More about the smithy
Aug. 9th, 2022 01:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kareinaThis summer, as previously mentioned, Keldor and I are spending a month at Lofotr Viking Museum in northern Norway. I am working as a stone carver, he is working in the smithy.
When we arrived he started happily working in the (as authentic to the Viking period as they could make it) smithy, which was built into the side of a hill
Soon after we arrived he'd forged a variety of small things and then started working on a spear point patterned after the one in the museum display case, from a burial find in this area.
A week and a half after we arrived a master bladesmith from the UK (Rod) arrived, with a plan to make a sword using only Viking techniques and equipment during the upcoming Viking Festival held at the museum. Rod and Keldor happily started doing prep-work for that project, with Keldor hand-forging a special set of tongs shaped to hold together the rods of metal that would be forge welded together before shaping the sword from it.
Sadly, that night (Friday) the smithy burned down
Therefore, the plans changed, and the three smiths worked really hard to build a new outdoor/temporary forge that could be used during the Festival (which started on Wednesday). They had it working on Tuesday night, using no screws or nails in the construction. So far as I know, while the bellows look later period, they are a single chamber, with two suppirt frames, so it is authentic/plausible for the Viking period. Besides, they are a pair that had been stored at the museum, and in an emergency one uses what one has.
Over the course of the Viking Festival Keldor alternated between running the children's activity, helping kids make mini "swords" by flatening nails, and more serious smithing, including forge-welding together material for an axe.
He also started over on the above mentioned spear point, done after a local find, since we are still not permitted into the burned-out smithy to see if the first one he made surrived the fire.
He and Rod are already talking about rebuilding the smithy, even better, in the spring.
With luck I will be done carving the new bellows stone for it already this summer.
When we arrived he started happily working in the (as authentic to the Viking period as they could make it) smithy, which was built into the side of a hill
Soon after we arrived he'd forged a variety of small things and then started working on a spear point patterned after the one in the museum display case, from a burial find in this area.
A week and a half after we arrived a master bladesmith from the UK (Rod) arrived, with a plan to make a sword using only Viking techniques and equipment during the upcoming Viking Festival held at the museum. Rod and Keldor happily started doing prep-work for that project, with Keldor hand-forging a special set of tongs shaped to hold together the rods of metal that would be forge welded together before shaping the sword from it.
Sadly, that night (Friday) the smithy burned down
Therefore, the plans changed, and the three smiths worked really hard to build a new outdoor/temporary forge that could be used during the Festival (which started on Wednesday). They had it working on Tuesday night, using no screws or nails in the construction. So far as I know, while the bellows look later period, they are a single chamber, with two suppirt frames, so it is authentic/plausible for the Viking period. Besides, they are a pair that had been stored at the museum, and in an emergency one uses what one has.
Over the course of the Viking Festival Keldor alternated between running the children's activity, helping kids make mini "swords" by flatening nails, and more serious smithing, including forge-welding together material for an axe.
He also started over on the above mentioned spear point, done after a local find, since we are still not permitted into the burned-out smithy to see if the first one he made surrived the fire.
He and Rod are already talking about rebuilding the smithy, even better, in the spring.
With luck I will be done carving the new bellows stone for it already this summer.
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Date: 2022-08-17 04:33 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-08-17 05:24 am (UTC)https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10227104185101364&type=3