Semi-integral Jagdnicker (German hunting knife)

 Another bar of steel I found in the woods, a piece of roe deer antler I found in the woods... a knife...

 The steel shows a subtle pattern even after initial etching without a polish. The blade  is selectively tempered with a high convex bevel, 120x 3mm.

The integral is forged 100% with no filing just to show I can ;-).

Yap, I like it. It´s mine... ;-)

On the bench: Bushcraft Santoku and American Tanto

 Now to something different: I was wanting to do a Santoku bushcraft design from laminate steel. This is in fact a first test on the design I made from Unimog spring steel, selectively tempered, 120x 3.8 mm to 2 mm. The holes are punched...unfortunately one o´them did go a bit awry. But, it should work well enough for testing. Blade and tang are tapering for balance. The balance point should be on the index finger if all goes well.

 The testing as I did to date shows great capabilities in kitchen applications and while woodcarving can be done, it is less than ideal... I will further refine the design, I think, to make it suited better for the task. And might be I´d even make some to sell... we´ll see.

 Another altogether different matter is this tanto design, which actually is no tanto design, but an American adaptation of a kind of Katana (Japanese long sword) tip for a tactical knife. I love to experiment with knife designs and like to go to limits. This is a tactical knife, and I have not yet much liked this style, and still do not much take to the martial concept of many of them. But there is no denying the fact that the American Tanto tip is near indestructible and offers advantages not only in penetration capabilities, but also in whittling. For instance, I have broken off the tip of some carving knives when trying to carve a spoon or Kuksa without a spoon knife. Also, when working with a mason, I used my utility knife to cut the grooves into dry building boards with the tip and dulled it quite a lot. Obviously you use a chisel normally;-), but when there is no chisel at hand, you use what is at hand. So, there is more to the American Tanto design, and I do not believe it actually makes for a better weapon, but for a better tool. I forged this blade from some steel I found in the woods. When I found it, it showed some pattern, but even after 24 h of hardcore etching it shows no patina whatsoever. It slams through mild steel rods and I aborted the bending test at 25°.

 Not that it bends easily with a thickness of some 9 mm at the handle! It then tapers quite radically, as does the tang, which is drilled out for balance, too (yeah, I know I messed up, but it cost me three
!glass! drill bits to get through this material. And this after I thoroughly annealed and deep-froze and annealed once more and I could work it with a file). Not that it was that hard, it just was so ductile that the bore chips came in one long and several short ones. The grates were looking as if someone punched a pudding. Weird.

Also, it carves mild steel, chops antler and penetrates oil cans. If anything is a tactical tool, this steel is. I plan on fitting another no-go: A Micarta handle with red G-10 liners and making a hardened multipurpose leather sheath for it... or maybe I´d even have a go at a Kydex (TM) sheath... we´ll see how it goes. Maybe it´ll get desert iron wood or ebony.... would fit the bill just as well, and I don´t like that special waste on my knives still.

I look forward to it even if it is so different to my normal line of thought. In fact, I do, BECAUSE it is so different to everything I would normally make, and it might help broaden my view and confirm new perspectives.

Iron hike

Just wanted to show you the state my local woods are in. Good for me, of course, but BAAAD, if you get my meaning, for the trees.

Every little patch of the trail is stuffed with iron, steel, junk and special waste.

... some of which is very good material, like that one below. Stamping leftover from tool manufacturing.

I got this chain link and the stamping leftover...

...crucible steel...

...mushrooms I left be. I don´t take any food from that part of the woods. There´s a good chance of it being highly polluted with heavy metals and poisons I can´t even pronounce.

This is the site of an old smithy or even ironforge. You can still see where the buildings were, and the dam of the hammer pond is next to intact, even if there are trees growing upon it. It is a strange and, to my eye, beautiful place.

The region bears the deep scars and signs of metalworking industries. While this industry plays an important role in the history of the Ruhr and Sauerland region, it has to be regarded as controversial. It has done much harm to the ecosystem and to the workers involved, to an extent that many metalworkers of that time had a life expectancy some 40 years lower than average. This is something that happened in the name of money. If you shorten the life-span of half of the population, (in an admittedly) somewhat biased calculation) by half, this is equal to murdering a quarter of the population for money. Murdering a quarter of the population for money (out of low motives) would be felony mayhem. Since this did not happen in a war, civil rights should be applied. That indicates that the people responsible for the "mass murder" in that time should have been executed (since Prussian or early German confederate laws should have been applied). Not realistic, of course, but a way of making a point. In the Third Reich, big-term corporations were the driving impetus on the mass-extinction of Jewish people. Even today, many heads of corporations utter antidemocratic and even illegal statements, from the regional top-player to top-notch banking corporations. To add to the account, the damage done to the ecosystem can only be called collateral.

So the question remains... what shall we do with anti-democratic, anti-natural forces in our time? You might get the impression that this is a biased evaluation;-), and you´d be right, and of course my arguments limp a bit, for I uttered them as a way of illustrating an extreme.

I just want to warn you: Heads of big corporation DO think anti-democratic. They have to, if they are to be successful. They have no scruples. They will kill for profit, if they can get away with it. The time of the metalworking industry´s heigh days fouled up the woods forever. There is a question remaining, what big term fracking corporations or corporations employing genetic manipulation could do to the habitat. I would not take mushrooms from those woods, either, so to say.

And do not get it wrong: They WILL NOT listen to any arguments. They will not heed to your political demonstrations. They would kill you, if they can get away with it, or make orders to get you killed as easily as sweeping a chalk board.

People should stop admiring them. They are no better than mass murderers. It is not that they even WANT to wreak havoc upon the world and foul things up, they are even lower than that in that they simply do not care. Any prostitute or window sweeper does a lot of much more for the world.

I went and collected the scrap steel of that time. I like its properties, and the trails are getting a tiny little lighter. I´ll make some tools from it. I am a bum. But what we bums do is doing far more damage to their world than might be obvious.

Thanks for listening to my rant;-). 

Into the dusk with the magic troll;-) -Lovely hike to the Marburgian Hinterland hills

Last weekend I was in desperate need of some flight reflex;-) and made for Marburg in a frenzy... we had a great time as usual, and on Monday we made for the hills to do some foraging. In an old quarry used for ages as a dumping ground I had already found a load of ancient wrought iron, and I wanted to have a look if there was anything left, so, in addition to our basic foraging tools, we packed a small gardening shovel (a very underestimated bushcraft tool in my opinion), and off we were into the radiant autumn light.

The missus taking photos... I don´t think much of taking photos all of the time, if you ask me...;-)

Some people even take photos of turds decorated with autumn leaves.;-)

We relished in the golden-green light that led us up the hill. The sun´s beams were sifting and shimmering through the rustling leaves gently moved by a gentle breeze, and it was warm.

In fact it was VERY warm, and the magic troll was constantly whining*ggg*.

We said goodbye to this tree, which will be felled soon. We will remember its rustling leaves and the golden light in its withered branches and hope its saplings have spread far and wide.

Towards the open meadows where happy horses prosper. It is all one meadow, and the steeds have it all for themselves... this is great to see. There are even apple trees growing in between, and the horses obviously enjoy it there.

Slowly we came to the hilltop, with the grumbling of the magic troll a consistent soundtrack in the background.*ggg*

Looking from the hilltop towards Marburg castle, a view we cherish every time we are getting there.

We then were greeted by this "little uncle";-) who was obviously NOT being curious, no, not at all...;-).

No... I am just here to eat some grass... by the way... what you up to?;-)

Apologies for the turmery....

...but that´s how it is... horses in the sunlight...

...being nice to each other...

No animals, less intelligent than the crown of creation. Not capable of building up social structures, you know. Man is far superior, of course. ;-)

Does not decrease my appetite for salami, by the way. X-D

Deeper into the woods we went along oft-trodden paths so diverse and always different...

The magic troll taking photos....

HA! I took this pic first!;-)

Then we encountered some ´shrooms for stew....

..and ventured into the thicket.

Gate of sunlight led us into the realm of the earth...

...where steel was waiting.

Then the sun went down.

And when the stars came out we returned from our happy bimble with a heart full of love and contention. It was like breathing through, and breathing deeply in. In a world far removed from the actual, where things still make sense.

New bushcraft knife from salvaged steel and wood

 This is a new knife project that is almost entirely courtesy of the woods and the deep earth; it is forged out of ancient spring steel with a carbon content of roundabout 0,75-0,9%, and presumeably nothing else. How funny this is if you are accustomed to modern spring steel with its relatively coarse (yet normally fine enough) grain, is illustrated by the story of its making. When I first tempered the blade I treated it quite conservatively, as I always do. If you don´t overdo it, it´s even better for the blade if you quench and normalize it one time more. It turned out soft, or so I thought. Knives from this old steel always tend to feel fluffy while they actually are not. Okay, I thought, there´s enough carbon in it, so I lost a bit of a patience and treated it like "bam", not quite gently. Culprit is, it was too brittle, so when I tested it, the tip broke off. It then sat in my drawer for a while until I thought, well, there´s still enough of it left, make it work.

At a recent hammer - In at Kai´s (by the way, thank you again, bro!), I reworked the blade and did some heating the blade. I simply wrapped a wet rug around the handle and heated the blade until it showed a golden hue. Then I ground the edge line and spine line down a bit and redid the edge bevel, and here it comes.

Blurry pic, I know... but you can see there´s a hollow forged in for balance. The blade now comes in at 90 mm. The handle is made from ancient bog oak from an ancient mine in the Muttental and is some 150 years old, put on with modern mosaic pins. The steel is approximately 100 years old. I like the fact that all materials were given by the woods and earth which will be its natural habitat.

I will make a clipper sheath for it, and it´ll be ready to rumble...;-)

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.