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The ancient traditions of weaving iron and steel into swords have been shrouded in myth. Twisted cores, and folded edges once lended the wielder strength and power in battle. Blodida, one Poet called these patterns- “Blood eddies”. “The Knotted Wyrm” is also a reference to these poetic descriptions of the thousand year old Germanic process as well as to the Northern European artistic traditions, which depict woven serpents and gripping beasts. Swords are symbols, as well as objects. In my work, I hope, not to reproduce, but to ignite the same feelings as can be felt in the objects made by long-dead craftsman. Thanks for visiting my site, I hope you see or read something interesting, or perhaps come away with a piece to call your own.

-Luke Shearer

Seax Collaberation

I contacted fellow bladesmith Myles Mulkey with the idea to collaborate on an Anglo-Saxon seax from around the 9th or 10th century. I wanted to make a pattern welded blade, so I took a four bar core from a failed Norwegian langsax project and welded it to a high carbon edge bar of 1084 steel.

Here are the billets prepared for welding:

To fire weld them, I wire the two billets together tightly and repeatedly heat and hammer them together in small sections.

In the fire:

Once this has been done along the whole length of the proto-blade, I let the it cool to room temperature to relieve stresses built up from the forge welding process.

I then forge the blade closely to shape…

The tang is left short because the material produced this way is hard-earned and precious. Later, an extension of soft wrought iron is welded on.

I grind down to white metal with an angle grinder to analyze the welds.

ground to white steel

After that, I flat grind it with an extremely coarse 36 grit belt.

rough ground

Seaxes are traditionally quite thick knives. We can only speculate exactly what they were used for, but those of this size were most likely used for fighting in addition to daily chores.

the spine is left quite thick

At this point, the blade is ready to be heat treated. This is done by carefully heating to the point where the steel becomes non-magnetic. At this point the iron molecules have austenized, or converted from a “body centered” cube geometry to a “face centered” cube. In this configuration, the carbon atoms can move freely into solution. When rapidly cooled, small hard crystals are formed called “martensite”. This microstructural quality is what makes the blade usable.

the blade is heated to non-magnetic

After the blade is quenched in hot oil, I polish a section and temper it at 500 degrees. This slightly softens the blade so that it will not snap or chip out and makes it flexible.

the tempering process produces interesting oxidation colors

The process of polishing is long and tedious, sanding with repeatedly higher grit abrasives. But it is not entirely unenjoyable. I listened to Beowulf, read and translated by Seamus Heaney.

saaaanding….

To reveal the pattern latent in the steel, the seax is immersed in a vertical tube of ferric chloride (FeCl3), a weak acid formed by “killing” hydrochloric acid by dissolving iron in it. Because the blade was welded up of multiple different types of steel, the acid will eat away at the layers at a different rate, creating a topographical effect on the surface.

the etched seax

To accentuate the pattern, high grit sandpaper is used to hit the high spots and emphasize the contrast:

the seax amongst dead leaves

The seax has been sent to Myles to be outfitted with a grip and scabbard, carved with woven Germanic beasts…

Blade from scraps

The knife I welded up from scrap pieces is forged, heat treated, polished, and etched in ferric chloride, a weak acid, to expose the pattern. I wanted a weird shape to match the strangeness of the pattern. I will send it to fellow bladesmith Matt Waters for a handle.

Sonnet

Had to write this for my English class, 14 line of iambic pentameter…a Shakespearean sonnet. I had some fun with it. Almost makes me want to get into Old Norse poetry, such as fornyrðislag, like Myles Mulkey- http://mylesmulkey.blogspot.com/

The Woodsman

I was out in the forest one cold day
And hewing some tall birches b’tween the fells
From nowhere, a horn blowing in the grey
Thought I, “From whence came that noise ‘mid the dells?
From a wayfarer assailed by brigands
Or merely a hunter calling his dog?
My work here cutting these trees; that contends
In my mind with what happens past the fog”
My ashen-hafted axe bit the icy wood
Like a devouring wolf, and I forgot
The bellowing horn till before me stood
A troll with a gory club, of oak wrought
I realized then, what had caused the horn
And fled from there, my birch logs left forlorn.
-Luke Shearer

Repurposed Scraps…

One of the greatest joys I receive as a blacksmith is recycling old steel that is beyond utility, into something both beautiful and useful. It is precisely this ability that gave the smith his near magician-like status in the ancient world.

I had been accumulating pattern welded scraps of various kinds, be it seax billet cuttoffs, or simply projects that have been abandoned for one reason or another, and decided to mash them all together into a single bar. Every piece in this new billet was to be pattern welded in its own right. Many contained wrought iron, which itself is ancient, and impregnated with slaggy silica, oriented like wood-grain.

The old blades and other scraps were arc welded together, still corroded. In antiquity, these might have been wrapped in paper and clay to hold them together and keep oxygen out until the weld was set.

The billet was then heated to 2100F , sprinkled with borax to eat way any oxidation, and hammered together.

A metallic bond exists when a geometric web of iron atoms has a few free electrons that is shared among the whole. This characteristic that all metals share is what makes them particularly efficient conductors of electricity, and allows me to fire weld them with heat and pressure. At high temperatures, the free electrons become excited, and with a bit of pressure, they will cross over to an adjacent piece of iron, completing the metallic bond. The pieces are one.

Here Ive folded the billet in half to consolidate the welds and homogenize the material. I have also ground one face down to bare steel to be sure everything has taken. Not perfect, but about what I expected. Further refining will erase the slag lines that mark the former borders between the strata.

Once the bar is drawn out, I will be able to polish and etch the surface with a light acid to reveal the underlying pattern….

 

 

more soon…

First sword

This blade was forged from 1075/1080, with fittings of mild steel. The grip is walnut with a historically accurate leather wrap. The blade is just under 24″ and, while I am not certain of the weight, it is very light. Perhaps just over 1 pound. Despite its small size, I have never held an object that could cut as well as this. I was able to get through a 3″ diameter pine in just a single cut. This sword will be for sale as soon as I do the final polish and perhaps make a scabbard.