I wanna make a viking sword

[BLDSMTH]

Hello everyone....I am getting going with everything I need and I think I'm ready. I wanna do everything as traditional as i can. I'm going to start with the search for iron ore. I am going to smelt the ore in a Bloomery furnace (with an electric blower) using homemade charcoal. I think I am going to run 3 smelts and consolidate each bloom into a billet and then forge weld each billet to each other and work those up to about 36 layers do an alternating twist and a hard bend. This will make the core. 

I want to run a separate smelt run and try to turn it into crucible steel (but no guarantees here). And this bar will make up the edge billet. 

I want it to be light fast and fully functional. In sure this project is going to be at least a year long endeavor. I am going to start my search for iron ore in the coming weeks and will try to keep updates. 

[ausfire]

Wow. That's a courageous venture. Keep safe.

[ianinsa]

check out the Ulfbert there is a really good video by one of the members here. very interesting and Ric(Door County forge) is very knowledgeable.

[BLDSMTH]

I am expecting many failures and maybe even never accomplishing my goal but it will be fun venture with many hours of learning. 

I watched the ulfburt video and now that you bring it up I think im going to go back and watch it again.

[jeremy k]

Can you show use a few pics of some other blades you've made to work up to this sword?

 

[BLDSMTH]

Sure I can...let me dig a couple out and upload the pictures. We just moved so it may take a bit.

[BLDSMTH]

This first one has been heat treated and tempered. I had a handle on it but didn't like it and I'm going to make micarta scales for it. I have abused it shaved mild steel with it. Chopped a tree down and haven't blunted the edge. Partly because of the sabre grind. 

This second one is not quite finished yet. I need to get some 2x72 belts but I forged this as close to shape as possible to practice forging in bevels and and hammer control. I have a home made power hammer I'm building a press I have several forges. I will find the viking seax I made and post a picture of that as well.

[BLDSMTH]

[ThomasPowers]

The first smelt I was involved with we were going to make axes; got enough iron for  fish hook or two. (Back in the early 1990's)  Of course we were doing a short stack scandinavian bloomery; dug the clay for it out of the creek and all and used two single action belows.  Within ten years we were producing 15 pound blooms still using human powered air. Do you have someone to mentor you for the smelting part?

BTW what is the weight of your sword blade? What is the distal taper on it?

Smelting and making crucible steel are two separate things; though Dr Feuerbach in "Crucible Steel in Central Asia" did speculate that they could have used blooms as starting material for the melt.  Note that using crucible steel for the edge is not very traditional.

Have you read "A Modern Replication Based on the Pattern-Welded Sword of Sutton Hoo" a monograph by Robert Engstrom, Scott Michael Lankton and Audrey Lesher-Engstrom ?

[BLDSMTH]

My goal Is to make a "traditional" viking sword. I am using modern methods like using the blower. And as for making the edge steel from crucible steel I just want a functional sword in the end and I dont see that happening with using just Bloomery iron and I wanted to use something I made and not a modern material. I dont have anyone to mentor me through the smelt so kn sure i wall have to do several smelts before i even get a useable bloom but its something I want to do so I'm going to. I'm not doing this for a sword. I'm doing it for experience. O haven't read the book you referenced but I'm going to the library to see if they can find a copy for me. I will get some measurements of the sword in a little while and see if I can get a weight.

[ThomasPowers]

First of all I think this is a great research project to learn a large number of things about early medieval technologies!  I am very happy that you realize that this will be an iterative process. Your first description sounded very much like a Dunning-Kruger example. When researching remember that John Anstee's work has been superseded as more people have been involved in experimental archaeology in this area.

I don't know if Dr Feuerbach published her thesis as a book.  She gave me a copy on a CD when they were offered to members on the Archaeological Metallurgy mailing list. I know the Sutton Hoo monograph was published as I have a copy signed by Scott.

That's a problem using the term "Traditional"; it doesn't really mean anything concrete.   Traditionally sword smiths did not smelt their own metal,  (look at currency bars---ferrous metal was a trade item from the start of the iron age!) Traditionally the swordsmith didn't do the grinding and hilting, etc. Single authorship is a very modern and often very USA type of thing.  Historically swords were made more like the Japanese still do with separate experts handling each stage. (In Europe often separate guilds were involved in the high Middle Ages and Renaissance.) This is of course totally against how it's shown by Movies, video games and fantasy novels.  (And the biggest a-historical issue: only having a single person in the smithy!)

I asked about weight and distal taper as swords were quite light and *fast*. (In battle: heavy is slow and slow is dead!)  The great thing about bladesmithing is that tapers come with the territory; much easier than with modern machining techniques, (though CNC has some folks doing great blades, of course machining something long and flexible is still an issue.)

I might be able to suggest some folks for you to contact if I knew where you were at!

[BLDSMTH]

Dunning-Kruger example....I have never heard that before. Lol

Right now the blade on the "sword" as forged is 1/4 inch and distal about 3 inches from the tip its 3/16 before any grinding. The blade itself is 21 inches overall length is 28 inches. This was supposed to be a test for me to forge as close to shape without leaving any hammer marks and to make a light flexible sword. This one is all for destructive testing and see what the heat treat and temper is like and how far it will flex and spring back. I have been working primarily with 5160 but I know heat treating my own material will be a whole different world. 

[ThomasPowers]

It's used fairly commonly here as we get so many people basically saying "I plan to win a formula 1 race in two months, how do you start the car?"

Getting folks that want to put in the hours and also do the research is like a breath of fresh air in your smithy when the smoke is level with your knees!

[JHCC]

(That's from the ceiling down, not from the floor up. Just FYI.)

[Marc1]

When I was a kid ... aged 12 or so, and we 3 boys always looked to find some form of entertainment on our family farm,  I decided that building a little house made of sticks and mud was the best idea. My little brother, now an eye surgeon, joined me in the build. My elder brother, now a professor in architecture, decided that making himself a sword with a bit of bamboo was the way to go. I found his choice always rather embarrassing even at that short age.

I have not changed my mind.

[ThomasPowers]

I started with the central rib of palm fronds modified with my boy scout pocket knife. Very age appropriate in my opinion 50-some years later!

[JHCC]

I remember whittling a knife out of a piece of firewood when I was about seven or eight. I recall that my older brother (then a very big Lord of the Rings fan) making something similar, but going to a great deal of trouble to paint it with modelmaker's enamel paints in black and gold, with Elvish runes all over it. Of course, his crossguard split apart the first time he tried to stab it into a pillow....