Of Chrismas fair mayhem, of breaking bonds and forging unity... impressions from a busy end of 2013

 Now, you have waited quite long for one of those posts, and for a reason. After the Chrismas fair mayhem I was simply feeling as if someone put me through a millstone, and did not quite feel like blogging. But here they come, impressions from a busy end of the year. We had one fair at Volmarstein Orthopaedic Institute, which was a most interesting opportunity to boot, for we forged with handicapped persons and kids alike.

 We arrived early and set up forge. It was going to be a very busy weekend with lots of creativity also in finding solutions for enabling people to have a go. We managed, and it was very rewarding seeing the twinkle in the eyes of a person condemned to lying flat on his belly for most of his life, and being able to master the violent fire and the hissing steam and the unforgiving iron! It was worth the ordeal of pre-Chrismas time just to see this spark in his eye, and I hope it was kindled to give him the strength to brave his everyday life. Think you got a hard life? Think again. And my utmost respect goes to those people. Not because they are "special", but because they - for the most part - are stronger than most just because they are mastering their life. Because they are not special, and don´t want to be.

 This guy, however... ;-)

 had some time to spare and some noise to make to attract the customers, and what did he do? Bushcraft whittler from wootz I found in the woods...

 We made this giveaway certificate for the kids and other customers.

 BAKSCHISCH!!!

 Quenching and tempering the blade. Then suddenly it was absolute chaos. When I looked up again, it was dark. People kept coming, we forged with kids and adults and had to find new solutions constantly. i could not take photos, but, hey, you have alreay seen people forging in this blog, don´t you?;-)

 This is far more important;-) at dinner time I had a break and got me a delicious dish, one of my favourite meals: Green cabbage with sausage and fried potatoes.Yum!

 And back to work again, kindling the flame and sparkling sparks...;-)

Next day we met with the good guys from the Insitute´s staff, can tell you, we had quite a laugh together!

 Then Peter dropped by. He´s an accomplished smith himself, as you can tell by his build;-). He provided visitors with mead and ale in his medieval tavern. We had a nice chat and a laugh together, and he is thinking of ordering some Oseberg lamps... get on with it, bro;-)!

 The kids dropped by and had some fun smithing.

 ...and were righteously proud of their accomplishments!

 I made this common cubicle-nosed Iroquois pig that tries to be a Celtic boar but still has room left to grow...;-) as a hiking staff headpiece. Willi´s currently making himself one which I am very fond of, with a ram´s head, but since wild pigs have some significance to me,  thought I´d go for one of these.

 And some fully-integral En-Nep knife with a tang drilled out for balance.

 Then suddenly, Volmarstein fair was over, and we were headed for Schwelm. This was a bit of a stressy actioon, for for my employer I helped organize the fair, we moved the office, I followed several projects at work that needed instant accomplishment, I had to organize three booths and do some forging at the same time. But when we met at Schwelm, all was forgotten. All the politics and the strategies and the hacking about in the office. At the office, I am but scum. But I know steel-and steel knows me. The fires were lit, Rolf, Nick, Willi, Volker and a load of groupies gathered around the booths. Rolf made some great leather tooling work with the kids, Nick offered some tin can play at skittles, and Volker, Willy and myself did some serious blacksmithing show;-) not at all.

 Brought some blades for some back-of-booth display, too. Lousy picture, apologies!

 Nick had a go at the forge himself.

 We met with Arthur, too. He´s a beeskeeper we frequently meet on events around these parts, and it´s always a pleasure!

 In Schwelm we also forged new links for a chain of unity we also did in Bochum at TFH (2,8 m) and Altenessen (3,05m). The idea behind the project is to let people from every social background have a go at forging an individual link, which is then linked to the great chain. We believe in unity amongst all races, ethnies and social caste and background. We believe that while we may not have peace in the world, at least people should pay each other the respect in allowing the thought that every individual human being is shaping the course of this mankind we value far too much. We believe that politicians, bankers and other warmongers have no power over the hearts of the people, and while they will not allow peace, because peace is not profitable, they cannot achieve total mind control.

And, quite personally, we believe, that, when we light the fire hot enough, the deity -or the Gods- will hear us and listen.

At least, iron does.

 Many of the kids we forged with, had alreay been there last year and waited eagerly for our booth to be set up on Saturday and Sunday. Felt good...;-) not being scum for once.;-)

 Rolf had a load of rare and beautiful pocket knives and craftsman´s cutters on display, together with his lovely leather work.

 Also some weekend project blades out of damascus and 440C.

 Nick suffering from the chills*ggg*.

 A dragon head link for the chain. The chain will be displayed at Schwelm Town Hall.

 Rolf suffering from the chills...*ggg*

 And tooling these leather wrist bands with kids and adults alike. He also made knife sheaths for knives we forged by the dozens!

 And this was the chain of Schwelm. 2,5 m of unity were forged in two days.

 And suddenly, the moon was out, and we were packing up.

We had some dinner, fish and chips without the vinegar, had a chat, and were all headed home. Folks, it´s simply good to have you around. You haven´t noticed much of what was going on beforehand, but you have certainly saved me from going mad that weekend.

Cheers to you weirdos and to those other weirdos out there!

Short introduction of an Otter billhook knife

Here we go again, long time, no post, and I have to admit, I was being a bit of in a rut, so I left blogging be for some time now. But here we go again: I wish all my faithful readers a happy new year 2014. 2013 was a bit of a bastard for me, but hope dies last...;-)

Here are some thoughts about another legal carry knife I purchased dead cheap on Solingen "Messer-Gabel-Scheren-Markt" knife expo in November. It is an Otter pruning knife. It comes with a big (85 mm) billhook blade from C 75 high carbon steel with a homogenous temper (not selective, that is).I estimate the hardness to about 56 - 58 HRC. It comes with beautiful cocobolo wood scales, brass bolsters and liners, and a stiff spring out of C 30. Overall craftmanship is meticuous, and i can´t for the death of me figure out why it was sold as second grade... It has a high convex bevel that is nice and thin and nearing a flat grind. Out of the basket (no packaging here) it came razor sharp. The handle is nice and chunky. Often the scales on knives like this look a bit crappy, but this one simply is beautifully finished. There are little to no tolerances. There is no radial or axial play in the blade. The spring is quite stiff, and the blade opens in one fluid motion due to a round base of the blade´s root. This is one thing I would recommend to change, for a rectangular blade root would add some more safety to a slipjoint, even if it is a very safe handler already. The upswept handle allows for powerful cuts when pruning trees, and makes it even suitable for some whittling tasks. A knife of this shape quite naturally is not suited for all tasks ideally, but that´s not to be said that they canot be done! Even cutting sausage is a cinch with the proper technique.Peeling an apple is where the billhook design really shines, and cutting rope and zip - ties also is really easy.

What do I think? This is a very able cutter with a friendly appearance suited for a lot of tasks, not only pruning, harvesting herbs and mushrooms, but also kitchen and whittling tasks, provided it is used with the proper technique. For the price it is a real great bargain. I would add a lanyard hole, for a lanyard comes in real handy when you are pruning trees, and would wish Otter could find it in themselves;-)to add a rectangular blade base. But other than that I would not change a thing!

Buy it, it takes little room on your shelf*ggg*.

Ilkka Seikku´s got a blog!!!!!

I have long become an avid fan of Ilkka Seikku. I just love the knowledge, versatility and no-frills appearance of his woodcraft tools, and I keeplearning from his vast treasury of woodcraft skills, but ranting over and out, now he´s got a blog, so anyone could go and have a look and build an opinion for oneself:

http://rautasarvi.blogspot.de/2013/12/metso-primitiivi-jousella-copyrights-by.html?showComment=1389038070726#c5628810110846854675

I especially love the post about the bush prowler knife, a favourite of mine.

http://rautasarvi.blogspot.de/search?updated-min=2014-01-01T00:00:00%2B02:00&updated-max=2015-01-01T00:00:00%2B02:00&max-results=1

On the bench - a variety of ancient crucible steel blades and some thoughts on steel and mythology

 I have altogether too much projects going on to date, but I am always afraid I will not be able to use the smithy in winter, so, better too much lying around than nothing at all. This is a most current project I am very fond of. I forged this "Iscian" knife on Samhain eve out of steel I found in the woods. The pattern does not show yet, but I guess it´s a very high carbon steel at least, maybe Pulad. I found this ingot in the woods near my home, and it was very hard to process. It had to be forged at a temperature of about 950 degrees Celsius, give or take 20-50 degrees, and you had to go very light on it. So it was a light hammer and much patience that even made the material for this blade. But it paid off. This blade sings, I can´t tell it any other way. I edge - quenched it with a very conservative tempering, and still the edge has an estimated hardness of 62 HRC, while remaining springy enough to emanate a faint ringing sound even when you just take it up. In bad fantasy novels swords sound like that;-). I love that.

 I forged a double scroll that did not quite turn out too well, but I guess, you still need room for improvement;-).

 I have to work on the grind still. The blade is still thicker towards the tip. As is, I will either fit yew, blackthorn, stag or bog oak scales to it, and I am thinking of inlaying three thorns of blackthorn into the handle... but we´ll see.

 Out of the same steel I have forged a set of knives which I find ideal as a backwoods kit. Top to bottom: Nessmuk, 115 mm long blade, Kopis, 160 mm long, and a whittling knife with a 90 mm blade.

 Top: Spine thickness at 4 mm.

 The Kopis has a thickness with a taper from 6 mm at the handle to 2 mm at the tip.

 The whittling knife is rather thin at 3mm.

 Below the knife blade you can see some of the material, and if you look closely, you can see a certain structure or even layers in it.

Like this, see? I know, I can rant on endlessly about steel and carbon contents. This ingot has an estimated carbon content of about 1,3%, which made it difficult to forge at best. I look forward to these knives, and is a very intense experience. The objects made from this steel emanate a strange energy. It is an almost mystical experience finding and seeking this material in the backwoods, cleaning and processing it and turning the scrap metal into a knife that is more than just a tool or even an object of the arts. It is like telling and living a story, and is more than just metallurgy. I find it very hard to explain, but the singing of that Iscian on top of this post is more than just a result of the quenching and tempering process. It is a violent song that the trees have found for the torture of the woods, for the pollution and waste that has been done to the forest. It is not altogether a positve energy. It is dark and vibrant like the dark side of the woods, like death and decay and the opening of gates better left alone. But open they do, and Samhain is the very essence of this. This Iscian will be the "opener of the gates", the guardian at the gate of the turning wheel.

But, mythology set aside, I hope that these knives, or rather objects, will be poetry for me in the years to come, and they have opened up a new path for me. Not the path of the sword, which I always believed I was on, but that of a more sublime symbol.

"Knife, and chain, and bow- cauldron, speech and goblet, too. Staff and jewel, ring and mask."

And I look forward to complete them this winter.;-)

Marburg - a lovely weekend with the loveliest person in my life

Ah, yes. I have not written for quite a long time. Fact is, I have too much to do, and some logistical problems...

But in no way there has nothing happened.For instance, I went for a lovely visit to Marburg to meet with my lovely magic troll. And, while not everything we did is for the public;-), we also went on a nice little foraging troll stroll.

The path led into the foothills that offer a beautiful view of Marburg castle. It is funny, many of Germany´s greatest poets, such as Rainer Maria Rilke, Clemens Brentano, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Friedrich Schiller and many, many more have lived or visited this city. And, visiting a pub concert on Friday at Molly Malone´s Irish pub, I got the impression that at least folk music and romanticism is alive and well still. More so, I have the feeling that every inch of city, university, and, even more so, the woods, breathes the spirit of poetry.

This is a photo by the magic troll that shows a bit of the atmosphere. There is poetry in the autumn, too.

And as we came up the hill, the little one whining, complaining and on the verge of tears (because I was going too slow;-)), we saw this chainsaw carving sculpture standing in the middle of nowhere, which someone obviously had made just for the fun of it.

Into the woods we ventured, to the site of an old market garden.

Recently it had burnt down, and it lies in ruins. There is a very strange air about the place, with car wrecks silently rotting there (and, of course, polluting the ground in the process), with the plants growing wildly. It is strange that we are only accustomed of our pet plants growing tiny... and suddenly you are faced with a giant Thuya tree and flower "trees". It is as if nature would strike back there, and violently. The place will rot, and the plants, once enslaved, will destroy the ruins, unto they will lie submerged in wreckage, beyond recognition. I would wish this fate will befall some big-term crop seed corporations selling former ABC weapons as herbicides, too, if I was allowed a wish, but I am not.

The woods, made from alien plants, lay utterly peaceful.

 Then it was off into the deeper woods, foraging for bay boletus and other ´shrooms,sloe berries, quince and rowan berries. At a hunting stand in the middle of nowhere, we rested, and had a cuppa tea. Note the deranged portion of our little camp belongs to me;-).

 I simply love this picture. Funny, how it´s always the weird things I love, like the tip of her nose bending into the kuksa, and her look following, and then the pupils of her eyes go up, and then she smiles. I am right grateful for every hour we are able to spend together. We also did a bit of Ömpf-troll watching, and she made a sketch of the little fellow we observed, and I gues it´s already onlineon her facebook account. Just search Triona ni Erc on facebook;-). I know she will hate me for this...;-).

And this was the outcome of the day:

We made a great dinner, with a topinambur cream soup I will remember for years to come, it was that tasty, and it was not me who made it;-), and some deer stew with quince and parsnip, with a delicious chutney of rowan berry and quince. NOMMMM!!!!!

Hardcore knife with a traditional pedigree - hardcore test surprise

 On the recent knife expo at the Solingen industrial museum "Gesenkschmiede Hendrichs" I got the opportunity to meet with Mr. Rommel, new head of corporation and chief manager of Otter knives. Otter knives still specializes in making simple, traditional pocket and working / utility knives. Hailing from a background of decades of handicraft, the corporation certainly knows a thing or two about making sensible utility designs. I came across this "Berufsmesser", as it is called in the Otter catalogue. Yap, I know, I already own one, but, hey, you know how it is;-). I played it some, and realized the blade was straight, which my old one was not, the craftsmanshipalmost meticulous, but not so much as to make it too beautiful to use. It came with a beautifully grained Cocobolo wood handle. The blade is a very old German style, the so called "Hamburger" style, dating as far back as the middle ages, often used in bread and kitchen knives, but also in utility folding knives as early as the 15th century. As I have mentioned before, the knife comes in very cheap for the quality, about 18€. The blade is made from high carbon steel, with a finely accomplished "Solinger Dünnschliff" (convex, "Hamagore" bevel), and polished to a blueish sheen. This example of the type came shaving sharp. I am informed it is made from medium high carbon steel with 0,75% carbon content, and yes, there´s also iron, period. This makes for an edge that can be finely ground and made wickedly sharp.

 The knife has a slip-joint mechanism that stops at 90 °. It came with no side or axial play. The smoothness of the action leaved something to be desired, but with a drop of tootpaste and turpentine oil (Balistol) and few minutes of working it, it set in and was nearly as smooth as silk.

 The blade cut into this iron rod with ease and no damage whatsoever to the edge.

 Same thing with this piece of stag antler, where I slammed it in several times.

 I then slammed the tip into this tin can lid, and the stiff slip joint spring inspired my confidence. Of course, the sheepfoot blade design is no stabbing knife at all, but it can be made possible.

 What it does best is cutting, even after the abuse. It made short terms with this piece of paper.

 I cut the paper while it hung free. After the abuse, (cut on the left), there was a little more playing around involved, and the cut in the paper is a bit ragged at the beginning, hinting of a bit of a loss of sharpness on the edge. But the paper was a bit damp, making it not the easiest for cutting while hanging free.

 It was easy, however, to cut the paper after overcoming the initial resistance of thecutting material.

 Stag antler, iron rod, cutting paper...

and then it made this out of a piece of fir wood;-). Sweet.

 The real surprise came when I did the spine whack test normally reserved for liner lock knives. The spring is so stiff it keeps the blade secure even under this extreme stress.

And here´s a lousy clip to show you I did not spare it when whacking on the stag antler;-)

 I found overall that this is a knife with an extremely huge potential. I heard some rumours that Otter wants to do some mods on it. What could be improved is a bigger lanyard hole, for it comes stock with but a 3 mm hole. I drilled it, of course, for I voided it of its warranty nonetheless. I then realized the hard way;-) the iron liners bent, and, looking at it intently saw another feat of high potential. For the spring does not go around the butt of the knife, leaving an empty space. You could with little effort insert a block of G-10 or volcanic fibre, and, by fitting a simple clip in, making this knife an even more versatile carry. Am I enthused? You bet. You will be hard pressed to find a slipjoint folder that is capable of doing this and come out almost unscathed. The knife also comes in different lengths suitable as a legal carry even in the UK or Denmark, and rumour has it there will be still more options available in the future.;-). And NO, I did NOT get payed to write this;-).

Every knife shall have something of simple beauty to it, and so I made this lanyard mojo for it. Silver fittings, leather, of course, an agate pearl, aaaand: A glass bead jewel made by my beloved magic troll. If you want one, she will trade or sell. Contact her on her Blog:

Koboldkerker.blogspot.com

or via her facebook accont. Shameless crossposting, I know, but I guess you appreciate it;-).

Oh the loot! Flea market finds....

On a recent flea market I came across a right heap of goodies I just wanted to share with you. The whole lot cost me 20 €;-). Two handforged  Yugoslavian hatchets, a huge piece of stag antler for scales and handles, an electricians knife (I will give you a close-up soon!), three files, two still working, one for damascus, and  a piece of roe deer antler.

It always pays off to keep a lookout!;-)

An encounter with Hugo-another unlikely Fimbulmyrk tale;-)

 It was some two weeks ago, when I went out on an after-work foraging stroll. Winter cometh;-) as they say, so I´d decided to go look for some more apples and ´shrooms and quince to stash into my attic;-).

What can I say... I was just some 200 m from the nearest house, when something came swooping at me from behind, so close I could feel the rush of air. An eurasian jay it was, and he settled close to me on this plank. Ever so gently, I took out my camera, as not to disturb him or shy him away, but he did not seem bothered at all. In fact, I had the impression that he rather enjoyed being a model star! I talked with him in my mind, but our conversation was being a bit disturbed, for I felt his attention slip;-) when a lady with a dog came by. But was he bothered by that canine? Not at all! He just ruffled his feathers a bit, made some funny noises, but otherwise was not nervous at the least. I talked to that lady, and I learned this was his place, and the neighbourhood calls him "Hugo". I found that appropriate, even if he calls himself a different name. I cannot repeat his own name, for a computer does not have signs for those sounds his name is composed of:-), and it´s also a bit too long (Eurasian Jays are sometimes being a bit pompous, I think;-)).

Then that lady went on her merry way foraging for mushrooms, and I  was left with Hugo. We had a nice chat, and he showed me a good mushroom site;-), accompagying me for a good portion of the trail.

The we said goodbye, and both went on our merry way.

I am lying, of course. Am I?;-)