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I wanted to make a very traditional folder, something as traditional as quaffing mead, boar hunting, getting into a long boat and raiding the coastlines of Europe. So I designed and made a pocket seax. This is the second one, the first had the thicker, more rounded handle of a fixed blade seax, so I decided to trim the handle down while retaining a bit of a rise towards the end. This one is 4" long from bolster to the end of the lanyard loop. I am thinking of doing a smaller, 3 1/2" version as well. SAE1070 blade and spring, Brass bolsters and liners, pink ivory scales. I did the carving on the bolsters. Questions and comments welcome!

Hello, I want to show you my latest project. This Falchion is inspired by 14th century originals. Specifications: - length 80,5 cm - blade length 64 cm - blade width at crossguard 3,9 cm - max blade width 5,35 cm - weight 1051 g - CoB 9 cm - nz3 steel -copper inlays on the pommel - wood and leather scabbard - brass handmade buckle and strap ending

Got my annual post Christmas forge day today, went in with no plan, other than to patternweld something! I had a variety of bits and bobs of interesting material knocking about, so just went at it, with no real plan. ( well, actually the plan was for something a bit longer than this, but the wrought iron laminate really did not like being twisted!) I had a lump of wrought iron 'damascus' left over from cladding material for the chefs knifes, I think its wrought / mild / possibly a hint of shiny metal in there. It had 90 layers chalked on it, it looks low layer in the twists though. I managed to pull this material out into a long bar, and did a bit of twisting, and left a bit as straight laminate. could not twist any tighter than I did, as it snapped if I tried. The edge steel is bloom that I got from Owen when he did a demo smelt at a blacksmiths event 5 years ago. It sparked up high carbon. I tried to work the bloom steel into a bar, but lack of experience showed, and it was not looking great, so I cheated, and welded the bloom steel either side of a piece of W2 'san mai' style. The held it all together enough to get a solid (ish) piece of material. I will be amazed if the edge on the finished blade is without problems though! Welded the 4 bars together, and have forged them into a rough seax shape. I could feel my forging getting scrappy, so stopped at this point. The whole piece is around 6mm thick still, so I have got a good bit of scope to stretch it on the final forge, when I put the tang in. The finished pattern will be pretty subtle. Felt good to just be doing some 'go with the flow' forging again!

Greetings Fellows of the forge, While I am waiting for the leather to get shipped to Darwin for the sheath to house my recently finished Seax I have been spending my time making wood carving chisels, gravers, punches and researching how these sheaths were constructed. Well In my research I have viewed countless Seaxes both historical and recreations and have decided that I absolutely love the Broken Back style blades especially the Long pointy ones. I also came across the Baltic style War Knives and after reading the Baltic War Knives thread in History I decided that These knives really interest me too especially their blade geometry. So in the spirit of historically inspired things that “could have been” I decided to combine the wicked blade shape of the Broken Back Long Seax with the thin stabby blade geometry and handle of the Baltic/Gotlandic War Knife. Here it is so far after a successful heat treat...now I am going to work out what handle material suits it best ( pictured with a rough fit of antler but I am undecided) I then plan to put some of my newly made tools to use on the handle fittings. The overall length including the tang is 57 cm with a blade length of 40cm The spine is 7mm thick and 2.5cm wide at the base It already has a wicked feel to it. As always any and all feedback, critique, advice suggestions etc greatly appreciated

Beautiful work, though i have to say i think the guard overpowers the design.

Wonderful again Gary

Once I get a pommel nut made the hilt components will all be roughed out. Then it will be time to fine tune, sand & polish them for final assembly.

Rock on with it Rob !! I too smells the smoke ..............

Yeap One of the best seax projects I've seen lately.

The character voids make you stop and realize this object was handmade. I doubt they are a functional weakness. Great work Mr. States

They are both 1" wide. The long one is 5.25" long. The little one is 3.25" long.

Here's a good read. https://knifesteelnerds.com/2018/12/03/cryogenic-part1/ We can see that in many cases, dry ice will do most of the job and in some cases, just a freezer will help too. The goal of his article was to demonstrate that "N2 or nothing" is a misconception of how cryo Works.

If you really want to try liquid nitrogen, you can probably get some pretty easily. Just bring an insulated container (e.g. a styrofoam cup) to a welding gas supplier. They should be able to fill it for you. Not saying you should do this, but that you probably can. Probably best to call ahead first.

Those are both beautiful, Josh. Really like the little one. What are the lengths of the blades?

To celebrate my Christmas time off, I forged two seaxes from bloom (iron and steel). I smelted the steel (right, in the photo above) back in March from powdered hematite ore ("Spanish Red"). I helped Mark Green and Daniel Cauble make the iron (left, above) at an SCA event in October, using Mark's "easy ore" (NC limonite). Mark and I, feeding charcoal and ore into the smelting furnace: First, I had to compact the iron bloom into a bar: After doing the same to the steel, I forge welded the two together into a billet for the two blades: I decided to copy two 6-7th century seaxes from a cemetery at Finglesham, Kent (UK): I cut the billet in half and forged the blades (also, a chef's knife from 1075): Lots of grinding... ...and ready to harden! Water got them hard enough to skate a file on the first try, so I didn't have to resort to brine this time. They came out blessedly straight, which is never guaranteed with bloomery steel. And the patterns started to show! 9 hours of hand sanding later (up to 1500), they're ready for a ferric bath. Etched: For the handles, I used horn (like the originals). And, finished! The seax on the left is 35cm long; on the right 37cm. I set the iron perpendicular to the blade's edge when I welded the billet, so the folds show as stripes on the sides of the blade's spine:

The biggest thing that stands out to me is how extremely short the grinds are. Sabre grinds usually go up about half of the blades width, and full flat grinds go almost all the way to the spine of the blade. Your grinds are super short, only like 20 percent of the blades width. I recommend doing full flat grinds, they seem more difficult, but are actually easier to line up with each other on each side of the blade, and they make blades cut much better then short bevels, in my opinion.

Rob, that's really looking great. Impressive work.

Gorgeous blade John. If you’re going to Owen’s hammer-in next year, bring that blade along. I’d love to see it in the flesh.

On to the fittings. This is how I did it. Cut the copper pipe and flattened it. I then cut the pieces to size and marked the fold creases with a bluntish cold chisel. Then just opened my vise a bit and used a bit of scrap brass the same thickness of my leather and hammered it down to get my u shapes. To make the rings I cut strips from some thick copper plate and heated them up in the forge and then quenched them to soften them before bending them around some steel pipe and brazing the joints. Here are the fittings so far laid out in order. Still got some cleaning up esp on the point end which I will grind to fit the bottom end once riveted. This sheath build is as much work as the blade. Making this gives me such a great sense of awe and appreciation for the craftsmen of long ago.

P.S. As an historical example,here's an old classic filmed about the process at E&S,Maine....overlayed bit at about 4:00...it may not be quite as massive as i write above,but these guys have their process down,et c.,et c......

Everyone takes a rocket to Russia!

And so here it is. After grinding to 220 on the belt, I drew back the tangs. Then it's on to setting the shoulders. I decided to cut these for all four shoulders. Fitting a triangle tang is a bear to get tight. The 4-shoulder method gives me a little play. During one operation, the tang sliced the 2x72 belt, got jammed between the work rest and the platen and nearly took the top joint of my pinky off. Good thing I keep super glue around...….. It also put a small chip/crack in the edge. I had to grind that out. Finish sanding to 400 grit and two 5-minute etch cycles in FeCl. Add maker's marks. That wrought iron spine let out a few voids in the etch. I think I will leave them alone. (even the one in my maker's mark)

Muy interesante!!!! Muchas gracias, Joshua!!!

Do y'all smell burning hair?

Thanks For the Faith fellas. Well keeping with the dark theme of the raven I tried my hand at drawing up a design and gave my first try at tooling leather a go (Thanks Josh for your tutorial). As with everything there is always heaps of room for improvement and I will need to make more tools but in any case this is where I am at so far. It would have been much better and easier to tool the leather flat before moulding but I had to mould the broken back hump in and could not see a way to do the tooling first. Next is stain leather and make fittings.

Well I decided on a raven theme for this knife. I can imagine this type of knife could have been used as an instrument of death. Possibly owned by an archer to finish off not only wounded game but also those left dying on the field after an epic battle. I thought that ravens were very fitting and also fitted in with the dark horn handle. I found the horn a nightmare to try to carve as it was kind of stringy and wanted to tear in strips if that makes sense. I ended up using both the dremel and some chisels and gouge I made to cut the outline of the ravens. I also sometimes struggle with the concept of more is less and decided not to overdo things on the bronze rings and opted for simple grooves. On the pommel I decided on a bow and arrow and my initials in runes which I used my home made graver to do. I find it is better for fine work than a dremel and now prefer it though I need much more practice. once I had cut in the ravens I found that while visible I wanted them to stand out more so I rubbed some acrylic paint in the grooves and then sanded it back and then coated it all with 4 coats of Tru Oil. My leather has arrived so I will be working on the sheath for this and my Seax next. Finished pics to follow.

Thanks Josh...Shine on you crazy diamond! I did some shenanigans with some of the materials I have at hand ( horn, bronze and copper) and feel it is coming together though nothing is set in stone. Still got to make copper spacers to fit between things and I will reassess how it looks This is my least favourite bit but once done I can get on to some carving. oh. When I’m done I think I will kill that pumpkin.