You are correct Owen and it is because of yourself and the other makers who do establish a rapport with the various museum curators that we the non-makers get to see some of these pieces for which I for one would like to thank you and the others who do this.

Enough of me hijacking the thread though. I do believe that it is about a seax?

I am looking forwards to seeing the finished project.

one of the enigmatic and legendary elements of patternwelding is the serpent in the steel and i have tried a few variations on this theme.
I am going to go for an element on this in this piece.
some kind of serpent or worm .....

this was my first attempt a gently undulating snake up the middle of a seax in 2006
[ Linked Image ]

I have tried various twisting serpents but never been happy with the results.

the wolfs tooth patterns I did recently can look serpentine and undulating
[ Linked Image ]

those patterns are a little too subtle and more like waves than snakes.

last year I had another go at this pattern and came up with this version of a snake , based on my memories of a pattern I saw in the british museum . This is the end of a monsterous seax (heptisax handled by Petr Florianek) and it would be hard to be more snakey than this. I am very proud of that seax . It is however imperfect in its manufacture havein some cold shuts between some coils....
[ Linked Image ]
However making it prompted me to re visit the sword in the BM that inspired all this snakey ness it is an amazing piece of rusty old metal.
[ Linked Image ]
on closer inspection you can see the undulating coils , not to mention the amazing spagetty twists in the edge pattern pieces that you can see right through!!
[ Linked Image ]
this is without doubt in my mind the serpent in the steel , conveluted ,writhing and undulating ...even menacing . I have done a few prictice pieces since heptisax and am hoping to get a better and more subtle result in this piece .
slightly less bling ...a little darker!!
A serpent in the steel of a seax!!!

Those are beautiful examples of your patternwelding Owen. I cannot wait to see how the serpent ends up looking on this project. That is also a very interesting pair of pictures of the sword from the BM. In the second picture you can see how someone could say there was a serpent in the blade. Thank you for posting them.

Owen and Tod,

Have you guys made any progress on this project?

Not trying to to be a bother, just really want to see this completed :D

Owen,
Wonderful photos and I look forward to seeing the project unfold, er..rather, progress...unfolding the snake would be bad I assume...yes?

Ric