Here is some progress on a commissioned Viking age sword I'm working on. It is a 5 bar construction.. with center core of 2 bars of 15n20/1095 and 1 bar of 1095/1045 straight laminate (ground for a gentle 'serpent' pattern). The edge bars are carburized wrought iron.. or 'shear steel' that I made using methods I learned from one of Ric Furrer's workshops. The hilt is type H and sand cast bronze. The hilt components were designed via 3D printing and printed in plastic.

This is obviously not a historical piece but I do hope that it captures the spirit. I chose the type H hilt due to my own aesthetic preferences and I was blown away the first time I saw the Steinvik farm sword from Peirce. I fell in love with the little 'writhing beast' plaques and I really wanted to incorporate them into this sword.

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Making the shear steel for the edge bars. The wrought iron plates are placed in a can with a commerical 'pack carburizing' powder and soaked at welding heat for 2.5 hours. The result is some medium to high carbon steel.

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The wrought iron nail is a 'test strip' which can be pulled out and spark tested for carbon content.

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A test etch after welding. Still lots of forging and grinding:

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Sand casting the hilt components in bronze. The molds were made from plastic fittings that I had 3D printed. This was done in collaboration with 3D designer David Wood from Shapeways. Awesome technology!

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And here is where it is now. I'm hung up on patination and getting the twisted wire on the pommel. The grip is some ancient fossilzed walrus jawbone. Such hard stuff and cruel to tooling.

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Hope to have it all peened up in the next couple of days.

Looking forward to comments and observations!

Forgot this one. Love that shear steel...
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beautiful :) can't wait to see it fully mounted :D

That sure is pretty! Great work. Looking forward to more pics as it moves along...

That is beautiful. Really, really beautiful. Just about perfect, actually. That hilt furniture looks fantastic so far, can't wait to see it completed; and that blade is uniquely beautiful, I haven't seen a combination of patterns quite like it before. if I may, I have a few questions...

Firstly, I've never heard of somebody using regular high carbon factory steels for the core and then (essentially) making their own for the outer edge; was this done for practical purpose, or for aesthetics? That shear steel does look amazing. Is the pattern like folded steel, in that it will appear (albeit, faintly) when highly polished or does it require an etch?

Also, I assume based on the appearance of the pattern that the fuller is mostly ground. Is that correct?

Damn I can't get over how awesome that blade looks!

Thank you very much for commenting on this sword. A very important work for me.

Peter... Great questions! First... If I'm not mistaken... as I've never spoken with him.. but from the look of Patrick Barta's work it seems that he is also using either bloomery steel or shear steel for his edge bars. Petr Florianek often does this as well.

My use of it was a combination of aesthetics and the fact that I like to anchor my work, as much as I can, to history through materials. My own artistic method usually pushes me away from strict historical replication as is probably obvious from my portfolio but I love to link my 'contemporary/speculative/fantasy/possible' ideas to other aspects of history. Materials are wonderful for this... and they speak for themselves when it comes to beauty and texture. Aesthetically.. I didn't want to use a bar of mono-steel. And practically... I can make shear steel with less effort than doing an extremely high layer laminated structure for the edge... especially when I have a good source of refined wrought iron.

As to the pattern... Yes.. it is like folded steel. I folded the bars of wrought iron once myself before carburizing.. and then all the bars had to be combined which would also increase the number of folds and then three times after combining. So the pattern you see is partially a result of my own folding as well as the heterogeneous nature of it's original manufacture. If you were to polish this to a high level you would certainly see the grain structure and 'hada' but it would be more subtle and require looking at it in the right light. Etching is an artistic choice for me as I like to make this pattern more bold in order to see the mark of how it was made. The natural wood grain patterns in wrought iron are just so beautiful to me. But I always have internal turmoil on how to approach this. Our ancestors would not want to show off that particular aspect of the pattern I believe.

Yes... I completely ground the fullers. One of these days I mean to make fullering dies for my press.. and if the cards play out.. I will have a power hammer soon that will allow me to forge fullers very easily. But.. I actually prefer the star pattern .. so I would probably always choose to grind to some extent.

Anyway.. I hope I answered your questions!

By the way.. I keep looking at the pictures I've posted and..to me.. it seems the light suggests that the edge is somewhat hollow ground. Do others perceive this? If so... I can assure you that the over-all profile is lenticular with convex edges. I convexed the edges more heavily than I have for other swords due to the use of the shear steel. The shear steel is medium carbon.. it did harden in the quench... but it simply does not have the modern attributes of contemporary materials. But I've found that edge geometry can greatly make up for his. My own everyday knife is a pure, uncarburized iron blade that I work hardened. It needs to be sharpened more often.. but it is also easy to sharpen!

Great looking stuff as usual. What are your plans with the grip? I can't quite see from the resolution if you were planning to carve further or apply some sort of finish (can you even stain walrus bone?).

this looks like another Scott Roush piece of AWESOME!

It just struck me that this sword is made using a combination of techniques and materials that are as old as written history -the shear steel - and so new that they were science fiction only a few years ago - meaning the 3-D printing. I try not to speak in absolutes, but this may well be the first time this has occurred, these two technologies meeting in one work of art. History in the making... Bravo!

Not to mention, fabulous sword Scott!

Thanks for the response Scott! I agree, that the pattern of wrought iron is incredible - more attractive to me, though in a subtler way, than many pattern-weldings. I agree with what you say about grinding/forging the fuller, also - I appreciate very much the skill that goes into forging the fuller, but with the right core, grinding is, I think, worth it. I'm pretty sure I recall reading that some swords from the Viking age were ground extensively, rather than forged into near-finished form. I think I've also seen some where the pattern in the fuller looked distinctly ground.

Look forward to seeing this sword in its finished form - amazing work!

Pete

WOW--what a great looking piece! Live the hilt furniture.
Question sir: what would you recommend for a commercially available etchant for modern steels?

Wow, awesome! :eek: What do you think of as not historical on this sword? Although not a replica, I see nothing wrong anywhere...

Thanks again folks..

Luka... By 'historical' I just meant 'replica' I guess. The biggest issue with historical accuracy with this sword is the type H hilt being cast in bronze. Type H were iron with bronze overlay and wire inlay in all examples that I have seen. In conversation with others it's possible there were some cast pommels.. but those would seem to be an anomaly.

If anybody has any records of cast type H hilts I'd love to see them!

Kai... PCB Etchant from Radio Shack is your best bet. It's ferric chloride and you usually dilute it by various amounts to get the effect you want.

Eric.. Thank you for pointing out the combination of technologies. I love those sorts of things. You know... Perched in a nice spot on Skellig Michael reading a book on your iPad. :-)

Petersen mentions two H swords with bronze pommels and guards here: http://www.vikingsword.com/petersen/ptsn089h.html
And your decoration reminds me of this sword found in Croatia (I don't have better picture on computer unfortunately), the middle one. It is iron hilt but with bronze plates somehow attached to it and the plates are beautifully decorated:

Thank you Luca.

Well that's it then. There are some documented cast H hilts. Great.

More pictures tomorrow... I got hung up on the grip which didn't turn out to be square with the cross guard.

One step closer!

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Holly Wow


you know, every once and while a weapon is art or art is a weapon. I am very impressed,