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J Helmes
Industry Professional
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 Posted: Tue 21 Jun, 2011 6:16 pm Post subject: |
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Johan- Hi, the steel from this blade is made from very old buggy springs. It is very clean apart from a fine spread of tiny inclusions . I do make shear steel of my own by placing strips of wrought iron into a sealed canister of charcoal dust and cooking if for several hours. After the cooking, the strips are welded into a bar and folded several times to make it homogenous and further refine the steel.
Stephen- Thank you, I'm currently trying to finish up a couple of jobs on the bench so I can tackle another sword. I'd been hoping to post much more often here lately but sometimes life takes its own turns.
Russ- the blade is 76.7cm or just over 30 1/8 "
5cm or 1 and 15/16" wide at the hilt
3.5cm or 1 and 1/4" wide near the tip
OAL 92 cm or 36 1/4 "
3.5mm thick at the hilt
2,5 mm thick 10 cm from the tip
I don't have an accurate scale but i'd say that it weighs slightly over 2 Lbs. the balance is 15.2cm or 6" from the cross. Its light, really light and with the weight slightly forward it wants to cut deep.
thanks folks
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Luka Borscak
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| Posted: Wed 22 Jun, 2011 2:34 am Post subject: |
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It sounds a bit thin... 
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J Helmes
Industry Professional
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| Posted: Wed 22 Jun, 2011 4:16 am Post subject: |
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In the book "Swords of the Viking Age" by Ian Pierce ". The author measured a few type 3 blades for thickness and mentions that they generally fell between the .38cm and .61 cm range. The older ones were thinner. I made the blade thin intentionally to make it as light as possible. A swords survivability has more to do with proper heat treating than thickness of blade. This sword has been fully tested and I have faith that it would cheerfully survive the rigors of combat.
Jeff
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Michael Pikula
Industry Professional
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| Posted: Wed 22 Jun, 2011 1:43 pm Post subject: |
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| Luka Borscak wrote: | | It sounds a bit thin... |
It actually isn't that thin, you can actually go even thinner and still have a very good dynamic blade. It all depends on what you are going for. Well made viking swords were made with a very specific use in mind and you don't necessarily need to cut through bones or shields with your sword, you use an axe for that. 
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Ben Potter
Industry Professional
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| Posted: Wed 22 Jun, 2011 3:55 pm Post subject: |
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Beautiful work (as always) Jeff.
It is great to see more swords being made with the more historical thicknesses, most modern swords are way too thick and there for too heavy for the user to actually use in the intended manner of the originals.
Ben Potter Bladesmith
It's not that I would trade my lot
For any other man's,
Nor that I will be ashamed
Of my work torn hands-
For I have chosen the path I tread
Knowing it would be steep,
And I will take the joys thereof
And the consequences reap.
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Jared Smith
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| Posted: Wed 22 Jun, 2011 6:15 pm Post subject: |
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Excellent work. I have dreams of getting enough equipment and time together to do very similar blades some day......
It looks a lot like the #3 illustration on plate 1 in "Sword of the Viking Age" by Ian Pierce. I did not see a reference to the original that inspired you. Can you tell us how the inspirational source/original was dated to "8th century Norwegian"? (Many of the similar fancy patterned blades of "migration era" that I like cosmetically tended to lack distal and profile taper, and were comparatively heavy. Shallow fullered... I really would like to find a historic example that actually had both the geometric changes associated with "Viking era" and older traditional pattern welding.)
Absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence!
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J Helmes
Industry Professional
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| Posted: Wed 22 Jun, 2011 8:10 pm Post subject: |
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Hello Jarred, The inspiration for this sword is the distinctive type 1 pictured on plate IV and page32 of Swords of the Viking Age.
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Jared Smith
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| Posted: Wed 22 Jun, 2011 8:36 pm Post subject: |
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My copy is not in color. Still, I think I like your serpent/dragon motif on the central lobe of the reproduction pommel better than the "animal plaques" of the original.
It is interesting that the footnotes suggest possibility of repair substitutions with copper. It does say it had pattern welded structure, but no specifics of the pattern is given in my text.
Absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence!
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Nathan Robinson
myArmoury Admin
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Jean Thibodeau
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| Posted: Fri 24 Jun, 2011 12:08 am Post subject: |
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Very beautiful work and I just noticed that you are also in Canada.  
You can easily give up your freedom. You have to fight hard to get it back!
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J Helmes
Industry Professional
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| Posted: Sat 25 Jun, 2011 9:49 am Post subject: |
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Jared- In the color copy one can vaguely make out bits of copper that appear to be fix ups. I wonder if it is an old sword that was spruced up a bit for its journey to valhalla.
One thing I've noticed is that if plate IV is turned up side down the plaque on what is then the right side of the pommel cross appears to be a cross legged figure grabbing what look to be horns. I believe i've seen images like this on artifacts before, but off the top of my head I'm not at all certain of the original context. Regardless it leads to some interesting speculation.
The grave itself is interesting too and I wish I could dig up more info on the find. There apparently was a spear head lying 2 meters away from the body. This leads me to believe that the spear was not placed in the grave to accompany the dead warrior into the afterlife but was a sign that the warrior was dedicated to Odin . I recall another find of a man and woman in a pit where a spear was thrown over the bodies and stuck fast in a beam at the opposite end of the pit.
Nathan-. Thank you, that is a fine compliment.
Jean Thibodeau- Thank you, not only Canada but i'm just an hour west of Ottawa , On a global scale were practically neighbors
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This is a standard topic