Oh the loot! ;-) Or: The adventure of steel processing

I went foraging for steel again in my local woods, and was stunned to find a treasure hoard again. As you say-one man´s trash is another one´s treasure. In this case it applies in the truest sense of the word. A lot of the steel I keep finding there is ancient crucible or extremely high carbon tool steel or saw steel. I found a chisel with a kind of octagonal shape, and having already processed one of those, I strongly suspect it is made of a very funny kind of steel. Spark analysis on the Sica blade showed dark-red, almost invisible sparks-but with bright-white sparks at the end, and, compared to file and spring steel, very funny shapes. Fact is, I can´t make heads nor tails out of it. Might be Tungsten in it or any such like, but what matters most to me is that the blade I forged from it keeps to a good temper with a very fine grain and a high amount of flexibility. So I look forward to the next.

Yeah, I know. I might not be that good with metallurgical theory. I make knives that have to work, and if I want to work with stainless or other stuff I should know my theory better. Yeah, I know, but DO I? Do I have to?

I have to admit that a lot of my tempering is done very intuitively. Of course, sometimes I get it wrong and have to do it all over again or worse yet, the knife breaks when testing. But, honestly, the last time I broke a knife is 3 years ago, and I have made a lot of them in the meantime, and the times when I get it wrong (with steel utterly unknown to me) I can count on three fingers.

I do not want to brag about my oh-so-extraterrestrial capabilities in bladesmithing, because I am not that good. What I want to say is, that it is possible. I forged a blade out of 440C intuitively and it stood up to some severe pounding while keeping an edge well. I daresay that´s what it´s all about. To be honest, I thrive on the adventure. There is something very archaic about bladesmithing and I find it more intelligible when you do it intuitively. It is like getting to know the NAME of iron. Not just the word, but what it really means, if that makes any sense. It is like I can tell you the word blue, but you have to feel it to know the blue sky on a warm summer´s day.

Patrick Rothfuss in his novel "The Wise Man´s Fear" (which I strongly recommend!) tells the story of a teacher of the arcane teaching "names". Not what we commonly think, but the actual names, not the sign, but the meaning, if you get my erm... meaning;-). He states that he will throw a stone at a given time with a given force and asks his pupils to calculate where the stone will fall down. Several well- educated people then start to make calculations, drawing diagrams and the like. When time is out, the teacher just opens the door and calls on a messenger boy, and without further notice, throws the stone. and the boy catches it on an instinct.

I know a lot of accomplished blade- and blacksmiths who make great knives, strictly according to the book of rules. Some make very durable knives, but some don´t.

And then I know several old Russian blacksmiths. One of them even could up until recently not read the newspaper or write his own name. He uses scrap steel, even rebar for his knives, and they are standing up to an abnormal degree of abuse with amazing edge-holding capacity. Viktor used rebar, too, and mild steel, and scrap and junk steel to amazing effect, too. They taught me one thing: That there IS the name of iron. You could put a piece of rust-pitted steel into their hands, and just by touching it they knew what to do. When asked, they failed to give a satisfying answer and just said that it had to be that way. Mielenko knew his numbers well, but was capable to tell the carbon content by the sound the steel made on the anvil, by weight and resistance alone. None of his knives, he told me, has ever failed.

I am a poet. A lunatic, if you so will, beloved of the moon. I tell a lot of crazy tales. Only on a secondary level am I a blacksmith, bladesmith or even bushcrafter. Might be it is like a kid once told me that in a different world or different time I´d be called a wizard. I like that, of course, but we live in 2016, and the world's not at all a place for wizards or warriors or even blacksmiths.

I have been on this path for a long, long time now. I know the wind and what lies therein. I know the sun and the moon and the stars and I love them. I love the earth and the trees. I listen to creeks and the murmur of the wind in the "soft, round tops of the pines and firs". They tell me of another world, a world of meaning, without signs, but names to be learned.

And with each piece of iron I find in the woods, I tell a new story, and learn the name of iron and fire. My knives are always more than just a blade and a "been there, done that", at least to me. It is not just a thing you covet and because you can´t afford it, you make it yourself. Their names are an armour I wear in the everyday mayhem of our world, even if their blades lie in my drawers. They are the gift of the woods, tormented by man and crooked and weird and powerful. Beyond the dream road through the wood of steel - lord of the forest makes love to his goddess; beautiful is the image of the moon in the water (to corrupt this famous Bujinkan meme;-)).

Every time when I go foraging for steel then, it is a kind of spiritual experience. It is an initiation as well as a lesson in humility. When you find, you find. If not, you find not. But if you do it according to the meaning of it all, chance is, you will find a treasure.

Lost places and steel found;-) - a spring hike in winter

 Today was one of those days I felt the urge to simply get out into the not-so-wild. I packed up and took the bus towards the Sauerland, and made off  into the hills.

 The sun was shining, and the road led me into a rare-trodden part of the woods, where lie the remnants of a WWII explosives factory. Everywhere there were huge blocks of concrete, strewn as if blown by the wind, and the destruction of this work of man was almost utterly complete.

 ...

 The birds were singing, and it was very warm, and everywhere there was green sprouting delicately, and life springs up, gently still, but it wells up again.

 But there, on a tree branch, I saw the skull, presumeably of a wild pig. Someone had put it up there, and it faced directly towards the entrance of the hidden hall.

 There is a certain beauty in this coincidence in my book. It is almost as if death himself showed the way to the underground, the mysterium of the sprouting life welling up from root and mycel underneath, growing violently in to the darkness. Life is no less violent than death, but in our everyday notion of things we fail to see this. Of course, there was nothing superstitious about the hall. It was an old factory site, nothing more. Or is it?

 The interior. there are some strange shafts inside I first took for chimneys, but now I doubt it.

This is how those chimneys look from outside:

 On I went, leaving the dark behind, passing by tree and mossy stones, deeper into the woods.

 And thus I came towards the hilltop, and beneath the hill, there is an old dump site. Many old farmhouses have dumpster sites like this, and for those who know and are able to put it to use they are sometimes right treasure troves:

 Leaf spring steel. ANCIENT leaf spring steel, to be precise. Ancient leaf spring steel that has been cold-worked for ages and then left to rust, making for a very fine grain structure when forged correctly.

 Coincidentally;-) I found this hacksaw in my pack, oops, don´t know how it came there;-) and got me piece for forging what I like best to forge!;-)

Then, on top of the hill, there is the ruin of this old farmhouse, whereof hails one of my many storytelling knives (I made a post about it in January)

The ruin, strangled in ivy and little trees, has somewhat of a fairy, eerie atmosphere to it, and I took it in with my deep breaths.

All broken down to become something new, the place is now a place where worlds collide; where the veil between our cherished reality and the realm of something else is growing ever thinner with decay, and decaying are the threads of the weavings we surround ourselves with to assure ourselves that our path is the only one to be trodden. But the other world laughs at our plight of hiding behind our well-polished lies.

 And thus I weave, a cloth of dreams. Of the wind in the treetops and the silent gliding wings, and the song of the owls that led me over the hills and yonder, and towards the valley again. I want to weave this cloth of dreams and seam it with moonlight and starlight and the night winds in the woods. I want to wear it as a cloak when I have to walk amongst all-destroying Mammon´s disciples, to protect me against hate and iron.

 Towards the valley, and there, on the threshold I sat and took a sip of tea from my flask.

 And thus fell twilight, and strands of twilight I took with gentle hands to twine it into the cloth of my dreams, to interlace it with the fading sun and the rising of the light of stars.

And back I trod into the world that is no longer entirely my only abode. For this cloak is mine, and it is the other world´s dream, and it is a name, a mask and a mirror I wear.