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Hello, I would like to introduce myself and especially my work here. My name is Jiri and I come from Czech Republic and I am interested in forging and other related crafts for a long time (maybe since i was 12 years old…now i am 25 :D). My work became presentable (I hope) since covid times, when i had plenty of time to practice. I enjoy making knives/ other things inspired by history and fantasy stories (mostly Lord of the rings). First thing i want to introduce, is my Rohirrim set which consists of small utility knife and bigger broken-back seax. The small one is the first knife where i have used forge welding and it is made of old wrought iron nail which i took from my family´s countryside house roof and the edge is made of my grandfather´s broken drawknife. So this knife has a nice family story. Also, It has brass ferrulle with stylized horse heads ( I slightly improved my engraving skills during a time but it is not as good as i would like) and plum wood handle. The big one is little bit younger and it was a big challenge for me, because i wanted something big and patternwelded and I don´t have any forging machinery so i had to make it just by a hammer. This one is a second attempt because i broke the first one after bad HT. For a blade i have used K720, mild steel and wrought iron from old Theresian fortress. Fittings are casted from broken cymbals (it is also a recycling project a bit ) . The handle itself is made of ash wooden core, tighten up with linen thread and covered with cow leather. Sheaths of both knives are made of tooled leather with bronze and brass fittings. I applied some Rohirrim symbols on the knives and their sheaths, on the pommel of seax is stylized rising sun, which is also on buckles of sheath and there are also horse heads on the small knife and seax sheaths chape. I hope you will enjoy my work and I am looking forward to some critics. And sorry for my english, I haven´t use it for a while.

These sword captured my interest the second I first saw them. And I have been grinding my head trying to figure out how the were actually made. And I just saw something that all of them have in common that changed the little understanding I had of them. So what do all of them have in common except the diamond pattern? The pattern elongates towards the tip. Which to me would mean that the blades were forged more after the pattern had been put on. Because I first thought these were made by first forging the blades to near completion, and then adding the pattern by chiselling in the pattern and then adding the extra steel kinda like how the text on the Ulfberht swords were put in. Or am I way off anyone else that have a clue or might even have tried making one? Oh and it seems to be the same on many of the other Illerup swords with different patterns Edit: I just remembered I had these pictures to I think they should support my theory that the blades were forged more after the pattern were added. Because everything looks a bit wavy I don’t think it would look like that if the pattern was added as one of the last forging elements.

Hi all ! It's my first post on this forum so I wanted to say hello and show you my pattern welded seax which I finished few days ago. Total length 47cm, blade 32cm Width 3,2 cm Maciej Leszczyński - Kuźnia Wilkowo