set up is currently is a hole, a side draft pipe with air source, and charcoal. This is working well, apart from the squatting that takes place to tend the fire. I have however hit a problem. The ash that is made by the charcoal as it burns slowly builds up to the point were the fire struggles to burn as it begins to be smothered. At the present this takes about two hours to occur. So is there any way to combat this without destroying the fire, removing the ash and starting again? I apologise if this question has already been asked, just let me know. Thanks Joe

thanks kim Aarhus, that site that your guild set up is very nice. Hmmm, okay thanks Thomas (if you don't mind me calling you that). Ill keep my eyes out for both the anchors and wagon wheels, however in Australia, we do not have many old valuable materials lying around. But thanks for the tips. Might stumble start into one in a couple weeks so i could easily be proved wrong, which would be very nice. So with that being the fact I may substitute 1045 or something similar to make something that I can use when I complete it is it ends up being nice. thank you all for the help, as normal I'm definitely happy for any advise thanks again Joe

Hmmm, thanks again guys It sounds like there is a few ways that you can go about this. I might try a couple different ways and see what works and what doesn't work for me. The forge welding might be a little beyond my grasp at the moment so I will probably start with a larger bar, close to the aproxiamte size, and punch using a slit punch. With the weld and wrap just for the sack of just pure research, would this have been conducted in a similiar manner to the axe wrap and weld? Just without inserting the higher carbon steel? I will attempt to locate real wrought iron, but if i can't. Is there any type of steel that is similiar? There probably isnt but my knoledge of steel types is very very limited That you again for the help, Joe

Woah thanks for all of the replies. I like the idea of using on of the underlay rings as a support for the punching. Thanks also to all the guys pointing out the hammer drifts, it gives me a good base to talk about when I get to that proccess. @ Charles R. Steven i believe that they may have steeled the peens of some of the bigger hammers but not the main striking face. @Nick, do you have any more images or what not of how you made it? I probably will not be able to get my hand on any wrought or finery iron as it may prove to hard to source. So I may be looking at a alternative that I can source. Thanks for every thing already, happy as ever for any advice

Hi everyone, As the title suggests I'm interested in recreating a 10th century hammer, in particular the mastermyr hammer 67. Now to start this off I must mention that I am doing this for my senior school research project and that I might need to quote/use information that maybe be posted. I will be sure to ask for permissionfor the sake of personal integrity. Okay now into the important stuff. I have decided that I would like to try to create it using the tools and techniques that a viking era blacksmith would, this idea may easily be a bit far fetched. I've done a bit of research into this and have made a stump anvil and dug a hole :D . I've also looked at the other important tools, but have found a stumbling block. I can't get my head around how they would have 'historically' punched the hole. There is probably an easy answer but I cant think of one. The 'nail making iron' in the mastermyr find could also be a punching plate but I've been unable find evidence of what kind of punches they would have used. So any ideas? Also any advice in undergoing a project like this would be really helpful. anything to do with the mastermyr find or historical replication Thanks Joe

very nicely made, but the cinematography is brilliant