New hadseax for Tina

 This is a knife I made for a friend of the magic troll´s and me, a reenactor of Celtic culture and aspiring Viking ;-). The seax is made from steel I found in the woods, and which is apparently crucible Damascus.

 The handle is reindeer antler and birchwood burr.

 I carved a little dragon knotwork in...

 ...and fitted a raw garnet in the butt cap...

 The knife is rather thin and cuts very good. It´s roundabout 85x3mm long and thick with a high, almost flat convex bevel which should serve her well when carving, preparing food and other chores.

I just hope she likes it... I had to rush it some and I am not that content as always... but I guess she will...

Badass;-) - my new seax

 Okay, so I am not one for running around as a mere visitor of re-enactment fairs loaded with a whole armoury on my back. It´s awkward at best if you want to visit the booths and dismount them with your longsword, short sword, seax, dagger, quiver, bow, arrows, axe, ten knives and whatnot. Seldom do I even wear my (blunt) Viking spatha. It might be very disputable if people in the Viking age went to a market in full assault attire. The sagas do portray people in early medieval Scandinavia as people with a strong background in farming and householding most of the time. Plus, a Spatha was extremely expensive, so even people of higher social status might have preferred a plain seax or long knife for everyday use.

And even if I normally don´t carry that much bulk around, I noticed that a big blade might come in real handy when camp tasks are calling, such as firewood splitting and the preparation of it, preparing food and even carving and other chopping tasks. Plus, okay, I admit it, I am a big boy too;-).

So off to the smithy it was to make me one. I like the fact that it is a tool in the first and the weapon aspect is secondary. It was the weapon of the simple people and served them well every day as a tool while being a worthwhile companion when the going went bad.

I also like the fact that forging one is a great challenge, and I want to get better in swordsmithing as well, so, hey, I thought, what better exercise than that?

 The blade is loosely modelled after a Torgard find. The tang, however, is a free interpretation to aid in cutting. The offset makes it real efficient for that. The handle will be made from the piece of elk antler, but I will fit a pommel for balance, maybe a Wheeler Type XIII, but I am still about on fitting and weighing it in. The blade is not yet as well stropped to make for a real test, but of course...

...I could not resist putting it through some first paces. Chopping full-tilt into mild steel rods dented the edge a bit, but no shards. The blade is tough enough to lever up a 65kg - anvil and to lever up a standard wooden room door. It sings when driven hard;-), sweet. It feels quite nimble in spite of the thick spine. I look forward to it!

New damascus hadseax completed

 It has been some time going, but here it is: Finally the Damascus hadseax I started some time ago. The blade is 1.2842 and rebar, 60 layers, selectively tempered and carburized in the forge, handle has Mokume gane bolster and buttcap, reindeer antler and yew fittings.

 I had a go at carving again, and while there´s still a lot of room for improvement, I notice some progress and hope to be able to do some more complex work soon.

The tang is riveted against a Mokume Gane buttcap, own work, copper and silver.

The yew handle is treated with my own version of violin finish:

1 grain Mastix or Dammar
1 grain Daemonoropos draco (dragon´s blood)
1 grain turpentine resin
1 grain beeswax
1 teaspoon boiled linseed oil
ca. 3 cl isopropylen or ethanol or other until the whole mess is soluted.

I also used the concoction for tanning the carving.

A viking age friction folder for the magic troll

Here´s a friction folder I made for the magic troll, my lovely UMMIBÄR;-) (Hey, it´s spring, what do you expect...?*ggg*).

The blade (some 60mmx 2,5mmm) is Damascus out of 1.2842 and crucible steel I found in the woods, the handle´s a stag antler tip with a brass pivot. Peening went not too well, and there´s a tiny hairline crack. With this type of one- piece design it´s crucial to have a straight surface in the pivot area before peening the pivot over the handle. Due to the lack of offset in the scroll I had to file the handle down a bit too much. Having no time left, I peened it over very carefully, but still, the crack developed. It´s tiny, and the magic troll can easily fill it with epoxy, and the knife will still work.

I am still learning the how-do´s on this type of knife, but generally it´s slowly growing on me and I start to like those very much.