New damascus neck knife blade

 This is what is going to be a Damascus neck whittler, some 70 mm long. I plan on fitting a bigger handle like on Scandi carving designs. The Damascus is made from file and spring steel and welded the dirty way by forging a spatula, rinsing with flux and then folding up to 62 or so layers (I lost count, it was just a welding practice). The piece below came off accidentally.

 Spine´s rather thick at 6 mm to zero, but will eventually get a lot thinner.

The blade will get a high convex bevel as usual. The tang will be left that way, for there are some welding flaws still, and that way it will provide a firm enough base. For a simple practice piece it cuts well enough just now, and there are no flaws in the blade so I guess it´ll do. I have a lot to learn still, but I am currently working under shitty circumstances, and I am a bit proud I made the most out of what was at hand.

Another weekend with Martin and the brutes;-) and dealing with morons.

(Text by Fimbulmyrk, Photos by Nick Ilgenstein)

 

 On Thursday our next-to-second-maybe-favourite-human being;-) Martin from Ireland dropped by to do some forging again. There were some schedule issues with plane and train as usual, but eventually I fetched him, and we had a nice chat how things were turning out. It was cool that we actually can continue where we stopped last time... on Friday we made for the smithy and it was quite early still.

 Everything was still calm... but that would not be for long;-) for we were not in for silence.

 A view of the smithy in the sunlight... there is still a lot of work to be done, but it´s slowly progressing. We have a lot of work to do still. It´s not helping, though, that we have issues again with some morons.

On Thursday, five hours or so before Martin arrived, I had a very unnerving phone conversation with one of the members of the club (won´t give you any names.. for now ):-/>). Now the master is severely ill and this guy insisted that we should ask him for everything we  wanted to do and that every decision had to be made at least with consulting him, including cleaning up, for Ewald had no competence in leading and would "kick the bucket" anyway and then everything would go asunder anyway so there´d be no point in doing anything. He said he´d prefer to "see the bad in anything good" and that we were not welcome, for we were "not part of the club and had no say in anything". We have a forum now (www.retzgen.de/hammer) and he insisted that it should be debranded or deleted. He also demanded that the event of the open smithy we have organized with no help by the club for April, May, June, July, August, September and October should be cancelled and no children´s birthday parties should take place before his say-so. So I contacted our master´s daughter and informed her, and she had a bit of an argument with him. In fact she nearly bit his throat out.

We had appointed a meeting with him on Friday, 4pm. Ewald´s other daughter, Tina, and his wife, Gudrun, were there to support us. Guess who did not show up?

It´s starting early this time that people want to get rid of us. But they think of us as a group of hobby smiths. But I promise, we are not.

We are an army. We are the demons they invited over the threshold. We are the ritual gone wrong.

And it´s not the first time we reacted in a manner that made people dearly regret they behaved like this. Each and everyone who mobbed us out is regretting it now. Our group´s strength has prospered by it, for we know that we will make do, and that we can rely on each other, and there will always be another place to be. Kathrin, Tina and Gudrun know this, and they begged us to stay. For them we will. We think of Ewald and his family as friends. For them, we will fight, period. But not for one moron acting out the Gestapo upon us. We are currently working out a solution that will allow us to stay in without being reliant on the club, for clubs are poison.

 I like this picture. These are Martin and Tamás at the forge, and it illustrates what our strength is. Martin is a... well:-P... more or less accomplished ;-P swordsmith from Ireland, and Tamás, at the age of ... is that 9?...from the neighbouring city is forging alongside him and stealing with his eyes. Tamás is getting bullied at school... but I daresay it won´t last that much longer. For he hangs out with the really cool people and learns early that smoking, getting drunk and taking drugs and bullying others isn´t that cool. Instead, he has already done some projects with a little help by Nick, Michael, Martin and my humble self. He learns first hand why it can come in handy to have an inkling of chemistry, metallurgy, metalwork and talking English. He sees us discussing our sketches and gets an impression what arts may be for. By the way, thanks to Nick and Michael for their patience in tutoring Tamás. This is really nice to see!

 For instance, Nick tutored Tamás in forging this miniature horseshoe.

 Of course, forging is always a grave and serious issue. It´s not a laughing matter! Especially because all laughing has to be announced to *thatspecialperson* beforehand and a form filled out.

 Martin was having a forging frenzy. He was working on the "Red Baron´s" knife (Bernd´s knife), a seax and a knife for a friend of his. Here it´s the knife for John he´s working on, a nice presumeably Haithabu-style hadseax blade.

 I was tutoring Tamás and helped him forge his first spring steel knife. While he had some trouble concentrating sometimes, he did a very great job and I daresay he has some talent! I look forward to his new ideas and would be glad to assist him. In the front there is Jan. Jan is the grandson of the master bladesmith and owner of Diefenthal knives in Solingen and he is glad to have the opportunity to keep up the family tradition.

 Currently we have one forge going, which makes work a bit stressy at times... we have to restore my old field forge and the gas forge, and get some more anvils.

Our blacksmith´s buffet set up ion the smithy. Everyone brings some snacks and morsels and tea and coffee-which was desperately needed, for, blimey it was cold!

 Forging is no fun whatsoever. It is a serious business after all. And fun has to be authorized by !THE AUTHORITY!...*ggg*, so what are you dunces about laughing? *ggg*

 Jan forging a blacksmith´s knife...

 ...and Tamás grinding his little scroll knife.

 Martin´s on fire;-)... (Hey Martin, how was the weekend? - Absolutely fantastic-I was on fire!*ggg*)

 The projects of Friday: Blacksmith´s knife by myself(spring steel), Damascus knife by myself (spring, file and crucible steel and 1045) Novgorod striker, blacksmith´s sickle, Damascus billet (spring, file, crucible steel and 1045), blacksmith´s sickle, scroll knife (spring steel), bushcraft whittler (train waggon leaf spring steel, blacksmith´s kniefe by Nick (spring steel), BBQ eating fork by Nick (super-tactical hardcore spring steel;-)) and two more spring steel blacksmith´s knives by myself.

Then it was getting dark and we got out the BBQ, had a sit-down and some delicious food and one or the other beer and chatted the night away... perfect. There also was forging on Saturday and a hike on Sunday and some more forging on Monday... but there have to remain some stories to be told on another occasion.

The Rus replica and finding a story

 So, here it is, the almost finished knife with the carving completed.

I am now searching for the story and the name. It all started with me realizing that the blade also resembles the find of the famed "Amunta" knife. I thought, well, might it be that the knife inscribed with Amunta a mik (which is read today as "Amunta owns me") belonged to a skóggángr man? Skóggángr was a sentence of banning people from the community, often without weapons. I´ll do an article on this soon. Suffice to say, while there are reasons people were banned from the community in the Viking and Vendel age, nowadays it might as well be a honourable deed banning oneself from a society of lunatics. In that line the story and myth of this knife will happen.

When I rode home from the smithy last Sunday, when I had completed the handle, I presumeably did the silliest thing in my whole life: Riding over the lane by the river with a rucksack full of steel in the middle of a lightning tempest. I was sure I´d die there, and I asked the fates to make me understand. It was then lightning struck nearby, behind my back, and the St. Elmo´s fire went right through me. While it is not an experience I can recommend:-), it was a goosebumps experience, with the violent purple light running through my limbs and onto the lane  ravaged by the driving rainstorm in the dark... and the tempest pushed me with a backwind that literally smote me forward with some 35 km/h without me even pedalling. If you ask the Gods in a lightning storm, chance is, they will answer... it will always be a part of this knife´s story now... in this case it is a bit more complicated. It is not just a mere name, but I really want to find out about its true myth... it´s a bit of quoting a story that is already there but written in a language you cannot read... yet.

So watch this place...

Next step will be making a utility sheath and then one for bling;-D. 

A Hammer - In with Kai

Kai called some days ago if I was feeling like doing some pounding. Now Kai had just finished his first Damascus blades and had some surprises on hand, so I saddled my steed and  rode over the hill to his place. I was welcomed warmly and with a cuppa strong java, and then we lit up forge. This forge he has built over the last months. And when I look back how he started and where he´s now, it makes me proud to think I had a part in this.

And it was simply good to be there. I have a load of problems with most of the smithies I am working for. It just seems I get mobbed out of everything I have ever attended to (and worked for- for free), and this results in a constant pressure on my shoulders. When I ask new and old acquaintances to mirror my effect on others most respectfully tell me I am "larger than life" and thus give "lesser" men (those are quotes) a bad feeling, resulting in constant efforts to get rid of me. As one of my oldest friends stated "the dumb want to keep themselves company" (not my words) and that I am unusual and so forth. Culprit is, I do not see any effort on Kai´s part to get rid of me. And I do not need to play the psychiatrist either. I guess that´s what you´d call a friend. Thanks, bro, by the way, it is appreciated!

For it was just lighting a fire and swinging a hammer and pounding the steel... making damascus, the damascus for the aforementioned Rus / Varangian Kopis, by the way, and having a lot of rough and good-natured talk.

 

 

Kai had made two bearded axes "Viking style". Above is a shed find, a historical carpenter´s axe... sweet!

 And those are the first Damascus knives Kai made. Above is a skinner blade from chainsaw Damascus. The knife below is made from six layers of file steel and rebar, buffalo horn and yew.

I like the rustic appearance; and what they still lack in eloquence they more than make up for with charme. Props!

 This is the rest of the billet Kai welded.... I guess a new era has begun...;-)

And I look forward to a friendly competition!

...and...psst...don´t tell him, but I´d be glad if he beat me one day! It won´t be too long coming...

Whatever became of that little damascus blade...;-)

 So here are two progress shots of one of my most recent damascus blades: 32 layers out of file steel and crucible shear/ saw steel I found in the woods. 85x4 mm. If you look closely, you can see that it shows the quench line.

I plan on fitting a scandi-style handle to it or maybe yew or maple burr... we´ll see, but in either case, I think I ´ll fit some reindeer antler to it, too.

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...;-)

Learning by failing:-/- three-layer laminate from wrought iron and 1.2842 that went not so good...

 On Saturday I made it to the smithy and had a go at some welding practice, and I had this piece of wrought iron Elmo once gave to me. Now Elmo wants a knife for her birthday present;-) and I thought I´d give it a go. Had little borax, but I thought I´d try it nonetheless.

 This is how I normally forge-weld. I forge a spatula, fold it back with the help of my hardy chisel and insert the first layer. Then it is a bit of a balancing act, but it usually works quite well. Harald Schmehl, my first blacksmithing teacher, taught this technique to me, and Viktor and Mielenko do it in the same manner. Normally, when I make damascus, I fold the steel several times, insert a new piece of high-carbon-steel and fold some more. The advantage is that you can get a damascus with high layers without too much loss of carbon content due to burnoff, it does not require many tools and it is good for your coordination skills;-). The definite disadvantage is that it requires a fair amount of eggdancing;-) to get the first layer done, and each time you insert a fresh piece of carbon steel. It welded okay, only in the fold there were some two or three millimetres. The shadow in the pic you can see is overlap. What I noticed, however, was that the wrought iron required an extremely high temperature to weld, and the 1.2842 was not amused;-).

Nonetheless, it came along quite nicely, and I forged this Kopis shape to the blade, nicely centered and all, and I was quite enthused, when I had ground the scale off and noticed the beautiful structure.

Then I put it in a vice to engrave it.

BUMMER! When I set the chisel to it, the blade broke in two, and I could see a structure of extremely coarse grain, visible even with a naked eye. I can tell, you, I got a mediocre tantrum!;-)

But it´s defeat also where I can learn. Simply got too hot... and I guess I´ll use more Borax next time. And the magic troll might get a beautiful awl... who knows...;-)

In the smithy: More info on the Ciupaga-and my first own damascus since 10 years!

 On Saturday I rode to Witten to meet with Volker and to do some forging. Volker wasn´t too well, having problems with his hip bones and the rigors of blacksmithing for a long time. But he kept going nonetheless. I wish him all the best and hope he´ll be well.
We had a coffee, and I took a stroll around the museum to give you some input on the Ciupaga / Fokos / Sokyra / Bartka / Steigerstock / Fahrstock. Here is a pic of some miner in traditional representation attire and an unusual example of a Fahrstock, in that it has a hammer´s head!

 A pick was also in use, as shown in this painting.

 Here it is a hammer´s head again. This is an attire in use in the Witten / Bochum region.

 Then I lit up forge and made myself "Her Grace Sokyra". C 60, forged from an old hammerhead, tempered selectively to a springy temper.

 After that, I brought out the Borax, some mild steel and 1.2842 and simply got on with making damascus. I was focused hard, so nop pics of the process, but I´ve got an advice: If you want to get started with making damascus, try out this combination of steels, it welds great. Farther down you´ll read another little rant you all love on fancy steels and steel sorcery;-).

 The billet with the tip already forged. I forged 27 layers, then turned it on the other side to achieve a "Masame" pattern, and welded another layer of 1.2842 into the middle. With so few layers, you get little carbon diffusion, so you might end up having a layer with too little carbon content to achieve a decent temper, so you´d better do a San Mai construction. I forged it into a straight back utility blade. I love the Roselli knives, but hate the short tang;-), so I forged a longer one to be peened over. The  hindmost half of the tang is made from the billet handle, and it´s mild steel.

 The blade.

 Every time I realized my concentration was fading, I had a break. I took a drink of water, had a coffee with Volker (Thanks to the guy for providing a steady flow of Java;-)), and all went well.

 Then there was a torch hike scheduled and I did a damascus demo for the people, and even got some applause!

 The fruits of my labour;-).

 At home I fitted a stag antler handle with brass mountings to it, and I tested it. Hard.

 And it does what my spring steel knives do, with a lateral flexibility of some 20 degrees (fixed it in a vice and bent it), springy. I slammed it edge first on the tempered axle of my vice by accident. There was a dent, but a flexible one, that could be removed with some strokes of the strop. You can´t ask for more from a knife! In fact, it´s already more than most people would ever ask from a knife...

So, here´s the promised rant: Mild steel and 1.2842 certainly are no wonder steels. Few if any damascus smiths bother to use those qualities, and I admit I was sceptical at first when I learnt from Jens Nettlich that he uses them. But it´s a bit like using spring steel. Many steel wizerds sneer at this common man´s steel, but what counts to me is that it works, and works well. The combination is a cinch to weld, even with dirty coke and a less-than-optimal forge, it was so easy I could not believe it! The knife keeps a good edge, is flexible to boot, and takes a hardness (at the edge) of 60 HRC with a very conservative heat treating. It also sharpens well and the edge is flexible to be stropped to new from a severe beating. 

 I made the spine some 3.8 mm thick.

 This is a detail in riverso...

...and on the quart side.

I hope that I can practice these skills some more, to be able to process iron ore one day. Of course, I will also try to weld some more problematic steels, but as a user, this combination is hard to beat. I really, really love this knife, having used it some on bacon and wood;-) and iron nails and rawhide. It will become my personal EDC.