Leaf handled blacksmith´s knife

 I must admit I am a bit proud of this... it has been some time since I last had the opportunity to actually forge more complex things, so I was quite enthused to get at it again.

 This is a leaf-handled knife apparently, from spring steel. The leaf structure is hammered out. The knife measures in at a handy 85x3mm. It has seen less than 1 % stock removal and is selectively tempered.

 I did a countertorsion on the handle to add some swing to it.

 The blade has a handy thickness that makes it feel quite dexterous. I have to redo the grind a bit, but then it´ll be good to go.

I am planning a more complex adaptation of the topic with a bit more spice in the steel construction... I will keep this one, though... ;-)

New hadseax for Tina

 This is a knife I made for a friend of the magic troll´s and me, a reenactor of Celtic culture and aspiring Viking ;-). The seax is made from steel I found in the woods, and which is apparently crucible Damascus.

 The handle is reindeer antler and birchwood burr.

 I carved a little dragon knotwork in...

 ...and fitted a raw garnet in the butt cap...

 The knife is rather thin and cuts very good. It´s roundabout 85x3mm long and thick with a high, almost flat convex bevel which should serve her well when carving, preparing food and other chores.

I just hope she likes it... I had to rush it some and I am not that content as always... but I guess she will...

New tripod

 This is a collaboration in our smithy... a new tripod for outdoor cooking and our re-enactment camp. Thomas Dicker from www.out-fit.de, my favourite bushcraft and outdoor gear shop told me of thios idea. You got two poles with loops and one with a spiral.

 This makes it versatile and easy to carry: You can use it as a tripod or as two poles with the third one as a spit or a gallows for a long fire. Henning forged one of the loops and the big hook, I made the other and the spiral. Daniel and Nick also wanted to add some personal flavour and tried their best at two more hooks.

This is cool: We will sit around the cooking fire and join in the meal with equipment we all contributed to. Folks, I really like you! ;-)

Knives from way back then

We recently had a chat amongst us about progression and scrolls... and I thought about how I started. Sometimes it´s important to get back to do a reality check. These knives I forged in 1998 with a dirt forge, and an old sledge as anvil from crap steel. The knife below is, apart from the lousy scroll quite good. It´s made from file steel with a bainite temper (an ancient urine concoction recipe), with a very thin and slicey blade. Might be I´ll hacksaw the scroll away and fit another handle, but as is, it is a document of those days... The topmost knife is made from spring steel I found in the woods and simply pounded it into shape any which way ;-). The handle was made from stag antler and did crack, but I simply filled the cracks with glue. But it cuts and has seen quite some heavy use... not good, for sure, but still... it worked.

Progress is important. But to achieve a sensible progress, you have to at first realize where you are standing, and you have to admit where your flaws are. And there are times when "it works for me" simply is not enough.  I realized those scrolls were lousy, so I practiced and asked senior blacksmiths the how-dos. Before tempering, I did a lot of studying and experimenting. So I certainly did not do a perfect job in ´em days, but I learned to do it intuitively- and to get it right eventually. I cracked a lot of blades, but I did not give up.

I owe these times a lot, and I miss them. I could forge whenever I wanted to, and forging I did, with the flames soaring up to a winter starlit sky, or while having a beer with buddies in summer. Those times were certainly in one aspect more difficult, for I did not have the experience nor the equipment and messed up a lot... but on the other hand, they were more fun. And they have not only made me the smith I am, but also the person I am. Looking back, those times look like a fairy tale told to me about some mythical character... but it was me. We all are a story, and I am fully aware of this... but sometimes it gets more clear.

Tomahawk for fun ;-)

On the bench... with a lousy pic by my old camera... a tomahawk I made for fun throwing. The head is spring steel, haft is yew....

A hike to Krenzer Hammer Schmiedefest (blacksmithing fair) 2016

It was that time of year again, and I had some time for a change. The fair at Krenzer Hammer ironforge, another historical smithy in the Ennepetal, which is still producing most excellent blacksmithing tools, with an own lineup and for Ridgid and Peddinghaus. Look here for more info:

www.krenzer-hammer.de

When I got up, however, I was not overly fond of meeting up with a bunch of people, so I was being late for the rendezvous with Nick and Natalie, Willy´s daughter. No harm done at all, I thought, and went for the bimble solitarily...

The woods were vibrant with light, and a heavy peace was enshrouding the atmosphere, heavy with the perfumes of late summer, and the faint singing of the birds filled my heart with the oh so needed peace.

By the trailside there was an old beam from a railroad track, and I found these old clamps, which were in use pre-1950, so it can be quite probable that this is something high-carbonish... ;-)

The trails were enchanted with dazzling light. Most interesting are the remnants of the old iron mines that are barely visible to a neckid eye...

Like this, see? ;-) those ditches and dents and small heaps of stone hint of a very long mining history.

...

...

The entrance to one of the old mines. Now they are a habitat for bats and small nocturnal animals.

I really took in the solitude and silence and the vibrant colours of the woods.

Through the thicket I went...

...and on one of the main trails I met with Natalie, Jonas and Nick. It was a jolly meeting, and we had some good-natured chats and traded some weirdo jokes, and Jonas got himself some spalted oak for knife handles.

Then we arrived at the fair, where there was a lot of crafts going on. Julia and Kathrin went there by bike and were already attending tutorials in flute - making.

I had a chat with this lady who gave me some valuable insight on the making of glass - beads.

Woodwork on display...

Rolf was there doing some leatherworking tutorials for kids...

...and Meinhard, who is now going semi-professional with his knifemaking. He had a lot of goodies on display!

I especially liked those wharncliffe designs he made from old sawblades...

But also this big Damascus hunting knife.

Meinhard and Rolf are absolutely obsessed with knives and knifemaking, and they are nice guys to boot! Here Meinhard shows off one of the big choppers Rolf is making from a new kind of steel with an abnormous degree of edge resistance...

Rolf is also doing some restoring work onb those old and beloved grandpa´s knives: Old and new! he does a very great job and yap, while I have an altogether different approach to knifemaking I daresay I can learn a lot from him still.

The big choppers. Rolf is full-on sole-author and makes the sheaths himself.

Also some more handy knives, by the way... a German Jagdnicker design.

...licce skinner... with ivory scales (with CITES).

One heck of a cool hatchet!

This is Rolf´s maker´s mark in copper. He also does them in tin and silver.

More to my liking is this more neo-retro design... forged from an old file.

and a neck knife design...

Thern we met up with JUlia, Nick and Natalie... and had a chat of sorts, but soon split up again to browse the aisles.

...back to Rolf´s and meinhard´s, that is... ;-)

Rolf did a lot of tech talk and tutoring and provided customers not only with the goodies to start knifemaking but also with a lot of info on it. My respect goes to him for that!

All in all, it was some nice day to boot. I got myself a new forging hammer and a lot of inspiration.

A video introduction to Máandevos (the moon-fox)

First try with a new camera to make a vid about Máandevos....

Máandevvos es báren!

 This is a project that has taken quite some time and energy to make-and was great fun to accomplish. It is a kind of talisman to me, for there is another unlikely Fimbulmyrk tale involved. Some of my faithful readers already know that some years ago I was strolling home through a moonlit forest, when I came across a fox on its prowl, and this fox was quite certainly not acting as a fox should do. Seeing my headlamp, he actually came over to me. At first I thought he was being rabid, and was very cautious, of course, but he did not show any symptoms apart from that and after a closer scrutiny appeared cautious himself. He approached me with some kind of cautious interest. So I went into a crouch and greeted him. He sniffed at my hand, and when I got up again, he looked up and walked beside me. And then I saw an old chisel embedded in the trail. Of course I took it home.

The fox left me at the edge of the woods and went back on its merry way. And the moon shone bright.

So, after quite a while, I decided to make a knife from the piece of scrap.

Let me refer to that talisman thing. It´s far more simple, of course, and I am not quite sure if I should call it that name in the first. For there is a weird and wonderful thing that had happened to me, a plain wonder, and I cherish the memory, even the imminent danger in it. I am full aware of the fact that the fox COULD have had rabies and that I might be dead by now. I might also have been dead after riding through a lightning storm and lightning strike, but, fact is, I am still alive. And do not get me wrong, I am not fond of danger at all, but fact is also, life is a constant imminent lethal danger we face. And I am not seeking the brush of death. It is always there, that´s the one certainity we all have.

As is, it is a weird, wonderful and fond memory of sharing in with a wild, wild animal, an animal known for its stealth and cautiousness. And that chisel just was a piece of scrap metal.

I made a knife from it. Period. Nothing more... but nothing less.

There is this local legend about a wanderer who was given a fox as a guide through the darkness of the underground dwarven realms. It is a story. Nothing more... but nothing less.

The chisel and the knife are of no significance.

But they make a wonderful kind of sense to me. The knife is a story, my life is a story, and I live it. Nothing more, and nothing less. Life is sometimes a shitty mess. A good knife can help you out of a lot of fixes (and I am talking cutting cord, preparing meals, whittling little helpful things and opening boxes :-)) And when I look at this knife, I know that life actually has a stronger, deeper sense than a world of significance and matter wants to sell to you. When I remember the story, I am full of hope, because I do not have to have to make-believe (no offence meant), for I KNOW. When I look at the "talisman", therefore I hope. And it helps me out in a very concrete manner. The blade cuts like a razor, being a high carbon crucible steel with tungsten and a carbon content of roundabout 0,9%.

 Keeping the story of the dwarven guide in mind, I choose bog oak for a handle, that lay submerged in iron oxide water for some 100 years in an old coal mine in the Muttental.

 I already made a dangler sheath for it with a handforged swan´s neck dangler.

 Lousy picture, I freely admit ;-)...

Overall, it is a new story in my life that helps me keeping up my work... I like it.