Hello all, my name is Jacob Johnson. I am part of the SCA and I am a history major. I enjoy the Viking period most, 793 c.e. to 1100 c.e. I want to get a kit as authentic as possible for a Russ Viking circa 950 who has traveled and traded far and wide. I wish to make a riveted iron chain mail shirt but I don't quite know how to do riveted, I am figuring out European 4-in-1, and I have no sources for iron wire or mail. I will be making an iron viking sword made from traditional pattern welding methods in a two burner forge. Any help with either of these or any more advice for the whole hit is helpful. I am basically making this kit form the ground up but I am a poor college student with no sewing experience and have only recently started researching textiles and clothing of the period. I appreciate your time, Bjorn Ulfricson

Hi.

My advice is that if you have the time to do so, play with the search function on these forums. You may be surprised at the wealth of knowledge you turn up. You will probably learn a lot of things about other periods and places by accident along with that which you are interested. ;)

Also, I'm not sure what your present knowledge level is, but I find this site here gives a excellent overview of Norse culture, weapons, life, art, etc: http://www.hurstwic.org/history/text/history.htm

I liked it so much I went out and bought Short's book, which I recommend. It is basically a rehash of the website with a few changes, but nothing beats having a book in hand.

If you can make a pattern welded sword then you are better off not bothering with the mail. Just make a few more swords and sell/exchange them for some mail.

If you looking for of the peg clothing you could do a lot worse then these offered here. Machine sewed but hand hemmed..
http://historicenterprises.com/mens-dark-ages...p;sort=20a

best
Dave

Thanks all. I can't seem to find iron rings and I dont exactly have a lot of money, fifteen dollars at presesnt but soon to change I hope. I would be happy with steel, blackened to look like iron. I am having trouble getting the 4-in-1 down but that takes practice. I have whole summers to do nothing but make chainmail, hehe, The sword forging will probably be expensive for iron bars or steel, but I have some black smith friends who will teach me to make swords. I am starting with a seax. I have not found anyone making authentic and accurate riveted mail, the type with alternating rows of riveted and welded rings. The clothing I am fine with b uying fo the most par, some I still want to make myself. As long as it is period to 950 c.e. I am happy.

A seax is a great starting project to learn knife and sword forging. Good pick!

No, fully authentic iron mailles aren't being sold as I said, nor is proper viking age type riveting as seen on the Gjermundbu, which is the only surviving fairly complete true viking age maille I've heard of so far, the rest are fragments or piles of loose rings, as in the case of the Birka finds.
But you can get pretty good looking mushroom type riveting that most won't realise isn't the same.

Jacob, did you have a look at my thread link? ;)

In it I link to some excellent scientific papers on the subject of mailles.
Vegard Vikes work Brynjevev is simply outstanding and examines 5 mailles from various ages and shows the solid rings in the ones that have them to be punched from plate, not welded. It examines the cross section metallurgy showing grain direction in both riveted and solid rings and determine that most of the riveted had drawn wire, one had hammered wire and all the solid links have been punched from plate and then ground round on the outside, while the inside was primarily worn round by wear.
Yes, there are indeed some few maille rings that people have though to be welded until fairly recently and looking at them I can see why as they're often rings with just a formless thicker bump that kind of looks like a weld. These have in recent years all turned out to be rusted together riveted links which X-rays show clearly, or you can also find some mailles with flat butted mendings made from thick round wire, which may have been soldered together at some point, but not welded.

Having tried repeatedly to make welded rings I know it's practically impossible to make them by historical means. Basically you have to forge the tiny ring together inside the fire, because if you put them on the anvil to hammer the normal way, they just cool off before you can strike and then they won't be forgeable anymore. With modern welding equipmen't it's an entirely different matter, but vikings didn't have these. Also punching from plate is easy and fast as I show in the other thread, welding, unless using a modern industrial point welder is slow.

Alright, well I think I am going to try and trade for a riveted accurate shirt. So now, where can i get low carbon and high carbon iron bars or stock for sword and seaxs?

Here would be a couple of great places to begin your search for experienced smiths and suppliers.

http://www.abana.org/

http://www.appaltree.net/aba/

Have you made many pattern welded swords before? Just curious.

While I havent made them I do intend to practice and I have several experienced smiths that are going to help me.

From what I have, pattern welded viking swords use "high-carbon and low-carbon" iron. Does this mean steel? I dont want to pattern two bars of iron that are the same because it would have no purpose. I have some railroad spikes, about one hundred pounds, but I dont know what quality they are.

Basically, when you add carbon to iron, you get steel. Now, by varying the amount of carbon content, you get different steels which have different characteristics. With higher carbon content, you can get steels that will harden and temper better. Pattern welded blades could have iron and steel twisted cores, steel and steel twisted cores, or solid iron cores...usually most will have steel edges.

Examples:

http://www.templ.net/english/making-blades.php


And another good forum to read through:

http://forums.dfoggknives.com/index.php?act=i...a7842864d7

I happen to have railroad spikes and some other harder metal. Is it safe to combine these in a pattern welding method to experiemtnw ith what I get? I know that both metals are steel.

Yes, the spikes are perfectly safe to forge in themselves.
Watch out for the Borax (or similar flux compounds) though, that's poisonous and needed for welding together pieces in a forge. Don't inhale, eat or even get it on your skin, though the last is the least dangerous. Read up some on the subject, it's a matter of irreversible long term exposure poisining that can and does lead to early death.

Some blacksmiths use plain fine sand instead, this works fine for simpler welds, though it can be inadequate for comlpex multi layer pattern weld.
Obviously there are safe methods to make swords. But get in touch with a bladesmith that forges and ask a few good questions about these things to get it all safe, and perhaps get some good insights, or better yet lessons on forging. Doesn't have to be a swordsmith, any blade smith would do for starters, just make a big one. ;)

If you want I have photos and sketches from the book Die Saxe von Valsgärde, with lots of different blade shape and size variants on historical seaxes to forge. Not just scandinavian finds, they're form all over.