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This is another of the Pictorial mosaic patterns I have been playing with. I saw a photo on the news showing Maui in the distance from the Lahaina side on the island, I thought I could make that shape so I decided to try and then auction off the knife with 50% going to Maui Strong, a 501C that is doing a lot of great work in Maui to help recover from the wild fires. Auction will be on my instagram page starting tomorrow (9/23/2023) Specs 8" blade 13" OV 2.125 heel 7.5 OZ Blade 1080/1084/1095 and 15n20 steel Handle Figured stabilized Koa furniture, sterling silver (bolster butt cap and pins) bolster was cast, but the butt cap is fabricated and is Bezel set in place.

Looks like I joined March 10th, 2003. Definitely didn't know back then that this place would be so big and full of such great info.

Here's to another 20! When I found this forum in 2015, I was amazed at the wealth of knowledge and kindness that lived here. I've seen a lot of folks come and go over the last 8 years, but this is still the oasis of good will in the sea of grime out there. Thanks to Alan, Dave, and Niels for keeping the faith, and the fire burning.

I was telling someone the history of the place, and the fact that I do not own it, when I realized I myself joined in September 2003. It's now September 2023. Time flies when you're having fun, I guess... Don Fogg started this place as a page on his personal site in March of 2003 (some digging on the Wayback Machine shows he added a forum in December 2001, but it was on a different set of software I can't get to open now. The current InVision Powerboard format we know and love is what he added in March 2003), and I intended to make this announcement in March. Better late than never!

Metallurgy as we know it didn't really become a thing until the 1850s. "Natural philosophy" was the name in the 1760s when actual science became a thing, and that evolved into chemistry and physics by 1790. Metallurgy was a subset of chemistry at first. They didn't figure out that carbon was what made steel hardenable until around 1770. They had theories about "purifying" iron by forging really hot in a reducing atmosphere after baking it in a sealed container of bone charcoal starting in the medieval period, but didn't figure out why that worked until the late 18th century. Once they figured out how to isolate elements things really took off, especially after the Bessemer process came in around 1856. That said, toolmakers preferred cast steel to Bessemer ( and the later technologies) well into the first part of the 1900s. Because it just worked. They may not have even known about grain, they just knew how to make it work.

Hand held (assuming that is what your friend had access to) XRF units are completely worthless for our needs. They do not read lighter elements, like Si or Al and above; so no carbon. Everything else that they do read are not overly accurate. They are good for determining the difference between 41XX and mild, for example, in the scrap yard or machine shop. Optical Emission Spectrometry (OES) gives much more accurate and precise readings for any element that the machine is set-up and calibrated for. For example, in these alloys I would be able to tell you the carbon to the first decimal point for certain, but the second would have a bit of variance since we do not make these alloys and thus don't calibrate them. With something like 1025, or 4330 that would move out one more decimal. Other things like Mn, Si, Cr, Ni, V, and Mo would be pretty good at 2 decimal places, and P and S get out to 3.

It definitely got overheated at some point! For 52100 I use four or five normalizing cycles and no soak at all after forging. For quenching I may let it soak for one minute once it's at heat, but usually not.

Birch burl is actually tougher than straight grained birch. I bet it was soaked in birch tar as well. They used that burl because they didn't want the handle to split, and boy, did it work!

Yak dung, it's good for everything (OK, that is an inside joke with a peer group of mine, but you all aren't that group. Trust me, it's funny) Interesting that they chose what appears to be a highly figured piece of wood. Given that it is weaker and harder to work than a straight grained piece, it supports a hypothesis that they valued the appearance of their tools enough to put up with the more troublesome material. I wouldn't have guessed that for such a utilitarian item.

Seriousness. It's burl wood judging by the grain in the photo. I wonder how much use it got before being dropped in the snowbank. Then you have to figure that several years went by with it out in the elements, going through freeze-thaw cycles, before it finally was encased in ice. Yet the handle didn't split apart and disintegrate. What were these guys using for a finish? I want some of that!

I shall refer people who say you NEED stabilized wood to that first knife... I've been keeping up with this project for a couple of years now. It was rather secret at first, because there was so much stuff coming out of the ice that they didn't want anyone coming up and looting before things could be recorded. Overall I think they're up to around 1,000 arrows or arrowheads, at least one sword, and several knives. Everything from Neolithic to early modern. The same thing is happening everywhere in the arctic, there's just no iron (or not much) in the North American arctic. They did find links of mail on Ellesmere Island in the 1970s, so more Viking stuff may yet melt out of the ice around Baffin Bay. The Inuit have been recording all sorts of stone, bone, and ivory hunting tools turning up all across the continent.

Another knife found, with no dated age yet. Iron Knife A large iron knife with a grip consisting of rings in copper alloy and antler/bone. It is probably from the Medieval period. The iron knife as it was found lying between the rocks. The find spot has probably only seen intermittent snow and ice cover, so part of the grip has rotted away. The knife is c. 29 cm long, A close-up of the grip showing the various rings of copper alloy and antler/bone. There was probably wood between the rings, but that has rotted away due to exposure.