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Hi. I just finished my latest project. It is a replica of an early medieval (Viking Age) spearhead. It is a reconstruction of the find from Ciepłe (Poland). It is completely made of bloomery iron. I have used 3 kinds of materials: soft low carbon iron smelted from hematite ore, high carbon steel I made in Aristotle furnace, and high phosphorus low carbon iron smelted from bog ore. The socket is a wrap and welded. The pattern-welded twist bars are welded on both sides of the spear core. To weld twist pattern billets I used high carbon steel and P-iron, cutting edge is steel, socket and core is

I look at kind of the "flipside" of that too. It was one of the things that led to me leaving the IFI forumn. The eventual disappearance of forging altogether- on a non-industrial level. Thirty years ago, 60 years ago... you'd have to find somebody to apprentice to. You'd have to scrounge and look for tools to use in your home- vs ordering them off Amazon. Times have changed. People have changed. Many at the IFI site looked down on the new guy coming in and asking a "newbie" question without doing his or her "fair" amount of research or reading.

My first instinct was to dismiss this as sour grapes. How ever I have been saying many of the same things for years, I even wrote about it in my column. First I will say in hind sight I think FIF is a symptom not a cause. The rise and the slow death of most of the forums and then the rise of the facebook smithing groups in there place are just as much a cause as FIF and in fact are also a symptom. a little history as I remember it. I started on the early forums back in 96 or so. The rise of early forums like Anvil fire, CKD (latter Knifenet) swordforums Iforgeiron. in the beginni

A short video on making a power hammer tool. Let me know what you think.

My first blade totally from scratch. Thanks to all for the tips! Blade is of course 6150. The handle is made of oak i get in large blocks from a local mill. Brass rods are just 1/8" (ordering larger this is all home depot has) getting 1/4 from onlinemetals dot com. Great prices there! Anyways I also used loctite epoxy under the wood. Sanded and polished. Super smooth and super sharp!

Hi, i started new huge project. The aim of this project is to forge at least 5 replicas of earlymedieval spearheads from Lednickie lake. I am going to use only bloomery iron and charcoal as a fuel. This project is realized in collaboration with archaeometallurgist, the results will be published. link to the catalog below. http://studialednickie.pl/pobierzpdf,bron-drzewcowa-i-uzbrojenie-ochronne-z-ostrowa-lednickiego-giecza-i.pdf some examples of spearheads: The first one i forged is spear catalog number 15. It has been forged of 5 elements.

Greetings fellows. Been a pretty rough couple of days, the kind of days that make good days shine. I came out to the hovel, flung the cap off a cold barley pop and fired up the forge with no plan. I used a scrap piece of 1084 that looked lonely and hammered out a blade shaped object that looked remarkably like my last knife.. doh. Used a stack of figured walnut bits that I was never quite sure what to do with and added a sheet of red brass. Some good rage draw filing and the blade was all pointy in the right places. A dive down the rabbit hole of drilling, filing, checking, repeat and this

Well I'm teaching myself to weld in the process but it's coming along. It ain't pretty but it'll look better once it's sanded and painted. I took your advice Alex and went with 2x48.

Got the front cut out. Sounds like it’s safe to dump the water now and cut the back. I saw someone on another thread weld three or four small bar stock tabs on the back to bolt the “rear door” on. Might try that so I can take it off when needed.

That would be great, Alan. I'll DM you my mailing address. Thanks! Dave

I think I have one on my desk at work. Not helpful since I no longer have a computer with an optical drive there, but if the DVD is still there I'll grab it and get a copy burned to send you. Unless anyone else volunteers, of course. It may be Tuesday before I find out.

Wonderful! The video and all You works!

speaking from a true beginner... the blade with the red micarta handle is the very first "completed" blade I made. It was forged late last spring. The next blade, I just finished last week. Obviously, I have a long long long ways to go. But it is forged from my own 220 layers of damascus. It is the eleventh blade that I have made in almost the year that I have been doing this. I was one of those guys that tinkered on and off with the forging for about 2 years until last year. Y'all will notice that first blade is super super super rough...it is decently sharp....but my biggest struggle i

mines made from a disposable helium tank same size as a Freon tank is ok size for forge welding by hand small when using a press or power hammer next ones going to be a 30 lb propane tank so i can use the press and hammer to full advantage

I've got some progress to show again, I'm really enjoying myself with this one. the blade finish forged: The profile and flats ground before heat treat, and some filing done on the shoulders. I like to heat treat as soon as possible, this way I have room to grind out small warps and I like to do most of the work with 60 grit anyway. I never really understood why people grind knives to 220 grit before heat treat. And the knife finish ground ready for hand sanding, I also have a design now My plan is to use stainless for the g

Our Arctic Fire youtube channel and Facebook page has been hacked or vandalized or whatever you call it. All the videos were deleted. I had a copy of the AF 2013 event on a local computer, so I was able to re-upload it to http://www.ArcticFire.org, and Michael Bergstrom, luckily, hosts the 2016 videos on his channel, but I have no access to our old 2012 videos. As you know, some of these are pretty popular and have significant historic/sentimental value for some of us because Don Fogg was one of the presenters. Does anyone have a copy of the 2012 DVD? If so, can we "b