Some smithing tutorial with Pam and René at the Bethaus

 On Saturday, I had an appointment with Pamela and her boyfriend, René. René is one of my oldest friends, and Pamela, his girlfriend, is a goldsmith. On a recent party, she addressed me if I could teach her how to forge some real material;-). Now it is somewhat funny - I always shunned her a bit, for when we met each other for the first time, she sneered at me. But when we got to actually talk, it happened, that thing that always happens when two smiths meet, may they forge iron, steel, or gold and and silver. The others on the party did not understand much anymore, and we had a great time. And she wanted to make a knife bad;-), and we even talked about making some damascus. When the two came by, she even brought some Borax! When she had her first go at pounding steel, however we consulted again and came to the clue, that plain spring steel woulöd suit her fine;-). I am kidding, of course, for she did extremely well. Volker had a children´s birthday party going on at the time, and we arranged ourselves.

 We used the manual forge. I normally am very fond of it, but it proved less than ideal that time. The transmission belt had shortened due to the cold, and the fan did not work properly, so we took Viktor´s forge instead.

 René looking on and commenting on Pamela´s work. It´s funny that couples who really love each other tend to get mad at each other all the time;-)... but they are both friendly people, and so it was no problem at all... just interesting to see.

 The kids apparently had a lot of fun, too, forging snails and hearts and snakes and mini horseshoes...

 When my psychotic clients*ggg* got too mad with each other, I gave René the sledge to remove some excess energy*ggg*. Just kidding again, that guy does not look the part, but he is a brute. We went felling trees at one time a lot, working in landscaping together. I remember him calling me one Friday evening and saying "Hey, bro, got anything to do on Saturday? Got an easy job, nothing really difficult, some ten trees no larger than 30 cm diameter, and they can all fall freely..." Having worked with him at that time for some time already, I was alert and packed ten times the food and water I would have normally had, and went to bed five hours earlier. The culprit is, it were one of those jobs I just so survived. There were 18 trees, most were rotten, one had a hornet´s nest in it, and none of them could fall freely, so we had to cut them off in tiny slices. We raced each other delimbing the fallen slices, him with a chainsaw, me with two Khukhuris, and, when they were too dull to work anymore (!), with two hatchets. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done - and one of the funnest things along the way. When I told another friend of mine, no stranger to hard work, too, and doing lumberjack work himself, he asked me about our tractor and what model it was, for he was fond of tractors. The face he made when I asked "What tractor?" was worth it;-). There are not many people with whom you can do that and still be friends afterwards. René is someone I trusted my life to and would do so again, and he does the same. We lost a bit of a contact, and I am really glad that seems to change again, with a bit of negotiation by Pamela. I really look forward to what will happen and to learn from each other. René is a industrial design engineer, Pamela with her goldsmithing background, and myself as the ironpounding brute might influence each other, and that´s a good thing I hope for.

 Also, I have to thank Volker once again, for providing a smithy, which is not self-evident. He also provided us with a constant flow of coffee, and had his own work going on all the while.

 René having his own go at Pamela´s knife.

 Here he forges the blade already. Note how he stands at an angle, looking towards the horn of the anvil. That way he does not interfere with his own tongs and can quite easily access the piece he is forging with controlled hammer blows.

Pamela, however, making a mistake. See how she cramps using the tongs in front of her? To be fair, it was a tong not quite suited for the task, and we had no time to make another, so it is obvious she could encounter some difficulties;-). She made a leaf-handled kitchen knife with a Nessmuk-shape blade. Since you know the type, I spare you another photo. I really look forward to see how it will look when finished! René announced he wanted a knife, too, and we will make damascus, and the next project will be a knife with a horn handle. Both had fun forging, and will return to the smithy sometime soon after their holiday. I look forward to it!

Damascus Iscian knife with a dangler neck sheath

I made this knife after a ritual knife pattern I found attractive. It follows the lines of an Athamen / iscian knife. The blade is forged from Zwissler damascus out of 15N20 and 1.2842. The handle is made from bog oak that lay submerged under the mud of an old coalmine in the Muttental, resulting in a very rare bloodred colour. Mounted with copper and brass, the blade is 90 mm long and 2,5 mm thick, resulting in a very slicey feel. The bevel is convex, the tempering selective, as usual. I like it and use it as an EDC and as a knife that means something...;-).

Santa´s brought me a nice gift!;-)

A new bike frame, that is, a 17" Orange crush allmountain frame. A big thanks goes to Metal Motion bikeshop, the friendly folks there, especially Dennis and Ralf Scheffer, who gave it to me at an almost obscene bargain and contributed a lot to me really wanting to ride again. I was being a bit tired lately and could not see the point as to move my lazy butt just for the sake of sports, but hey, often you don´t know what you missed until you do it again!

It is utterly pointless, it does not serve any purpose, but fun riding does something for my soul I did not know that I missed it, but I did!

Other than that,  a bike is my only means of individual transport... and it gets me places...;-) but  that´s only rational blubbering. The truth is, I really want to ride!

Current projects[edit]

 Birka knife blade [edit: This is not a Birka find, but a Scandinavian iron age design], spring steel, selectively tempered.65x4mm blade.

 Birka knife blade  [edit: This is not a Birka find, but a Scandinavian iron age design], , crucible steel from the woods, selectively tempered, with a countertorsion on the handle, 100x3mm blade.

 Torsion work on the small knife. In the back there is another blade I made as an experiment to incorporate the lines of a sgian dhú into a stury bushcraft knife. I would prefer to call it an "Iscian".

 And the one on the big knife.

 Spine on the iscian knife.

 And the lanyard loop.

No stock removal, when it´s done it will see less than 3 % of it.... I´ll keep you informed!;-)

A walking cane for my mother

 This is a walking cane for my mother. She´s getting older, and has some severe arthrosis in her knees, and, even though she would never admit it, she could use a kind of support. She never would use an orthopaedic cane, so I tricked her into using one by making her something she´d rather use instead.

 I put a stag antler handle on it set with a blood agate.

The wood is vine-infested alder buckthorn, and I put a stainless steel tip on it. I really like the colour of the wood.

I hope this stick will prove itself helpful for her. I owe her a lot, and since I cannot always lend an arm, I hope this can support her when she needs it. She has done it for me, too, when I was a kid, after all.

Doomsday forging party;-)

 Everyone was raving about that big event going on, staged for 21st December, wait, what was it now, that Maya thing;-), knowharramean?*ggg* So we figured we´d do our own thing and start a party for ourselves. Willi, Volker and I met at the smithy to pound some iron, and just in case die the way we´d think most agreeable;-).

 Willi had dressed up like Quetzalcoatl his self, but no cocoa, Volker was not in the mood. So we had a lot of coffee instead.

 Volker proudly presenting the Chrismas tree. I asked him if it were not better to put it in the living room, for he really arranged it nicely, but he replied "Naay, I don´t want to have that indoors!" Weird.;-) His cats, however, had a lot of fun with the tree.

 I made some knives and these chandeliers, easily done, and fun to make!

The Quetzalcoatl cat of doom!

Galore!;-) Two sgian dhú blades, a birka knife, a prybar knife tool for Fritz, and a leaf handle blade. The blades are all spring steel.

Chrismas fair mayhem;-) in Langenberg and Schwelm

 You my dedicated readers might have noticed it was a bit silent the last two weeks, and that had a reason, two, in fact. We had to work on the Chrismas fairs in Velbert-Langenberg and Schwelm. In Langenberg the weather was all crap, but the market was situated at a great place and there were lots of friendly people around and we made a lot of connections. It was raining hard the whole time, and the snow was melting, making for a gooey mess. On Sunday, we had to try five times to even start a decent fire!

The smithy was built on a patch of grass, not quite the favourite, but we got it working. Volker moved his anvil around for about an hour, which resulted in a swamphole;-) and slippery it was.

 That´s an ugly fire, but all was wet through. We had an early start, and took it easy, sipping a coffee after the fire was going and having a chat.

 There were no visitors that early, but the site was located in a park near an old villa, which is used as a school these days.

 Preparing for battle...;-)

 After several futile attempts at getting a decent fire going with wet wood and wet tinder I simply stole some embers.

 Et voilá les enfants:;-)

 In spite of the weather the kids kept coming steadily. And in spite of the weather, we all had fun and made do.

 ...

 The site was beautiful, but the weather was so foul it became a total mess.

 It´s funny, but we could not complain about a lack of kids and customers. Having a smithy seems to attract people even under the worst circumstances.

 I made these little viking knives. I had the order to make them from mild steel. So I coldforged the edge and made it work. They can even cut a bit and take and keep something similar to an edge. I was fond of this one we made...

 ...like this heart...

 ...together with this happy family. They really enjoyed themselves.

 The medical rescue squad was present, too, and they (adults and kids alike) had a lot of fun working with fire and steel.

 ...and memories were conserved.

 Volker forging a heart of steel.

 When the day drew to a close, the steady drizzle of visitors slowly faded, and I made this leaf handled design knife. We packed our things and drove home.

In Schwelm, we actually were so busy I was not able to make any photos, but my boss did. Here they come:

 The place was thrumming with visitors, and the fair was beautifully built with colourful huts and a load of interesting booths with good food.

 We were working both days without so much of a looking up. Craig dropped by with his family and I gave him the Sgian Dhú I made for him, with an extra belt sheath. He seemed to like it;-). Then Nick and his girlfriend came along and I made him a tool for carving and opening walnuts, out of spring steel. I will make another, I guess, and keep you posted! Jürgen from Clan macLaren came by, too, and we had a chat,

I like this photo, for it well transports the spirit and the magic of blacksmithing with children. Here is an article about the fair.

It was a very busy weekend, and I was so exhausted I slept through the next day and the night, and awoke with back aches. But it was also a great experience to boot! The back aches have subsided, but the memory will stay.

New bushcraft knife

 I made a new bushcraft knife. Ilkka Seikku has inspired me a lot, but I did not simply want to copy, but wanted a knife as rugged as his with the look of my own style. I am quite fond of a slight recurve and added a finger hold. It is made from selectively tempered spring steel with less than 1 % stock removal.

 I also made a sheath with a wooden (oak) inlay. Here it is not tanned yet and I also added some stitches.

The blade is 115 mm long and has a 6mm spine. The handle is elk antler. I tried out to do some balancing and thusly drilled out the hind part of the tang with 8mm holes. The centre of balance is on the first hollow rivet, on the index finger notch. It feels light and nimble for that. The blade has no secondary edge bevel.

I tested it already, and it does the job. I will document that with some photos, no worries;-). It is not as hard as Ilkka´s knives, some 58 HRC or so, but flexible enough. Chopping mild steel rods inflicted some dents on the blade, carving was a cinch, and it even stropped a Mora Triflex blade. Guess it will accompagny me personally, and I will work on perfecting the design.

Sling[edit]

 It had been brooding for some time now;-). Willi had made himself a táthlum-style sling, so I decided I wanted one, too...*ggg*. This is the cut... I made it from 2 mm leather. The seams are all on the outside, and the smooth side of the leather is inside. I made a simple finger loop and a quick sling release strap.

All in all, a quick and dirty version that took me 15 minutes to make.

What can I say... it is a fierce weapon, and I certainly would not at all have wanted to be an infantery legionary in the Roman - Celtic wars.... I have to practice a lot still, but the one time I accomplished a fast overhand shot I hit an old tree stump, which exploded as if hit with a .45 bullet.