AkFilm

For those of you that don't know. Arctic Fire 2016 was a mutli-aceted presentation by some top bladesmiths. They recreated items from Grendel's Hoard while building a mythology around the build. 
I've slowly been editing and posting the videos of the presentations, demonstrations, and interviews regarding the project. 

Chapter 1: Panel Discussion (Group)

Chapter 2: The Mother's Dagger (Peter Johnsson)

Chapter 3: The Material Culture of the Spear Danes (Petr Florianek)

Chapter 4: Hilting a Giant's Sword (Jake Powning)

Chapter 5: Undertow, the Giant's Sword (Owen Bush)

Chapter 6: Hrunting, The Sword that Failed (Dave Stephens)

Chapter 7: The Lyre of Lejre (J. Arthur Loose)

Chapter 8: Closing Discussion (Group)

Owen Bush: Forging the Pattern of Undertow

Dave Stephens: Multi-bar Pattern Welding Tips and Tricks

Jake Powning: Carving Waxes for Lost Wax Casting

Petr Florianek: Pressblech Techniques 

Peter Johnsson: Antler Forming with Heat and Steam

Petr Florianek: Carving Antler with Rotary Tools

J. Arthur Loose: Gilding Techniques 

NEW Artist Profile: Petr Florianek

NEW Artist Profile: J. Arthur Loose

Upcoming Releases: 

Artist Profile: Peter Johnsson

Artist Profile: Owen Bush

Artist Profile: Jake Powning

Creating "Undertow: Bloody Ripper of Tides"

Enjoy!

Newest knife. Don't really have any operational grinder, so everything is by hand. Kitchen/utility knife, a good ageless knife that could fit into many time periods. Very thin flexible high carbon blade with a high polish, perfect for cleaning meat. Mahogany handle with brass tube pins. Finish is tung oil, and then sealed. Making a leather sheathe next. Overall length: 10.75" blade length: 6.5" weight:  3.2 ounces.  I had some scrap and was bored today. 

Newest knife. Don't really have any operational grinder, so everything is by hand. Kitchen/utility knife, a good ageless knife that could fit into many time periods. Very thin flexible high carbon blade with a high polish, perfect for cleaning meat. Mahogany handle with brass tube pins. Finish is tung oil, and then sealed. Making a leather sheathe next. Overall length: 10.75" blade length: 6.5" weight:  3.2 ounces.  I had some scrap and was bored today. 

They are Tlingit, and part of the fur trade route. 

My from notes: 

Royal BC Museum:  "One type of dagger usually dating to the last half of the 19th century have bone handles with an open metal circle at the proximal end of the handle. The bone part is often carved with a circle and dot motif. Some of these were made from the broken halves of steel bear traps. The trap part was composed of a folded piece of steel with a circular hole in each end that came together when. A frilled design was often carved around the proximal end. When not made from a bear trap part, a separate brass end was added in imitation of the latter type. This iron or brass proximal end of the handle was usually notched to give it an overall frill design."

The working of the steel was done at a very low temperature according to the x-ray research. 

These pictured are: (RBCM Ethnology Collection #9876 (West Coast Vancouver Island), #10164 (Fraser River Canyon), #13639 (Interior of B.C.)

Hope so. I'll try to wrangle up some blades. Several have gone home to various people. Could give me a reason to finish some up too that have been sitting on the workbench. 

11 hours ago, metalmangeler said:

Hello I met you this afternoon, looks like you are more into knives than I, you saw a few of mine, likely none of them have near the time you are putting into yours. Coil spring traps are a more recent design than you are looking for. you would want a long spring, maybe one you hand forged. It is good to see some new faces. Mark

Hello. Thanks for talking yesterday! I've always admired your work. 

For my 1800s Trapper knife, I actually used an antique long spring. I only had one though so for the product shot used the coil spring I had laying around. Well spotted! 

I have another piece of the long spring trap, want to do a more traditional bone handle. These were made from much larger traps than the one I had, but it was a fun venture into something different. The next one had a more traditional dagger profile.  Here's some originals. 

Thanks!

I picked up the redwood from a man near Healy that does a lot of prospecting. He stabilized it, though I'll have to redo it, since it really only penetrates about 1/4 inch into the wood. It's very bizarre to work with since it's on its way to becoming coal. Both hard and soft sections, takes a lot of control to get even sanding, and can get fragile.  It takes a beautiful sheen though. 

This is it in it's raw form (along with the float copper I'm using for the bolsters)

The handle in process. 

Found a picture of another knife I did this spring, I was really bored one day. It's based off of trapper knives from western canada/eastern Alaska 1850-1880. I only used materials they would have had access to in the region. Blade is the spring from leg trap, with file work (following the originals), handle is Alaska Yellow Cedar (originals used a lot of bone) bolsters are rough spun twine (seems to have been a 50/50 split with twine and rawhide strips). Blade finish is the forged finish. Pictured with the raw material. 

I'm still really shy about my work, so not posting on the main forums pages, but you're fellow Alaskans...I feel safer from the sharks, and I know it's important to share work now and again. 

Here are some of my recent projects I'm working on, or finished with. 

Single hand Italian arming sword circa 1490. Based off a museum piece. Blade is 5160, guard and pommel are mild steel chemically blued. The guard is S shaped with flaring ends. Pommel was a pain to hand sand to shape, but it's there now and happy with it. Grip is maplewood covered in dyed leather with risers. 

Next is a knife, made from an 80 year old file, seemed liked 1095 so treated it as such. File worked spine, handle is stabilized cottonwood burl that is crosscut with brass pins.  

Some work in progress: 

A Swiss Degen circa late 1400's. Blade is 5160, grip is zebrawood, guard and pommel are etched wrought iron. 

I have no good photos yet of the small utility knife I'm making for my wife. It's a small feather damascus blade, with float copper bolsters and the handle is made up of stabilized 4,000 year old redwood from the permafrost in Alaska. 

Anvils are hard up here. I used a railroad track at first, than found a 30 pounder or so on a beach in Alaska here, and now I'm using a homemade one that another smith in Alaska made before he moved. It's a massive hunk of steel that came from the UAA machinists scrap pile I believe. It's a heavy bastard, can barely move it by myself. Keep your eye out for 4x4 steel or any large solid chunk and mount it up.

I learned by talking to smiths and lurking on forums, then I put it all together and made a lot of mistakes that I put on a shelf to remind me to slow down. (other than my tomahawk head, that's somewhere in the backyard in the woods).  Smiths are the some of the finest people I've ever had the chance of meeting though. 

There's enough interest perking up, if someone north of Anchorage can help me, I have a section of railroad track I found under the shed that I used. I want a chunk of it, but there's enough there to make two more small sections for budding smiths to use if someone can chop it up, I travel to Palmer and Wasilla a lot. 

Also, I'll be at the fair this weekend. I'll be judging the parade tomorrow, and will be on the grounds all weekend if anyone else is there. 

We wrapped day 3 today. All tech demos. More tomorrow and it's the final day. 

July 8
10:00 AM: Peter Johnsson: Antler Forming with HEat and Steam
 
12:00 PM: Petr Florianek: Carving Antler with Rotary Tools
 
2:00 PM: J. Arthur Loose: Gilding Techniques
 
4:00 PM: Closing Discussion, Q&A from Internet

Today was a good day. Tomorrow, we have some fun stuff. We have tech demos and we start with talking about the giant's swords..Undertow, a truly monster blade that is gorgeous beyond belief made by Owen Bush and Jake Powning. 

July 7
10:00 AM: Owen Bush: Forging the Pattern of Undertow

 
12:00 PM: Dave Stephens: Multi-Bar Pattern Welding Tips and Tricks
 
2:00 PM: Jake Powning: Carving Waxes for Lost Wax Casting
 
4:00 PM: Petr Florianek: Pressblech Techniques

Today was a good day  tomorrow's schedule: Also, Undertow will be revealed in all it's glory. 

July 6
10:00 AM: Jake Powning: Hilting a giant's sword, reconstructing the Lejre hilt fragment 
 
12:00 PM: Owen Bush: "Undertow," The Giant's Sword
 
2:00 PM: Dave Stephens: "Hrunting, The Sword that Failed."
 
4:00 PM: J. Arthur Loose: "THe Lyre of Lejre."

Undertow revealed.... one side a 6 bar core , wodens river running between two sets of wave bars and t'other 5 bar core with a highlayer within low layer twist meandering around pin stripes. all wrapped up in 500 layers of edge wrap. Tomorrow at 10am.

On 7/2/2016 at 1:57 PM, Frosty said:

Does this mean you won't make the July 9th. meeting at Jim's?

Was there a Japanese gentleman trying to connect? Seems one was wandering around visiting smiths last week. Just wondering.

Frosty The Lucky.

Haven't seen a Japanese man yet. 

I really intend on making one of your meetings soon. July 9th I may be working more with them. We'll see. 

We are set up and ready to roll. We go live tomorrow!

http://www.arcticfire.org/2016-event-schedule.html

I'm going to try and turn them pretty fast this year. It was too long of a gap last time in my opinion. I will keep this post updated as things develop. 

It's that time again.  I'm honored to have been asked with my production team to come on and help create the video product. this year. I am also a smith, and hope to bring a nice balance to the broadcast as well as some higher production value while presenting the smiths as they are and showcasing their wonderful work. 

If you like forging, and anything artistic or just have a love of history and blades, check out the free live stream of Arctic Fire 2016: Grendel's Hoard, July 5th-8th. I'll also be making a much larger and involved project that'll be available afterwards with some exclusive content or in the event you cannot see the whole thing There's also a live Q&A forum as well during the event. 

http://www.arcticfire.org/home.html

There are constant updates happening with the current build on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Arctic-Fire-398768046838011/?fref=ts

I hope to see you online! 

What's a good price for a post leg vice in Alaska? I may have found one, it's about a 4 inch jaw and probably weighs 40 pounds. It's in very good condition considering the supposed age. 

I can neither confirm nor deny that I possess a time machine. But I'll mark the 25th down. Looking forward to it. Thanks!

Am I able to attend? I just started forging this summer. Been reworking stuff for a couple years. My focus is blades and will eventually focus on recreating historical pieces since that's my area of interest. I've studied museum collections around the nation and have a couple published essays and reviews. I also do talks at schools, university's and I've even done a presentation for the Air Force. My mentor in Anchorage is Chris Cushman of Penguin Arms but I'm always thirsty for as much knowledge as I can glean from people. I live in Peters Creek (Chugiak).