Bonnskij

I guess there are all sorts of funeral rituals. Good thing the ritual killing is over with (at least I hope it is). Some more things I've just finished up: keychains/ emergency pocket flail.

Interesting that so many cultures reached the conclusion that destroying grave goods was the appropriate course of action. Unless that is something that survived from the earliest civilisations and was carried over with all the great human migrations. Also imagine if they were wrong and the deceased only ended up in the afterlife with a bunch of broken pottery and bent knives.

No problem George. Glad I could help! Yes I've seen a lot of swords in particular from norse grave finds that have been turned into pretzels. I'll admit I wasn't aware of the reasoning behind it and never stopped to ponder about it either, but that is interesting. Are there any other cultures in particular that practiced the ritual killing of objects? It doesn't sound like you should have much trouble translating anything, but if you get stuck anywhere just let me know. I'd be happy to help out.

George, lately I've been using a portal encompassing Norwegian museum collections; Unimus.no. Before then i was using the University of Oslo's photoportal but since then all information seems to have been moved from the latter to the former and it has been more difficult to get accurate information. I downloaded a small collection of photos here, that I have managed to find a little bit of information on: This may or may not be the one i based my first knife on. It is similar, but a little bit smaller than mine. This knife is the only one i actually found a date for. Younger iron age, so a fair bit older than the viking age. This knife was found in a grave dig in Ringerike. One of my favourite viking age art styles is named after the municipality. The inlay on my latest axe is Ringerike style. The graves in the area are mostly from up to 400 a.d, but finds from the viking age have also been made. Worth noting the ritual destruction of the blade that is common in association with grave finds. These next two and best preserved knives were found in Gran and are probably from the viking age as that seems to be the archeological finds the area is best known for. The blunt tips are not typical for this style of knife in general. If I were to make a guess at this point. I think the integral curved back handle predates the viking age. There are other examples, but in far worse shape than the first one i posted. This style of curved knife seems to have been in use for at least 1500 years though. I suppose the viking age is farily short in the grand scheme of things. I definitely agree with your assessment that it would be a good shape for a skinning knife. Also originally I would have thought the short handle would make it somewhat uncomfortable to use, but if used with a pinch grip it sits remarkably well in the hand. I hope that helps, but if it doesn't please let me know. I will keep digging, but since most of the sources I use are in Norwegian it is somewhat inaccessible to the broader public.

Been doing some more research on curved knives from viking age Scandinavia lately. I've made a few sketches that I will be trying to reproduce. Fairly simple designs (for the most part), so the rough forging doesn't take that long. I was surprised by how small the knives actually were. The first one that I forged out this afternoon is actually on the large side. I wonder what they were actually used for. There weren't really that many specialised knives back then compared to what we have now. Maybe a skinner or textile knife is what I am leaning towards if drawing parallels to knife shapes of today. Hard to imagine a herb knife in viking society to be honest. Perhaps a general purpose knife that is light and easy to carry around and use for various tasks? Fits surprisingly well in the hand.

My chopper is done and getting a run for its money. Seems to work alright.

Thank you! I was so sure the small details were going to fall out when I started doing them. At the end I am quite happy with how everything turned out!

Finally made a handle for my axe.

That's honestly faster than I expected. With the prices I've seen on hand forged hammers it sounds like you could make a little bit of extra cash the side if that's the goal. Looks like you make just about everything yourself! Drifts as well? I've made one fairly small axe drift, but man I thought that was enough of an effort. Looking forward to seeing how your power hammer works. It's very inspiring to watch your progress!

Well colour me impressed. Don't think I've seen any of the YouTube smiths make a hammer without a power hammer to help. Drifting must be a real effort on your own. How long would you say it takes you to forge out a hammer?

That's some mighty nice hammers you're churning out. Do you do it all by yourself or do you have a striker or similar?

Just finished my axe. Think it falls within the brackets of a type C in the Peterson classification. First attempt at wire inlay as well. I designed a little dragon in the ringerike style.

Been trying to improve my forge welding somewhat. Made this 1084 and mild steel laminate. Without etching I can't see a weld line, so I think that's a success! I did successfully weld two additional bits of wrought iron onto my chisel blank, but cannot improve on me forging it out. I don't have JLP's skill or an anvil with a horn. I give up on it and will repurpose it as buttcaps and bolsters. Once I upgrade my anvil I'll try again. I feel quite relieved about giving up on it. Here's also a slightly shinier axe. I'm going to attempt some copper wire inlays in the body of it. Successfully hardened and for the first time I managed to see the shadows dance on the steel before the quench.

I must say i agree with most people. I liked Alec's earlier videos. Now i find them... Stressful? Also. Here's my giant power hammer number 28 and watch this half hour ad for Squarespace and raid shadow legends. Good on him for making it that big though. Black bear forge, Thorbjörn Aahman and JLPs are my favorites. I have lots to learn and i just think these channels are really relaxing and instructional to watch.

Working on an axe at the moment. I think this is my favourite thing to make so far. Mild steel body and leaf spring edge. The leaf spring inset ended up further ahead than intended as i welded too much of the body together. OVerall though, I'm quite happy so far and my welds are definitely improving.

That's it! Advantage of doing smithing. There's no shortage of anti zombie weaponry to choose from! I like that idea. If it is what I think. Better figure out how my welder works...

I recently got one of those same pipe wrenches. Same situation too. Don't know what to do with it, but hey it was free!

Three more bottle openers finished this morning. That marks the end of the Christmas presents I'm sending overseas.

That's one bottle opener forged and tested. Might be a bit rough here and there, but it was good fun and I'm quite happy with it at the end of the day. Managed to do brassing this time as well. Just needed to put a bit more force behind the brushing.

Figured I'd better practice some tapering and drawing out in the hope that I might be able to do it without fishmouthing. (And also Christmas is coming up too quickly and I'm coming up short on ideas for presents). With any luck there will be bottle openers for everyone! Though I do wish I had an anvil with a horn for this bit... The beer fridge has also been filled in anticipation of the oh so necessary testing phase.

Decided to restart my nutcracker project from scratch. Slowly and deliberately...

Well Frosty. I've got this new material made from the breath of a fish, the spittle of a bird, the beard of a woman, the sound of a cat's footsteps, the sinews of a bear and the roots of a mountain. Seems quite promising. In all seriousness though, it was the body of my spokeshave that broke in half and that was cast iron. I seem to be more likely to have too soft blades than too brittle ones so far. You're not wrong Frazer. Any throw you make is by definition orbit around the centre of the earth. The only problem being that the rest of the earth gets in the way before the orbit is completed. A tomato stake is a small price to pay. I did not find it particularly humerus at all at the time. In fact it was a royal pain in my foot (sorry).

And here's me drawknife at last. It's been a long journey.

Yes that's true. I just don't like wasting anything that can be salvaged (or going shopping for that matter) I think it should be an easy fix, but if it doesn't work out I'll definitely go and buy a new file card. In other news I was finishing up my drawknife yesterday and decided to take the blade out of my spokeshave to sharpen it. Bad idea, as I never managed to set it properly again afterwards and left terrible chatter on my handles. Banged the drawknife onto the table in frustration (not even particularly hard)... And promptly snapped it in half... After that the spokeshave took a flat arc flight across the yard followed by several explicits that would probably have moderators breathing down my neck harder than last time I said something debatably PG. Split a tomato stake in half on its journey and shattered in a thousand pieces against a brick wall. Possibly puzzling future generations of archaeologists. Dingdangdiddly cast iron tools...

That's for sure. I've got a broken file card lying around somewhere. I think I'd better fix that. My steel brush clearly didn't get everything.