Hello there fellow iforgers! Im working on a multibared seax thingamajigg where I havent planed out what kind of twists and stuff to do yet, nor how the finished product will look. Im working on the third bar which is going to be the serpent pattern. The two earlier are just a simple tight twist with 60-ish layers and a 1/2 cm thick strip of 100 layers. (yesyes pictures will come :F)

Now what im asking is for you to post the seax(s) you like the most and why. Its kinda to get a feel for those elusive seaxy things, and ideas of what the finished knife will look like. Oh and ofcourse to bask in the glory that are seaxes! =D

Thank you for reading and smite on!

-Jens from Norway

Two pictures of the first two bars. The twist came out pretty nice i think, and well... its not possible to see the layers on the thin one but ill try to get a picture of it tomorrow, welded together and all.

Now to just get people to post here, its so lonely and cold here xD

Well there has been alot of progress today. I´ve finished the 3rd bar and welded it to the other two.

I wanted to try out the serpent pattern, First time I did it and it came out "ok".

A few tryouts on squared rebar


Then the real bar, went better than expected


After this I cleaned it up and chose which side to have showing



Forged them together


Ground the side a bit and etched it for a few minutes in vinegar


Hope you are entertained and will update with the next bar soon!

That's really a cool project! I'm working on my first damascus bar at the moment. It started as 4 layers of lawn mower blade and 3/16"ish circular saw blade. It is up to 16 layers at the moment. It's a test to see how I am doing. It may look like trash, but we'll see.

Anyway, I can't say what my favorite seax is yet because I haven't studied them enough to know. But I look forward to seeing what you come up with in this project!

Keep the pictures coming Jens.

I've not been bitten by the seax bug yet, but I love watching them come together.

You seax guys are certainly raising the bar in the bladesmithing community.

Great work,

Don

Ecart, It will probably come out well, if not you allways have a example of how NOT to do it ^^ (Have way to many of them now ) I hope you´ll post the results on the forum tough! =D

Don, its dangoures... I mean here I was with a healthy addiciton, able to take a few pauses and thinking of other stuff than blacksmithing.... But now... well I havent left the smithy for a week, starting to be known by name by the birds and mice that live there, I especially like Odgeir hes a bugger...

Anyways enough me talking jibblerjabble. I managed to get my nerves together and make the next step of the last bar.
Its a 200layer flat pattern, Its gonne be cut in two and then Those are going to be the outside of the lamination im planning. (san mai for some?)



The core is currently under construction... Please stand by.

UPDATE! *Maybe I should have put em all together into one single update. But phah!

Got to do the twisting now (its about 50 layers) and making it ready to forge together with the 200 layers.




I allready think I did a fatal flaw here with using way to little material and thining out the stock... Ohwell, Ill probably end up with eather a realy thin edge or use it for a nother knife.

So... I buggerd up the lamination... So ended up with a 400layerd flat pattern with a layer of the twisted one in it... Wont give up just cause It got waveary and stuff, I cut it up and rewelded it. So now I got 1000-ish layerd pattern with three stripes of twist layer iit!

Should justify as a good cuttingbar afaik :P

Done with the weldin! woop woop!

The whole welding went pretty well, some minor places didnt want to stick at first, but flux and patience sorted that out.


Resized to 50% (was 700 x 525) - Click image to enlarge


Welded and happy

Resized to 50% (was 700 x 525) - Click image to enlarge


Ground it down a bit and etched it for a bit in vinegar. hope you can see the fine layers...

Resized to 50% (was 700 x 599) - Click image to enlarge



Now for the actual forming...

Ecart, It will probably come out well, if not you allways have a example of how NOT to do it ^^ (Have way to many of them now ) I hope you´ll post the results on the forum tough! =D

So far the welding is going good. I take it a little at a time. I doubled and welded it once last night for a total of 32 layers now. I'll do that twice more, then twist and forge it out. It'll be pretty small though. The billet is smaller than I intended. And yes, I'll post it when I'm done.

Enough about my project. Yours is looking awesome! It looks like you got a nice tight twist in that bar. Can't wait to see the finished product.

UPDATE! Got the knife formed out and ground a bit. Mostly polishing and profiling it to see how the pattern came out.

The serpent pattern got a bitt blergh at the tip, but what else is there to expect when one bends a bend.

Bear in mind that this is just a cleanup and all those pits and "coldshuts" will higst likely get ground out.

First a little profile of eatch side:





And then with my l33t photoshop skills a closer look:

That's looking nice!

I really like it and think it really looks great. Terrific job

That looks great, mate.

Well... Fa**... It cracked!



Weirdly enough it was not visible before after the hardening and tempering and then grinding...

Ohwell, the serpent and 1000layerd bars are intact atlaest (afaik). Gonna try and make a small knife out of it.

Now im off hunting the imp of flaws and ridd him from this realm once and for all!

well it was goin great. any idea what caused the crack to form? i would rather not have the same happen to me and learn the hard way. but KUDOs on that pattern.

Bad weld or working too cold are usually the biggies; and sometimes nothing shows up until the acid lays all bare! (dangnabbit!)

bummer, really enjoyed the pattern though. are you doing another like that? would love to see your pics of another try. good luck and I hope you got that imp of flaws.

Very nice job, can't wait for my broken pinky to heal so I can get back out doing things in the shop... Inspiring!