Hi all…

I have been intrigued by the single edged Viking sword found on the Arhus Farm in Norway since I saw pictures of it in Ian Pierce’s “Swords of the Viking Age.” It may be the only single edge Viking sword ever found with a pattern welded blade. About six years ago I convinced Vladimir Cervenka into building a replica of this sword for me. This sword was not meant to be an exact replica of the Arhus Farm find. There are some differences, such as an H pommel instead of the C pommel on the original. If you have not seen this Cervenka sword, I have reviewed it here.

http://www.myArmoury.com/review_cerv_vikse.html

ks

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North Arhus Farm find preserved in the Kulturhistorisk (Cultural History) Museum, Oslo Norway. Image compiled from "Swords of the Viking Age" by Ian Pierce

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Arhus Farm Recreation by Vladimir Cervenka

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Arhus Farm Recreation by Vladimir Cervenka

Since the review, I have been doing some changes. I reshaped the upper and lower guard and pommel… mainly making the width of the pommel smaller. I also cut in twisted copper wire between the pommel and upper guard. Then I browned the hilt components with cold browning solution and polished with steel wool.

The Turkish Knot ferrules were replaced with copper and bronze wire shaped with my Dremel tool to look like an engraved metal plate ferrule. The twisted wire grip was also sanded down and blued to make it appear it had been well worn over the years. This is the look I try to achieve… the look of an heirloom weapon that has been through at least one lifetime of burnishing in use and periodic care. For instance on the hilt I have identified pressure points when the sword is griped or as the hand would naturally lay upon the hilt as it hangs at its owners side. In these areas, I have done a little extra grinding and polishing.

ks

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Vladimir Cervenka Single Edged Viking Sword Pommel

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Vladimir Cervenka Single Edged Viking Sword Pommel

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Vladimir Cervenka Single Edged Viking Sword Hilt

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Vladimir Cervenka Single Edged Viking Sword Hilt

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Vladimir Cervenka Single Edged Viking Sword Hilt

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Vladimir Cervenka Single Edged Viking Sword Hilt

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Vladimir Cervenka Single Edged Viking Sword Hilt

I kept the blade profile shape much the same. However, I did file down the spine a bit from the COP to the tip to give a slight drop to the point seen on many of the single edged Viking originals such as the Arhus Farm find. Most of the reshaping of the blade occurred in the fuller. I did a good bit of grinding in the top of the fuller to take it right up to the spine.

Once the fullers were shaped, I began to experiment with ways of duplicating the surface phenomena (topography and the slight discolorations) of pattern welding.

When I started the process, I was not trying to replicate the patterns of the Arhus Farm pattern welding. I wanted to do a chevron like pattern instead. My first attempts were with small pools of warm vinegar trying to generate the pattern in the deep etched lines along the outer edge of the vinegar. However it was too fluid for very good control. It created and interesting patterns, but not anything like the look of true pattern welding. Also I didn’t like the look of a chevron pattern on a single edged blade. So I sanded it all off. :(

On my next attempt I used mustard. It etched like vinegar but was thick and sticky enough to draw or blot patterns with it. I started with the innermost circle of the concentric circles, layering each drop of mustard, allowing each drop to cut along the edges before the next drop of mustard was placed over it to cut the next concentric circle. If the mustard was warm, it cut even better, especially along the edges. So I put warm mustard on the blade in concentric rings to try and duplicate a pattern similar to torsion pattern welding. This time the pattern was not chevron (imitating billets twisted in opposite directions). This time I moved a little closer to the Arhus Farm find in that the twist patterns on both “billets” were in the same direction. The look of the etch was a little more convincing, but was still not satisfactory to me. Plus warm mustard made the house smell really strange. :p So… I sanded it all down. :cry:

ks

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Cervenka Single Edged Viking Sword after vinegar etch

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Cervenka Single Edged Viking Sword after mustard etch

At this point I moved out of the “kitchen” and made my way to Radio Shack to get some ferric chloride. First I put down a resist (barrier to the etchant) of permanent ink drawn on the blade with an ultra thin point Sharpie. As before, I was not trying to duplicate the Arhus Farm find pattern, but drew a very regular pattern similar to billets twisted in the same direction and laid side by side. I taped off the areas I was not etching with scotch tape and worked on each side of the fuller… each “billet,” …one at a time. With the Sharpie resist, I had much more control over the details of the pattern. It looked much more like true pattern welding, and had the topography and discoloration I wanted. So I took the time to do both sides of the blade. At this point I thought I was finally finished. :D :eek:

ks

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Cervenka Viking Sword after first ferric chloride etch

I was happy with the technique, but the pattern was just too darn even. It just didn’t have the organic look of the Arhus Farm find. It was about this time that I found another picture of the Arhus Farm find. I was able to enlarge the image to begin to get a better idea of what (I thought) was the other side of the blade from that shown in “Swords of the Viking Age,” by Ian Pierce. Since then I am convinced that one of the pictures of the pattern welding in Pierce’s book has been reversed. But at the time, I thought I had images of portions of both sides. It was either this discovery or my growing dissatisfaction (or both together), that led me to take up the coarse sandpaper and, once again, sand away all my work. :eek: Both fullers were sanded smooth. :cry:

With the better images of the details of the Arhus Farm find’s pattern welding, I decided to try and duplicate the actual pattern of the original (or at least the parts exposed).

Since this time even better images have been made available on this excellent website:

http://www.vikverir.no/ressurser.html

I have posted some compiled images of closer views of the patterns in the Arhus Farm find.


I started near the forte and, as I looked closely at the images and try to draw the patterns, I began to notice how irregular the width of the billets and what I interpreted as the twist pattern reversing every few inches, especially in the billet closest to the edge. As I began to draw these patterns it looked a little too organic. It does not show up that clearly in pictures of the corroded blade at a distance but on a clean blade these features looked a little too obvious to my eye. So I sat the sword aside for awhile until I was more certain about the pattern. I wanted "organic," but not too organic. Not too even.

Maybe something with a theme. :eek: :D ;)

ks

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Detail of Arhus Farm find. Image modified from VIKVERIR website linked above

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Mosaic of images of Arhus Farm find. Image modified from VIKVERIR website linked above

The “theme” came to me when I noticed that the billet nearest the edge at the tip of the Arhus Farm find looks like teeth… It is fascinating that grinding into the twisted billet to form distal taper (or thinning of the blade) produces a surface pattern that looks like teeth in an open mouth. I mean, it is the part of the sword that “bites.” ;)

And the strait untwisted layers at the very tip-end could be a tongue or fire coming out of the mouth. To top it all off, up the blade on the Arhus Farm find, there is a section where two of the large “blood eddy” like circles come together on either side of the two billets and looks like a big eye. :eek:

ks

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Image of sword on display in Oslo that allowed me to enlarge and begin to see the patterns

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Forte with reverse twist in the lower billet

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Do you see the big "eye"? Arhus Farm find on disply in the Cultural History Museum, Oslo Norway

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Do you see the teeth in the lower billet near the tip? Imabe compiled from "Swords of the Viking Age" by Ian Pierce

So once again, I began inking the fullers with surface patterns similar to the Arhus Farm find... This time with the theme of producing a “Fire Worm.” I felt this was appropriate considering that hidden zoomorphic forms are a long standing tradition in the European Iron Age art design. This time I wanted an organic look but not too organic. I wanted patterns similar to the Arhus Farm find but a little more regular, but not too regular.

In the first few attempts at etching, I tried to etch each “billet” separately using scotch tape to isolate each “billet” form. The problem was that the edge of the scotch tape was too straight. It also produced a deep etched line along the boundary. It did appear to be a weld line, but when the billet on the other side of the fuller was etched this line got larger and deeper. In the latter attempts to try and deepen the topography of the etch, I produced the patterns over the whole fuller and etched it all at once. With this the line between the billet was not as pronounced. Also etching the whole fuller at one time seemed to produce a deeper etch, maybe because of the large amount of etchant used to fill the duct tape reservoir I created around the blade.

I made a reservoir out of duct tape around the blade and filled it with warm ferric chloride. After about 15 minutes I took the blade out and washed it with Windex. Then I sanded the high parts of the etching very lightly with dulled extra fine emery cloth.

ks

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Close-up of tip with "teeth" in the duct tape reservoir.

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Blade center in duct tape reservoir.

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Duct tape reservoir and set up for warming the ferric choride.

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Reservoir filled with ferric chloride. Allowed to set for 15 minutes.

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Blade after taken out of ferric chloride and sprayed with windex... before cleaning.

Here are some pictures of the finished project...

ks

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Throughout the inking with resist and etching process I learned a few things… such as:

1. One layer of Sharpie ink is not enough. The etchant eats through the ink too quickly. So apply two or three layers of Sharpie ink. This means drawing the pattern and then going over it again.

2. Use a toothpick to clean up the edges of the pattern, especially in areas of very fine lines. Move the tooth pick in your fingers to find where the wood grain will cut away the ink best.

3. Etchant cuts better when warm 110 to 140 degrees.

4. Less than five minutes in the etchant does not cut very deep more than 15 minutes and the sharpie ink begins to wear away.

5. Make sure the blade is polished very smoothly before you begin drawing the pattern, because any scratch will grow deeper and more obvious with the etching.

6. When drawing patterns, don’t make everything too even. One of the nice things about this technique is that you can make any pattern you want. You could even recreate very specific original pattern welded patterns if you had pictures of them.

7. Make the “weld” line between billets a little wavy and not perfectly straight.

8. Don’t make the edge of the pattern welding follow the fuller edge perfectly but let it wander in and out of the fuller a little in places.


Now a few more pictures of the finished blade.

take care,

ks

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It looks like it must have taken you a huge amount of time! But the result is beautiful! Congratulations! :surprised:

Fantastic, great work Kirk! Nice job sticking with it until you got the result you wanted. I'm sure it was frustrating having to re-do things that many times, but I think the result was worth it.
Dan

Kirk - Thank you for sharing! Your how-to's always get bookmarked. Thanks for spine pic. Questions...

The Vladimir Cervenka blade was not pattern welded? Didn't find it stated in review & I can't get review enlargements to work. Just trying to clarify - you created the entire pw effect on a monosteel blade?

You said scotch tape per billet method didn't work too good, but then what did you use instead to achieve the (fainter) weld lines? (fwiw I also vote for wavy imperfect lines.)

I think I understand you do one side at a time. How do you protect the other side (especially if its done)?

When you're done with this (or your "pw gladius") do you ever cut with? How does/would your deep etching hold up to cutting & cleaning up?

Gutsy making big changes to such a nice sword. Well done! Thanks again.

Impressive and very attractive work and the results look very very real: Which I guess is the point or it wouldn't be worth doing.

I tend to like using lemon juice but I also like mustard as it's more controllable and doesn't flow randomly as much.

Your project are always fascinating to follow. :D :cool:

Bravo!

best wishes
Dave

That is a fantastic piece of work :D

I realy like that you put so much time into making it look realistic, with all its imperfections... done the right way :D
It is something that is realy hard to do, and most people don't get it right...
Also... it means to go against our modern symetrical and "perfect" visual rules/guidelines... which needs some guts :)

For a better picture of the Arhus sword (15mb):
http://www.vikverir.no/ressurser/extreme_hd_swords/sword_5.jpg
This was original ment to be for a later update of Vikverirs museum gallery, and I am sorry that I did not post it earlier. I gues the sword ha been cleaned by the musem since it does not have any rust on it.

Also thanks for the in depth description of your experience with it :)
I realy have to try that out one day (a blunt wma/re-enactment sword?)...

Nils

Magnificent work, truly astounding.