On Saturday I rode to Volker´s place, the Bethaus in Witten, thge Muttental. Volker had asked for my help, and since he is simply a nice guy, I was pleased to help out forging. Doesn´t hurt me a bit, working with children and enthusiastic adults, mind you;-)! Had loads of time to spare, though, and did a striker and two knives. This one´s made from ancient Mercedes truck leaf spring steel, very rare now, since mercedes uses air springs now! It´s a free Celtic interpretation (They had no swan´s neck scrolls but simple rings or animal heads). I drilled the handle for balance in the meantime, and I like it, for it has a rather thin blade that is forged to sharpness. Had to grind it down a bit for tempering.
I annealed it near the forge, every time when a kid came to forge, and it went nice and soft by that and took an even temper.
Some girl with a horse hobby (or was that hobby horse;-)) came around and asked if we could fit any horseshoes. It was only after we had already looked for some steel that she told us she were joking;-)... brutish blacksmiths, and a bit thick in the head, we are;-).
Letting it cool on the anvil for grinding....
This is an ancient drilling machine, working on transmission, Volker just has lying around....
This is a look into Viktor´s smithy. Viktor is an old Russian blacksmith of Kazakhian origin, from whom we have learned so much we cannot even tell, and keep learning. This guy´s the real thing, some 74 years old and still going strong. He wasn´t there, but he managed to build the forge anew last week, and I am always astonished how cleanly he achieves forge work. He avtually forged new bolts for it and an axle(!) for some wheels so that it´s a cinch now to move it in and out. The wheels run as smoothly as if the axle were turned!
That´s an ancient, and very sturdy blacksmith´s vice. Quite a joy to work with, and can stand a lot of pounding!
That´s Volker´s forge with the wheels on, and the rest of the smithy;-).
Volker with a neighbour kid and his mother. The kid was enthusiastic, and Ma no less...;-)
Volker forging a cobra snake. You can already see the head. he loves to make these, and they are quite some detail work.
It´s me again;-) forging a medium sized bush blade that should have become a Nessmuk replica, buuuut, I messed up the preform and made a Seax from it with a hump on the back I ground off, was losing nerve;-).
This time I had my knives at hand, for I had been asked quite a lot if I had something to show. I´m normally not into selling my blades much, for they have a personal history and a background for me, but, hey, I live in a heap of sharpened metal and it´s starting to get some sick dimension;-) so I thought I´d get rid of some. Didn´t work that day, though, but no loss, really.
I forged a striker from some file steel. The left side has some sharp edges, rest´s round and still shows the structure. I simply hardened it in water, and it works quite well.
This one ´s an ancient grinding stone used to repair miner´s tools. It worked with a leather transmission belt on water power. Nowadays there´s no water wheel, no transmission and no working grinding stone. And before you ask, no, we are NOT allowed to build a motor in;-).
It was another great day at the smithy, and we packed at some 6 pm and did some cleaning up.
This one ´s an ancient grinding stone used to repair miner´s tools. It worked with a leather transmission belt on water power. Nowadays there´s no water wheel, no transmission and no working grinding stone. And before you ask, no, we are NOT allowed to build a motor in;-).
