Posts: 51 Location: Dallas
Wed 26 Feb, 2014 2:25 pm
From the beginning it was clear this was not going to be a carbon copy of the Kirkburn sword and I was okay with that. Patrick’s blade was longer than the original which was fine; the original Kirkburn sword was quite short as was common for the Iron Age swords from the northern parts of the British Isles.
But at the very end of the process, when Patrick was working on the hilt, that was when some serious roadblocks were encountered. In November 2013 Patrick contacted me stating that he was encountering difficulty with the enameling of the glass onto the hilt and was concerned that he would not be able to enamel it in a way that was acceptable to him.
I had been curious about how Patrick was going to approach the glass enameling of the hilt and scabbard. In Ian Stead’s
British Iron Age Swords and Scabbards there is an entire appendix by Valerie Rigby entitled “Weapons and fittings with enameled decoration.” In this appendix it she discusses the Kirkburn sword and scabbard glass enameling in exhaustive detail.
Valerie Rigby states:
| Quote: |
| The Kirkburn sword and scabbard remains the only definite example of combining the techniques of excised cells for patterning, coated keyed areas and the three piece domed caps found anywhere in Britain and Europe… it seems likely that all three (Kirkburn and two similar) weapons were produced using very localized skills, possibly in the same workshop and within a generation, if not by the same hand. |
The glass enameling techniques were not the familiar cloisonné from the European Migration Era but are instead excised cells known as champlevé enamelling. In this method the decorative pattern was excised with an engraving tool and red glass was laid into the cells.
Additionally the sword featured keyed areas which were then covered with softened glass and polished. Finally, the domed caps of the sword and scabbard fittings were keyed and coated with hot glass.
Attempts to reproduce these techniques were not succeeding. We agreed that Patrick would work with professional enamelers with a specialized furnace to work on the enameling. I awaited the results anxiously. Then I got the email from Patrick:
| Quote: |
| The grip. Although I have tried the enameling three times and have cooperated with professional enamelers, I wasn’t able to do it good. Making of enamel-champleve on this 3D object is very complicated and I wasn’t able to do it good. |
There were many problems:
| Quote: |
1-iron is more problematic for enameling than for example copper alloys. On iron must be used a special basic enamel and over it face enamel. But basic enamel (with different containing of chemical compounds) is made only in grey or black colour and for red enamel champleve it isn’t possible to use, because after grinding is usually on some parts visible.
2-The best is, when is first heated the metal base and than on the surface is melt the enamel.The iron of the grip is relatively massive (cca 3mm thickness) and the enamel was from all sites. So in the time of heating, although it was extremely slow, was first melt the enamel and second was with full temperature the iron. After cooling it looks good, but after grinding was enamel porous. The bubbles was probably from overheating of the enamel. I used technical enamels, so with flowing of melted enamel wasn’t big problems- it isn’t so liquid. |
We had hit two roadblocks that could not be surmounted: my budget for Patrick to research with the professional enamelers was exhausted (remember - I had initially hoped to just purchase a basic Celtic sword from Patrick; this project was significantly greater in cost). The other barrier for this project was time.
So what solution was there to get an acceptable reproduction of the Kirkburn sword into my hands?
Copper.