Posts: 411 Location: Madison, WI
Fri 27 Feb, 2009 8:44 am
Hi Matt,
As I try to push my pattern welding forward I find that the shape of the
seax is an good way to judge my welds and pattern development compared to spending many hours with the more complicated geometry of a sword. This is the third blade that was made for this commission, the other two had failed welds that showed up during the inlay process and or heat treat. Also I have really enjoyed making the smaller seaxes and have been wanting to scale up the size of my work, so this project fit the bill of what I was looking to make. When I started looking at the larger seaxes, most of them have elements of finer fullers and some sort of decoration so I tried to come up with a combination that worked together, and drew on elements that we find in surviving originals.
The flow of the twisted bar was borrowed from an original and I have been wanting to try my hand at it so I incorporated that into the design, most seaxes had a mono edge, so I took that element, instead of using wrought for the spine, I decided to do a laminate which is a modern element but that is how I decided to proceed. The decision to do an inlay is something that I have wanted to do for a while, but never really had to opportunity. I took all these elements and let them stew for a little bit and came up with this design, although the original concept of the triangles hitting the dips in the twisted bar was not planned, but happened by a happy accident on the second blade, so I had to make the third blade flow to match the dips at some what of a regular interval while still looking "organic"
As for being an exercise of a maker’s skill, I sure hope it is! I feel that every piece should be an exercise in ones skills, every work should try to push the maker further and every work should strive to show something new and fresh. Even if this freshness is not in terms of a historical context, it should be at a personal level. When I get caught up in tasks that are the "norm" it is not that I tend to get bored, but I start to feel like here we go again. By pushing myself and faced with doing things twice or more it adds a certain sense of adventure and desire to burn forward throughout the day. Pattern welding is something that pushes me every time I light the forge up and start preparing my material. I feel that pattern welding at least for me, increase my forge time, to balance out the grinding and finishing time, and also has been my driving force toward where I am today. Being almost entirely self taught, I am very proud of where my pattern welding is today and without trying to sound full of myself, I like to show it off the best I can. Also for me making a piece pattern welded really showcases a certain historical flare as living proof that this is not just a piece of steel that I ground into a blade, I hope that by seeing the patterns someone can feel the actual work that went into the piece. Eventually I will reach a level where I will be pushing myself on a more subtle level, and in term of design, or concept, or any other number of factors. Right now I am focused on trying to become the best well rounded maker that I can become. I want to make a type XIV just as good as a wrought iron backed high steel edged seax, or a Illerup Adal spatha, all up to the same level of quality. I hope that by pushing myself, and never being in a comfort zone, I can reach my goal of being able to provide the best work I can, at the best price I can to the community.
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