Ondřej Borský

Hello gentlemen, and thank you for your kind words  I apologize for the delayed response, I was a bit snowed under at work today. Kreg, Jan, I am writing you a PM

Cheers,

Ondrej

Hello there,

time doesn´t allow me to go to the forge often, but not so long ago, I finished these two blades. Both have edges from tool steel, wrought iron bar, then a PW bar, and on top another wrought. My favourite construction I admit :) . I must say I am quite happy with how the pattern turned out, I hope it will be to your liking as well.

Blade 1

length: 12,4cm,    width: 3cm,     thickness: ca 5,5mm          price: 122USD/106E+shipping

Blade 2

length: 13,3cm,    width: 2,9cm,     thickness: ca 6mm          price: 127USD/110E+shipping

Thank you very much for looking, I will be looking forward too hearing your thoughts and comments!

Sincerely,

Ondrej

Hello gentlemen, and thank you Alan... slowly getting into it, I hope next year I will be able to go to Owens or anywhere you are

About the prices - but...but... they are small! Seriously now, I know you are right... I will raise it (and then you will tell me I raised it too little )

Ruggero - thank you so very much for your interest! They sold yesterday, but if you want to, I can make new ones, I should be forging soon (within 1-2weeks).

Aaaah it IS good to be back!

Hello!

After a long time, I am slowly getting back to this, and I jumped in by whipping out 4 blades. I would like to offer them here, as I think they might make a very nice foundation for a period knife. Each of them has a W5 edge, the rest is visible in the photos  I would like to hear your opinions, and of course, if you are interested, I´d be even happier to provide you with one or more of these rascals.

A brokenback with a nice, visible hamon. Wrought iron +W5, length: 12,1cm, width: 2,3 to 2,6cm, thickness: 5mm to 5,8 at the break (reverse distal taper). I am asking 51€ or 59USD + shipping

A drop point with wrought iron +W5, length: 10,4cm, width: 2,4cm, thickness: 4mm. I am asking 50€ or 58USD + shipping

A drop point with wrought iron + patternwelded strip (C80+15N20) +W5, length: 7,1cm, width: 2,1cm, thickness: 5mm. I am asking 50€ or 58USD + shipping

A drop point with wrought iron + patternwelded strip (C80+15N20) +W5, length: 8cm, width: 2,2cm, thickness: 5mm. I am asking 51€ or 59USD + shipping

Thank you for looking!

Have a good day,

Ondrej

Thank you both  !

I know Alan, but last conversation we had was some two weeks ago... I wouldn´t mind if they told me I have to wait because *reason* but not answering at all is a different matter :/

Hello everyone!

I hope I posted this in the correct thread, if not, I apologize and will delete everything...

My question is basically the one in the title... What is going on with them??? I have contacted them some time ago, doing my HW before and reading about how great the customer service is, hoe nicely they communicate etc..

Well, the communication has been pleasant, but sometimes they don´t respond for a week, sometimes for two... I have to remind them of my interest... Is it because I am from Eastern Europe? Or were they somehow affected by the hurricanes? 

I would really like to buy one of their forges, because I believe they are one of the best there is (let´s keep the thoughts about building one myself aside now... no time, I need something plug and play). And I am sure there is an explanation, but, you know, having money in my hand, ready to pay and being ignored is somewhat... sour. I will gladly wait, if I just know what´s going on  .

Does anyone have a different way to contact them other than they have on their site please?

EDIT: wrong spelling, corrected

Thenk you gentlemen! I decided to make a short video about it, I hope I can make it soon  Next I have an itching to make a smaller brokenback...

Don´t heat treat... a thing so complex, with so many variables, is bound to undergo drastic changes...

Hello! I would like to offer my latest knife. The story if its creation can be followed here:

It is a knife with a blade made of four bars - wrought iron, patternwelded rod of 9 layers, wrought iron again and high carbon steel on edge.The handle is ashen, hand-carved in ringerike style, the motif taken and adjusted from an 11th century brooch. At the end of the handle is a wrought iron butt cap and a loop, housing a brass ring decorated with triangles made of punched small 1mm circles. Also, there is a leather strap to make the pulling of the knife easier.

The sheath features an antler plate decorated in the same style, the motif coming from a weather vane found on Gotland. There is a decorated brass ring too, ready for a strap attaching it to the belt. The rest of the sheath is sewn using a hand woven flax string, and there are three wrought iron clamps to add a bit of a bling .

The OAL of the knife is 22cms, blade length is 10,6cm.

I am asking 500USD/443E for this one

Thanf you George! The knife is finished now, and offered in knives for sale  I must make one correction: the handle is ash, not curly maple... stupid me!

Thank you! I added a few things to the antler plate

Jonas - I used a hand graver, will take a photo later

Thank you!

Today, things moved forward a bit. The leather for the sheath has been formed, plus I prepared, sanded and carved a reindeer antler plate that will serve as one of the mounts. It is carved in the same - ringerike - style, this time I took and fitted the design from a weather vane found on Gotland

Hello gentlemen! So,  I finished it today  I pre-dremeled the lines, just to have it drawn (I don ´t like using pencil) and then I carved everything by hand using a V-chisel

I patinized the whole handle, and then sanded it... the dye created a bit of a blurry effect, which makes, at least in my eyes, look it a bit older...

Please, tell me your thoughts!

Aaah, I am sorry - I forgot to mention -  I do predrill the shape, and then burn the tang it... I do it at low heat, slower steps, only hand pressure... AND I always "put" a half a potato right before the blade/tang transition... it acts as a heat stop, your blade won´t get soft and you can get the heat very, very close

That. Is. Beautiful. I must go and have a cold shower now

Hello Simonet!

From my experience:

1. Depends on how you assemble it? I burn my tangs too, and the hole is usually a little bigger, but when I insert the blade, it stays in one position... so I fill it with epoxy when gluing in the blade (I mostly make historical knives, so I presume this would have been done also in the older times...)

2. I would... small grain is highly desireable

Good evening everyone!

This is the latest knife I am making, and I´d like to share the process with you   I decided to focus more on making knives as a whole, not only blades. That is not to say I am stopping blades, but I deffinitely want to finish more pieces

It all started with me having a blade I really liked, and a piece of curly maple:

I really wanted to do something in Urnes style which... I didn´t  Somehow I am always drawn to the Ringerike style! In this case, the brooch below, particulary the beast portraited there, caught my eye...

And so it began... I am still uncertain as to what the animal is, but for me, it resembles a wolf... I started drawing it, to get the details as close to the original as I am able. I changed one thing - I really didn´t like the legs of the beast in the brooch, so I looked at other ringerike animals and changed them a littlebit... Also, I tuned the tail a bit so that it fits the frame of the handle better:

I decided to carve the beast first, it being the most difficult for me to carve, and therefore the most likely to be ruined. So, if there should be a ruinage, i wanted it to be as close to the beginning of the handle as possible... but, everything seems okay (well, there are always the little things that bug you, aren´t there  ) and i finished the main carving just as the sun was setting... I found it rather poetical... and then I remebered a story from Northern Mythology, about a warg who chases after the sun, named Sköll. The dusk came, and the warg appeared in the handle... I ensnared it! No more chasing the sun, now it will serve the user of the knife!

I apologize for the bad uality of the last shot...

Well, I wanted to make sure that Sköll will not break out of his prison, so I added cage around him (also, there is a flattened and ground piece of wrought I intend to use for a buttcap):

And this is where I finished today - now I am grinding micrometer after micrometer so that the buttcap fits as well as possible . Yeah, I could have done it before the carving, but I was never much of a planner  :

Goodnight!

Maciej, that is an elegant weapon if I´ve ever seen one! Cool! 
The fittings look cool too! I have a question - what is the reason for casting the "clamp" fitting? Is it easier than making a die and pressing it? Never did that type, so that´s why I´m asking

Thanks!

Hi Ruggero! A very cool looking knife, I love it!

I love it! Also, if you would consider doing a WIP it would be great!

Also, if you look at the video, there is me holding the knife opened

Chris, of course! If you have any other questions, shoot  !

And yes, the literature stated thumb only

Thank you gentlemen!

Chris - no pin, no stopping  Literature concerning these knives states that the blades were supported by the user´s thumb when in use, and that they had to be secured by a leather string when they were carried around in pouches... I riveted mine a bit tighter so that it doesn´t open, and I guess that one could fiddle with the dimensions of the tail to make the blade stop at the desired position, but there was no mention of such things in the materials I had available...

(please read the following in Arnold Schwarzenegger voice:)

I AM BACK !!!

So, I have not posted for some time... I hope to change that, and to add more of my recent work, including some high medieval swords, avar belts etc... BUT, today I´d like to show this little bugger.

As the title says, it is a simple folder dating to the 9th, possibly 10th century, modeled after originals from Great Moravia (central europe).

I was very happy when I was approached and asked whether I could make such a knife. I find them charming in their simplicity... quite a lot of examples actually have a broken-backish blade, but for this one, a slight drop point was requested.

It taught me a great deal. I have made a folder similar to this in the past, but the handle piece had a different crossection, and when I was forming this one in my mind, I wanted it to look rounded and to have a certain presence... and I really enjoyed the mental process leading to the physical creation as well as the creation itself  Hope I am not getting too esotherical here...   Also, I hope to make more of these in the future, possibly with inlaid handles, that would be cool...

aaanyhow, here is the video about it   :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbus24WQurc&feature=youtu.be

and here are the pics:

The blade before final sanding and etch:

The very roughly shaped handle being worked on:

Cleaning the forgemarks on the handle at grinding it down to the desired uniform 3mms:

Beginning to bevel the handle - additional bevels will be aded later, and then the whole thing will be rounded:

Rounded, yay!:

Sanding the handle... always fun...gah!

I sanded even the edges of the handle so that it is nice to hold:

And here we go, the finished thing:

Hello Ruggero!

PM sent