From the flames a beast is born-Seax collaboration

I feel very privileged to have made the acquaintance of Ambar Bahadur Bishwokama, a very accomplished swordsmith and knifemaker from Kathmandu and owner of KC Nepal (https://nepalkhukurihouse.com/). It´s obviously that I have developed a fascination with Nepalese cutlery and with the hard-working craftsmen who are able to create beautiful knives with next to no equipment. This is an inspiration to me, and this is what "Tribal Knifemaking" as we Westerners call it out of a grave misunderstanding, is all about. We tend to see this as romantic, but it is not. It is the way these guys make a living. And in my opinion, they can be very proud. It is not about the fancy tools, it is in the skills that make the knife.

Coincidentally, I also feel very privileged to have made the acquaintance of some Ms. Janet Fischer ;-), owner of www.nordisches-handwerk.de, retailer of fine Scandinavian and bushcraft knifes, materials and fine art in Germany, and chance is, they had a design for a seax lying about don´t doing anything. Some PMs on facebook later and we had a collaboration going, not always easy, but a communication no less (message included for a mad world). In fact, Ambar went outright enthusiastic about the knife and forged away in no time. 





The knives are made from high-carbon spring steel. And next time you whine about not having the equipment to start making knives or tools better shut up- this is how they do it the traditional way. Those are exactly the same tools common in Europe in the viking age. So, while the design of the knife might not exactly be period, the manufacturing process is actually nearly the same as they might have done it in the viking age.

Safety boots? Quit whining! Roughing out the tang... fullering tool? What you need is a hammer and tongs-and skill.
 


The handle roughly hewn...



...would not stay that way for long!

The finshed product surely does not fill the bill of some showcase viking, and of course it would not do for museum reenactors. Taking some liberties, you could see it as similar to some Anglo-Saxon types (See: Wheeler Seax typology)

But keep one thing in mind: In general, you can get a lot of knives for reenactment camp chores. And a lot of them are crap. I am meaning no offence, but there are a lot of smiths on reenactment frairs around thes parts who are better at drinking than at smithing, so to say. This knife is made like a Khukuri and quenched in the same manner. I hope to be able to provide you with a video of a brutal test soon. As far as I can say for now, I am very intrigued by the knife and that does not happen easily! 

You can get them soon from www.nordisches-handwerk.de in the shop or you can write them an Email at kontakt [ätt) nordisches minus handwerk dot de. 

News from the magic troll´s shop;-)

 Now this is a blade I made for the magic troll...;-) A Seax, three layer laminate, carburized spring steel / mild steel, 120x 3mm or something. This is after she polished it some.

 In the meantime she made this at Susanne´s shop...Susanne is a friend of hers, a gold smith tutoring her a bit... and seeming to learn summat, too;-).

 Then the magic troll made this out of my crappy steel;-).

 I LOVE those carvings.

 ...lost for words...

Am I proud? BOY, am I!!!!;-)

Another productive day at the Bethaus smithy

 Last Friday it was meeting with Nick again to do some tutoring and some forging myself. So we met at Volker´s place and started right away. Nick had quite some ambitious ideas, and I felt right sorry to calm him down a bit. It´s just that he´d just forged the third time in his life and wanted to do some master projects, and that would be only frustrating. That guy´s really fired up with blacksmithing, and that´s great to see. When I told him to set aside the BIG and complicated project he was working on, I daresay he was a bit frustrated at first. But then he just shrugged and started working on the handle of the knife he wanted to complete. Of course, he needed a bit of a tutoring, too, and I helped him out a bit, but all in all, he fared well enough. Guess the outcome will be a fine one;-), and you will find it in this place.

Apart from tutoring, I did some big projects myself. I had found some material in the woods, ingots as well as steel rods from apparently the same or a similar material, crucible steel appearing toi hail from the beginning of the 20th century, with an extremely high carbon content. Blimey, that stuff´s not easy to forge!;-) But I did it eventually, and made these:

 Top to bottom: Ingots I probed and messed up. I will try that again, but this time forge a spatula out of mild steel to weld them back together and to refine them. Then an integrally bolstered belt knife, selectively tempered, as you can see by the quench line, which is already visible quite well. Then a leather working intgral half-moon - knife for the magic troll;-). Then I forged a seax blade from the crucible steel rods I found. I also did a spark analysis of the ingot to the right. The Birka style knife below is made from spring steel, and there´s another piece of spring steel lying beneath the integral, from an old wagon or whatever silently rotting in the middle of nowhere;-).

The leatherworking tool.

It simply feels good to share knowledge and to learn, and to be able to pursue your learning and your projects in an atmosphere of fruitful conversation and respect. I cannot thank Volker enough for letting us use the smithy whenever we want. Of course, there are always questions and discussions, wherever humans meet, but, compared to the smithy in the industrial museum, it is a whole different matter.

Volker is a smith who loves what he does. He is not the best of all blacksmiths, and he is aware of that. He´s sometimes driving me mad;-), and he is aware of that, too;-). But he knows what he gets by letting us do, what we love, too. We learn, to promote the work of the Bethaus as a concept, and we all feel responsible for something great; people keeping the world alive by telling stories with voice and song and sickle and, pardon me;-), hammer. Craig dropped by to fetch a sgian achlais I made for a friend of his, and we had a chat about this and that. Now Craig´s a great folk singer, an award winning one, to be precise. We had a good conversation about art and life and gypsy culture and what one could do to stop the madness of the modern world. And I daresay, we might not save the world with the Bethaus. But we made some kids and even their grumpy parents smile already. And we will keep telling our tales. Noone will prevent us from doing so. Might be we will be driven away from this place, too, as we are currently driven out of the Industriemuseum Ennepetal (mobbed out, in fact, feels quite familiar:-/). But nothing will keep us from doing what we believe in. And our number is growing, and the friendship amongst us is growing, as are our skills, for we are never done learning. This is what feels best these days.

On the bench....;-) er the stump, that is.

 The sgian achlais for George is finally finished, now I simply have to make a sheath for it. It cost me quite some nerves again. I don´t know what it is, everytime I work for Scotsmen, everything imagineable goes awry;-). Wrecked my belt grinder, my air heater and my drilling machine, two sawblades and a file on it, so this is as tribal as they come, for I had no shop also, so I did a lot of work out in the woods, with no vice, a rasp, a knife, a hammer and sanding paper.

 I also had some progress on my damascus folder blade. The integral bolsters on the liners give me quite a headache, and I am currently thinking of just doing something in brass. The damascus is 300 layers of 1.2842 steel and 15N20 (C75Ni8) by Matthias Zwissler. Below is an EDC damascus blade for myself, 240 layers (Or was it 480, I lost track) 85mmx3,5-2,0 mm mild steel, file steel and spring steel. I am also thinking of making a virobloc folder from it...

 And, being inspired by Petr Florianek, I carved the antler on Eikinnsleikr with a mythic snake that bites its own tail, symbolizing the regenerating forces of nature, life and death and the mythological antagonist of Thor, the snake of Midgard.

 I tanned the carving with iron oxide.

 Still quite some room for improvement, but as is, I am content with the outcome. And yes, the snake IS upside down, to be seen when you handle the knife. I am growing ever so much fonder of that knife, and will do a sheath to go with it, and am currently thinking what material to take. I think of oak, naturally;-)...

We´ll see... I hope to get into the smithy soon and to forge myself another seax... can´t have too many  seaxes...;-)

On the bench these days-Sgian Achlais, spoon and seax

 Those are some of many projects currently going on: A handforged spoon out of mild steel with a handle out of reindeer antler, a BIG sgian achlais , spring steel with a yew handle and copper ferrules for a friend of Craig´s, and a hadseax out of wire damascus with a reindeer antler handle.

The sgian achlais with a finished handle, not yet glued nor with the tang peened over the buttcap, for I have to do some grinding still. Wrecked half of my tools, so everything extremely tribal... but rugged to boot. Maybe I´ll do a video test on that knife soon, it certainly can take a beating! As is it chops through antler, oak and ash, carves mild steel rods and still cuts paper. I will take this to test and try harder still!

Tribal knifemaking with four-year old kids;-)- the works of Kai Bernhardt

 Now some of you might be vaguely familiar with this weird brute*ggg*. I use him as a ram when I forgot my keys... head first, that is*ggg*. Kidding aside, this is Kai, arguably one of my best mates, and he really got the blacksmithing bug. On Friday he worked for the Kindergarten where his mother works. The institution is under threat of being clossed down for lack of rentability and needing some rapairing. So the staff set out to raise funds to rebuild the house and work against closure. They organized a spontaneous Chrismas fair on the street. For 10 € donation you could eat and drink as much as you wanted, and the kids could do some forging. Hats off to this guy. He came directly from work (repairing railroad wagons, in an 8 hour shift) to go on smithing. Not many people would do that or even be capable of it!!! I want to express my deep respect for that.

 The forge cracked when he put it in the car, but he made the best of it, repaired it, and, boy, did it roar!

 Forging with four-year-olds is not for everyone. Not every smith, even if he´s a good one, can achieve this. Kai did it with:

2 hammers
a block of D 2 steel for an anvil
a block of wood
3 tongs
and a forge consisting mainly of dirt and junk.

 The homemade mulled wine was delicious, and I have to admit I had quite a fill;-).

 Proper man food;-) delicious homemade salads, BRATWÜRST *ggg* and meat kebab sticks, plus bread, hot mulled wine, punch, hot cocoa and a load of great and friendly people. When Kai had his much-needed break, I took over and helped him out so he could eat something and have a chat.

 Kai brought some leather for me... perfect, thanks, bro!

 Many of those kids were a bit reluctant at first, but quickly warmed up to the work.

 Chatting beside the Chrismas tree...

 Giftware galore...

 To the left is Manuel, who currently is on a tutoring programme with the Kindergarten. Kai repairing the forge, which nearly fell apart. In my opinion that makes for even a greater achievement, making do with what is at hand and being able to work under the worst conditions imaginable.

 This is a knife Kai made. It has an ancient Martiini or Iisakki Järvenpaa  blade that has never quite seen production and was made by Rudolph Broch in Solingen. 1.4110 steel, 57-59 HRC, birchwood burl and is that beechwood? 

 Two "viking" style (better: Birka Vendel-age style) knives and a Leuku blade from spring and file steel.

 A ritual knife he made for his girlfriend (cruel gurrrrl*ggg*), Marie. 1.2842, has yet to be tempered. Below is an EDC / neck knife design, that supposedly is 1.2842, too.

And last but not least, a Seax blade I made from an old billhook and gave to him as a present some -is that four years?- ago. The handle is yew.



When I finally drank my last mulled wine and said goodbye, it was already quite late. It was a great evening with great people for a good cause. I sincerely hope that the Kindergarten will be saved by the effort.

New project: Broken back Hadseax

 This is a broken back Hadseax blade I forged some time ago. It´s made from a 300 layer/120 layer/ four bar damascus out of tank bearing and tank cannon steel by Matthias Zwissler. The tang has an angle to it to compensate for one flaw of the design: The cutting ability on flat surfaces. Have to flatten the convex bevel some and rework the fuller a bit, for I used power tools and did it free hand.

The handle will be either carved reindeer antler or a combination of birchwood burl and reindeer, or even a stag antler handle with a copper ferrule. I am still at it.