As of today, I have officially reached 5 million views on my Youtube channel. That seems like a large number for blacksmithing videos and something I never expected when I started documenting my exploits. So, let’s take a look at the most popular videos.
In 2013, I made a knife for preparing Persian Kabab Barg. This video alone is responsible for almost 2 million views:
A year before that in 2012, I had started working on the Serpent in the Sword. A Viking-era sword with a pattern welded serpent at the core of the blade. At that point, I was also still learning how to mix audio; it was so bad I had to put up an audio remix. The Serpent in the Sword collection of videos accounts for another 2 million views:
At that point, I started spending much more time on video editing but never ended up with another really popular video. I found that pretty ironic. However, in 2013 John and I started experiments with making crucible steel which resulted in a knife with Wootz-like patterning. As of today, this video has a little bit more than one hundred thousand views:
Another video series which documents a complete sword build surprisingly only got a very few views. This is the sword I made for the ChronoBlade game. It was a lot of work and shows all sword making steps in detail but never really got popular.
Those are the mysteries of Youtube! Here is to another 5 million views.