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Solar Storm St. Albert and North Buck Lake, Alberta Canada bob@solarstorm.ca https://www.solarstorm.ca

Happy to hear it was a success!! I can't wait for the photos and stories!

And the hammer-in has been and gone, and I'm exhausted. It was GREAT! Pics to come this afternoon, maybe. I'm still reeling from three days of nonstop activity...

10" Bowie with a full S guard and frame handle with stabilized old oak handle in a take on a coffin handle. It comes with 2 sheaths for a scout carry (back carry) and a traditional sheath with a frog. The tomahawk is has a 3 ½" bit and 12 oak framed handle to match the bowie. The sheath can be carried on a belt or added to any pack.

New work. Test of welding with woodashes as flux, I must make an axe with this flux. It's free but you must have clean surface (hammered with water), good temperature, tight surface... Use it like a joint to block oxygen, not directly on the surface before folding to not have inclusion! Like a joint, it's very good! And the knife is a test with a sculpted look handle and a treatment with pine tar. I'm curious if it's a good idea for a bushcraft knife! To quench i use the shadow of austenite transformation. You call that recalescence and decalescence. A question, do you know what is the temperature when scales melt? I'm curious to do a test: Fold a piece of steel like 1095 with lot of scales, and weld at high temperature without flux. Scales just melt and make inclusion or they change of structure? (become again iron?)

Looking great guys! Nice entries this year.

It depends. Different epoxy manufacturers have different formulae. What epoxy are you using? There could be a number of reasons your handle material craked over time. Many of us fail to realize that tusk is basically a tooth and it needs some moisture to be stable. Like bone, when ivory gets too dry it becomes brittle and shrinks. This shrikage leads to cracking. No clue about the paper micarta, except to say that as @Gerhard Gerber pointed out, much depends on how it was made. There is a lot of "micarta" out there which is little more that some material layered with colored epoxy or an acrylic substance similar to the stuff they put on concrete around pools, which is then compressed together. The original micarta was infused with phenolic resin, which is a thermoset polymer. This means it is baked to fully harden and set. This stuff is incredibly hard (think billiard balls). The limited availability of true micarta is one of the primary reasons I stopped using it.

That handle almost looks like darkened bone. Great job. Doug

Very cool!

Love the higo knife! I should have tried to put a knife together!

My investigation into Hjortspring continues with a new project from the find. I collaborated with my friend Nate Bell and my better half Aluruna Studio to interpret the shields from Hjortspring. More to come later, hopefully, regarding the spears... Nate did the construction entirely, made from maple harvested on his property, entirely worked with hand tools. It is one plank, tapered in all directions, with a separate boss and grip. Overall the shield is about two feet long by one foot wide. The boss is fixed with hide glue and two pins, per the artifacts. The grip is made with the twist-lock system like many of the Hjortspring shields, and then wedged in the grooves to prevent the grip from moving. The grip has a slight curve outward from the shield and a groove in the center. It is almost flush with the back side of the board. We chose to bind the shield in thin leather. We took this idea chiefly from the Borremose shield, while it is not conclusive that the leather found in association with the Borremose shield was in fact a binding, we felt that it was reasonable to bind the shield in something. We debated parchment, but ultimately went with leather because it felt less conjectural given the possible leather binding at Borremose. The binding is glued on with hide glue. We chose not to do an edging other than having the facing wrapped over the shield because the Hjortspring shields lacked stitching holes at the edges that would have typically been an indication for a separate edging. The blue paint is made with shale clay local to Nate, lime, cassein binder, and Woad. The red and yellow paints are both milk paints. After painting the shield was sealed with beeswax. The pattern of the paint is conjectural, but based on motifs surrounding the time period. I used inspiration from Jastorf culture pottery, jewelry, and other artefacts to try to get an understanding of the common motifs. Not all of them were suited to the shape of the shield, and I did not want to simply copy the patterns from the Arch of Orange like I see so many recreations. I ultimately wound up trying my best to synthesize a design that I felt would be happily among the motifs of the time period. I chose a ring and dot pattern on the boss, intended to pay homage to some of the bosses from Hjortspring that had round bulbs at the front. The crescent shapes are inspired by the parallel lines, half-circle patterns, X patterns, and opposing crescent patterns found around the period of Hjortspring, and admittedly, a bit later (stretching from the late pre roman iron age to the early roman iron age). Our main sources were Hjortspringfundet, Shields and Hide. On the use of hide in Germanic shields of the Iron Age and Viking Age Weapons, Armament, and Society. The Pre-Roman Iron Age on Zealand and in Scania, Das Jastorf Konzept, Danmarks Olditd, and other articles.

As I said, I have two, winners choice Higonokami, copper and damascus and a Kerambit/Ulu hybrid combat mushroom knife in ironwood Geoff

I built it with the closed loop at the top, but now I have to have a look at it the other way. G

Let's Say this year is closed for sign-ups! If You have a Finished Knife please Post it in the Finished Knives Thread so the Drawing can commence as soon as Alan is done recovering from the Hammer-In If You were unable to start or finish an offering (you still have a day or two to maybe slip in under the gate!) Please let us know here so we know how many entries to be expecting. Thank You all for your Enthusiasm and the Awesome entries so far!

I made a post to promote my last two works. Dog leg jack #slipjoint just out from the shop! damascus steel (little piece from my last damascus multibar fixed blade here proposed ), fat carbon “toxic storm” and 416 ss fittings, spring is Rwl34. 5.5 cm blade 14.5 cm OAL Mini full tang fighter, Turkish twist multi bar damascus steel I forged few months ago, forc guard peened and fat carbon “toxic storm “. 9cm blade 18 cm OAL 4.7 mm thickness Fixed EDC here: https://www.francescatobladesmith.com/shop/p/mini-fighter-edc at 490€ SLIPJOINT here: https://www.francescatobladesmith.com/shop/p/dogleg-jack-slipjoint at 320€ BOTH offered here (direct message) at 750 free shipping EUROPE UPS. Thanks for looking!

I like the fluting on that handle.. nice!

I took this picture right before gluing the front bolster pieces on to the full tang blade: The glueing was successfull, and I have now also glued the bog-oak wood scales that goes between the front and rear bolsters. I am currently experiementing with the resin casting. Seems my test-stone sinks in the resin, so I've cast 2,44mm of resin now, and will do a 2nd pour once that resin is hard enough to carry the weight of the stone... sometimes it is truly better to run tests rather than try to do it for the first time on the actual piece.. I'll post a pic of the test-cast once its ready.

No they are not designed as a take down, with a curved butt cap you kind of need a pommel nut to put it all together.

240 layer Damascus CuMai. 120 layers of 15n20 and 1084 over a 1084 core. Copper bolster and pommel with epoxy dragon scales for the handle. 6.25" blade with a 5" handle

Thanks @Doug Lester I can't say I understand the idea either other than I wanted to challenge myself with each new build. I had never done one before. The client ordered this one for gift for the Chief of his band.

You could have something there. That guard could be upside down on the anvil which would make the longer of the two guards a a knuckle guard. Doug

Are they designed as take downs?

I've been wrong before, but I think you might have it upside down and backwards. I'd think the long part is a knuckle bow.

Forged flat, pierced and ground, shaped and then tumbled for a day or so. I'll give it some sort of surface treatment before final assembly. g