This is a video completing about two years of work in creating a single-edged pattern-welded sword or seax that could plausibly have been created during Viking times. It shows alls steps from assembling pieces of steel, twisting and forging until the sword blade is complete and tested with a simple cutting test.
It’s about 30 minutes long and shot on a Sony FS7. It’s 4K and color graded for high-dynamic range (HDR).
My journey in recreating famous Finnish spearhead from Rovaniemi, Marikkovaara continues. In this episode, both the socket and the wrought iron core will be forge-welded into a single piece. The spearhead is getting closer to the famous Wolf Tooth pattern.
Here is Part 2 of my new A Spear Born of Fire video series. My journey in forging the famous Finnish Wolf Tooth Spear from Rovaniemi, Marikkovaara is making slow but steady progress. In this video, I am forming the spear socket and forge a mandrel that will be used for later forge welding. Stay tuned.
A Spear Born of Fire is a new video series in which I will show how to forge a Wolf Tooth Spear. The spear closely follows the famous Finnish spearhead from Rovaniemi, Marikkovaara. It will have two pattern-welded bars within the wolf tooth pattern. I will start at the very beginning by consolidating wrought iron that will then be forged into a wide plate. Afterwards, I form the spear socket and continue with lots of forge welding.
Visualizing pattern-welded steel has always been intriguing to me. At the forge, I end up layering different kinds of steels by varying carbon-content, nickel or phosphorous but ultimately don't know how the patterns will look until everything is forged, heat-treated, polished and etched. Using tools from the visual-effects industry, to be specific SideFX's Houdini, I have started exploring different ways of visualizing pattern-development. Here is a very early experiment:
A Day at the Forge documents a single day at the shop. This time, I am working on a complex pattern-welded sword that contains a core of 8 pattern-welded bars. Watch me forge-weld the core and then assemble the cutting edges to create the pre-form of what will become a majestic Viking-age inspired sword.
