A Productive Day at the Forge

Modifications in progress on this Cold Steel Norse Hawk.

Modifying some stage combat spears to be a little more pointy.

Quenched these two blades. The top one I forged from a pruning shear blade and the bottom one was  forged from a piece of a coil spring. Both were successfully hardened and can now move on too the tempering process.

Viking Armor on the Lindisfarne Stone

This carving on the "Lindisfarne Stone", called such because of its discovery on the Isle of Lindisfarne in Great Britain, is thought to depict the very first Viking raid.  The Vikings raided the monastery at Lindisfarne in 793 A.D.,  and it is thought that the monks carved this stone to document the attack.  If this is the case, the Stone is as close we can come to an eyewitness account, and I like to draw as much detail from the carving as I can

One thing is interesting to note, that the "Vikings" have three swords and two axes, which would indicate that the sword was not so rare a weapon as we might think.

Also, the horizontal banding on the warriors leads me to think that they were wearing some kind of armor. It could either represent mail, but this seems unlikely due to its expense at the time and not many warriors would have owned armor.

The bands could be strips of leather sewn together into a kind of brigandine armor.  It seems to me that leather would be easy enough to make into armor, and even if it did not offer much protection against a direct hit, it would still be better than nothing against a glancing strike or wayward blade in the thick of battle.

Coilspring knife- handle design

This is a sketch I did for the knife I forged from a piece of a coil spring. Seeing what I want the handle to look like in relation to the blade, as well as seeing where the handle scale pins will go.

Evidence of Viking Shield Patterns and Colors

Viking shields are commonly portrayed as brightly colored and highly stylized. How is it that we have come to conclusion. The following is a list of all evidence I can find as to the reconstruction of how Viking shields looked.

• The "Gokstad ship" was found in Norway and 32 shields lining each of the gunwales. They were painted alternately in black and yellow.  This is the only evidence of colorful shields. 

Runestone carving, from Gotland (Sweden). It clearly depicts a "pinwheel" pattern emanating form the shield boss. There also appears to be a rim on the shield. Archeologists suspect rawhide, as there is unsubstantial evidence to suggest iron.

The Tangelgarda Stone, from Gotland.

Actual Viking Shield

This shield was found near Copenhagen, Denmark. It is made of fir wood and measures 32" in diameter. http://www.nbcnews.com/id/26772763/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/-year-old-viking-shield-found-denmark/#.Vr6rlFpiPJz

The is supposedly comprised of seven planks which are 8mm thick, but which taper to 5mm at the edges.

Windlass Hewing Spear

In preparation for shooting the sequel to my short film "Viking Proverb", I made a spear with the Windlass Hewing Spear head.  I mounted it to a short flag pole, the type you'd hang off your porch.  This made the spear very short, but also very maneuverable. I used a nail to secure the head to shaft and simply cut the point off and peened it over. Because of the way the hole in the spearhead was cut, the peen actually ended up flush with the rest of the socket.  Look for this badass weapon in the short film "Viking Toothache".

The nail end peened over to lock the head onto the shaft.

A look at the original nail head.

Making a Viking Shield Boss

Current work in progress, a piece a 14 gauge steel that I'm pounding into a shield boss using a ball peen hammer and a dished stump.