Today 12 Icelandic smiths tested their skills to see who could make the best door knocker in 3 hours

the winner was the amazing Beate Stormo with astonishing symmetry (third one from the right)

second was Ingvar Matthiasson with the out-of-the-box thinking stone knocker (sixth from the right)

and in third place was Óskar Yngling Birgisson with beauty through simplicity (eight from the right)

 

I don't know in what place I was, but I was told that all of the judges agreed on that I had the most complicated piece and I may not have been in the top three but I at least thoroughly enjoyed the three hours I spent there, with all those fantastic people, and I also got a pretty sweet dragon door knocker

here's the whole piece, i might add that this is my first time making something with this many components 

the striking plate, top view of a double bick anvil, the hardy hole is a bit off center but i just say that it's at least on the piece.

I was in a hurry to get this over with because the time was running out

the knocker, something along the lines of a Thor's hammer but to me it's more like just an ordinary hammer, the handle is this big on purpose, to give it some mass and weight without being awkwardly long

the ring that it hangs from is nothing very special, i'll probably re-do it next time im at the smithy, originally i wanted to make it out of brass but as it turns out i couldn't find my brass rod that i have somewhere lying around

now for my favourite piece, the dragon that holds the hammer, this is actually only my second time making a dragon head like that, i made one yesterday just as a practice piece 

a better view of the chisel work, i did have a slight run-in with a thing called too much heat there, but to me it gives the piece an interesting texture, just a personal opinion

here's the dragon's spine, i think that part turned out best

 

now for the last section of the piece, that one was really a big pain for me, no tong i had or could find would fit it nicely and it was just annoying to scroll and work with, and not to mention to get that thing to hold the head up

here's the way i held the dragon head up to the piece, it was originally supposed to reach all the way back down to the piece but time and a hole too big didn't allow so

 

this may not be as i wanted it, nor extremely beautiful, but I'm very happy with and i think it's a success to have managed to make this with only a year or two experience under my belt and i was also working in a very confined space, behind three forges all running at full blast, i barely had enough room to turn around and the anvil was some Chinese light-weight double bick deeply marked dead soft thing with neither a hardy or a pritchel, i used a really big nail header (im talking inner diameter of more than an inch) as a hole for pushing the punch through

i think it proves that you don't really need a fancy, completely flat, straight edged söderfors/peter wright/ fisher/Vulcan/whatever, to make something pretty (i can't deny though that having one of those would have helped a whole lot 

 

the competitors along with the judges, John Simpkins, Michael Maasing and Jon Olofsson

 

 

 

A fun little knocker. just a little rough around the edges, but nothing a little file work wouldn't clean up. definitely a lot of complexity for a 3 hour time.  I love little competitions like these.   so many creative ideas for the same basic item.  thanks for sharing.