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Hi! Another sword finished This is based on Petersen's type C, not precisely like in a diagram, but I bet it wouldn't had looked odd in 9th century The blade is NZ3 tool steel (60WCrV8), guards and pommel are wrought iron with simple brass inlay. Handle of wood and leather. Total lenght is 975mm (38.4") blade lenght is 815mm (32"), width is 50mm (2"), Handle 111mm (4.37"). It weights 1170g (2.58lb) with a PoB at 187mm (7.36) from crossguard. It is blunt for reenacting battles and training.

Hi All. Recently I was really lucky to finish a replica of a sword found in Norway. http://secretsoftheice.com/news/2017/09/05/viking-sword/ There are some differences: My sword weights 1080g and the original was as heavy as 1203g (sic!). Blade lenght: 795mm. Blade width: 62mm. Material: spring steel 50HF, cross guard and upper guard: wrought iron. Handle: wood and leather. Inlay inscription is 36 layers pw wire - it is a customer's vision. Have no idea what that means ;-P I just forged it into a blade like an illitarate dark blacksmith The guy wanted it to be "rough" and look a bit older, and actually I like the style more than mirror polished blades

This was a very pleasant commission to work on for me. I could practice a little more of inlaying and the results got better than i could anticipate, even if I have much to evolve in this art. The blade was mostly done by stock removal, but the tip and the tang were forged prior to the grinding. It was made using 1070 steel. The hilt is of a variation of Petersen's type L and it's components are made in mild steel and the inlays are nickel silver. The twisted wires are also nickel silver. It was then oil coated and lightly heated to make it look darker, so the contrast with the cooper-alloy would be even more visible. It is also a good way to prevent rust. My signature this time went on the inside of the lower guard, as the blade carries my maker's name. And on the pommel is asymmetrical in decoration: one side carries a similar decoration to the guards and the other a "double Týr" bind rune. The idea of peening it on the pommel cap is also a historical method, but I made it mainly because it would be more secure than peening the upper guard and attaching the pommel cap to it. The handle is pine wood wrapped in cord and then covered with pig skin. The scabbard is also pinewood, as well as it's belt-bridge. It is lined inside with natural wool and covered with linen cloth. The chape is also mild steel and the bridge is held by leather strips. All the decorations were made to fit a late ninth century fashion, although it is a simplification of the Borre style rather than a more elaborate version. The runes on the blade are inspired mainly on inscriptions of later, 10th and 11th century blades commonly made in Latin language such as Ingelri or Gecelin, but also inspired on the famous Tizona of El Cid and the Cortana from the legend of Holger Danske when it comes in the naming process of it. The use of the runes or local language was a choice of the owner, although I'm aware of only a single sword with runic inscriptions from the period (according to Petersen, B1622), but I have no access to what is written on this exemplar. They read: ik er ulfsmoþRin (Ek er UlfsmóðrRinn - I am the Wrath of the Wolf) hioruarþR kirosi mik (Hjörvarðr gerosi mek - Hjörvarðr made me) They are all written in old norse and I used the danish long-twig young futhork to write them. The sword was exposed at one of the biggest blade shows here in Brazil, where it was awarded the prize of Best Sword of the show and is indeed a proud weapon to display, as well as is swift and powerful to wield. As usual, I wrote a short tale for this blade that can be read here: http://vferreiraarruda.blogspot.com.br/2017/08/ulfsmor-wrath-of-wolf.html I hope you like it. And here are the stats of it. Overall length: 94,0cm Blade length: 79,7cm Blade width: 5,4cm Blade thickness at the guard: 0,5cm PoB: 17,2cm Length of the grip: 10,3cm Weight: 1,150kg

Hello all, There is a question that has been nagging me for some time now. I have made a few European swords over the last few years, and I usually attach the cross guard with a small TIG bead on the underside, that is then covered by the wood scales/grip. obviously this is not historical. and not the best way to do it i know. some other ways i have found by researching this online say to slide the guard onto tang hot with the slot in the guard slightly undersized. This allows the slot to expand and fit; then cool and contract. OK, this sounds good but wont the heat seep into the hardened and tempered tang/blade junction and soften it? It seems like it would soften the steel even more than welding it on. I already peen/plug weld my pommels on before the grip material is added, and the pommels never move afterward. i guess my question is how do you all do it? specifically viking swords, or swords with cruciform guards. thank you all for your time, and possibly helping me get over this hurdle.

This is a very special sword for me, as it both ends and starts the year. This was the last blade I quenched at 2016 and the first piece I finished in 2017. So it is kinda different. Forn Hrafn, or Old Raven is made to resemble a humble sword from the beginning of the ninth century Norway. This sword was made by stock removal (not forging, guys) from a piece of 1070 steel. It is heavily inspired on C10560 from Kulturhistorisk Museum from Norway. As I didn't have access to more material about this find, I used some of it's measures and invented others. As you can see on the pictures, it is not completely straight. The tang of some original single-edged viking swords have a slightly curve in relation to the blade and after looking at several examples, I think it was made on purpose, so the tip of the blade could be aligned with the tang. This would make them more useful for trusts. Also, the blade itself bent a little bit towards it's edge after the quench. Had it happen with a double-edged blade it would be discarded, but as some originals have this very same curve, I decided to keep on the project. The blade tapers both in profile and distal to about 75-80% of the original width and thickness at 15cm from the tip. The hilt was fire etched to look like forged and the blade was aged using salt water, vinegar and ferric chloride. The scabbard is made of pine wood, covered outside and lined inside with natural wool cloth. The belt bridge is a piece of ancient bog oak, around 6000 years old, from Ukraine and is held in place by some glue and leather cord. The raven decoration is not made in any particular norse artistic style, but rather made to look like some naive work. This fits the whole piece as being product of unskilled or cheap work, as presumably were these type F viking swords. The handle is also pinewood, wrapped with veg-tanned bovine leather. If you like storytelling, there is also a small tale I wrote for the sword that can be read here: http://vferreiraarruda.blogspot.com.br/2017/01/forn-hrafn-single-edged-viking-sword.html Overall length: 93,0cm Blade length: 78,5cm Blade width: 5,5cm Blade thickness at the guard: 0,5cm PoB: 17,5cm Lower guard width: 10,0cm Length of the grip: 9,8cm Weight: 1,390kg

Hey all! The past few weeks I've been working pretty hard to finish my first seax and a few other projects, among them a viking sword inspired by the Svere sword, as seen in Ian Pierce's Swords of the Viking Age. This is the sword in question: This is what I think of when I hear the words "Viking sword" and so I thought it would be a fitting piece to emulate. My take on this sword is in five bars and three steels. 1075, 1084, and 15n20 make up the twist bars and the edge bars alike. Without further ado here goes! Three bars forged out and ready for welding. The middle is 21 layers of 15n20 and 1075, while the outside twist bars are 15 layers of 15n20, 1075 and 1084. A close up of the twist bars and my drawing, not too bad so far! The edge bars, these will not be folded. The edge bars tack welded on and ready for forge welding. This thing is wide! After about an hour, all is welded together. I am going to do a fish mouth weld for this sword, I like the aesthetic a lot more this way. Nearly there. Finally welded! Calamity strikes! I used the power hammer at an inopportune moment and it deformed some welds in a way that proved to be completely irreversible. I was grief stricken and tried to reweld it for about 4 hours total. After I got over the fact that the sword was not going to cooperate with me on this, I went and cut my loses (heh). In order to try and conserve blade material I only forged the sword with a stub tang, the one you see in the picture is a wrought iron tang I forge welded on. It was a lap weld on one side, then forged out long and folded over itself, then welded to itself and the tang on the other side of the sword. It was a pretty sketchy weld to perform, but it was my only option. Close up of the tang weld, pretty damned clean if I don't say so myself. A good friend said "It isn't about how well you can make something, it's about how well you can salvage it when you fuck up" This was originally in reference to another friends' work, but it applies to a lot and is most heartfelt by me in regards to this sword! So in the next three days I will try to grind the fuller and the bevels into this guy (I've already semi forged in the bevels). Let's see how much I can get done before Baltimore! -Emiliano