Norwegian Inspiration

[J.Arthur Loose]

I still have to write up my latest excursion... from a tiny village in the Western Fjords to Oslo, and then Reykjavik. I had the chance to see the National Historical Museum in Oslo, where there are more Viking swords than you can shake a stick at. There were also a number of langseaxes on display... and photographs do not do them justice. I was able to glean some good information off of a couple including pattern development, stack construction, hollow grinding of the spine and best of all, kukri curve noticeable on more than a couple. I think a few of us here have also experienced this occurence!

Sorry for the out of focus picture, but it is the only one of this grouping that I took with my old digital camera:



Here is a close-up of a langseax with a three bar stack twist with a hollow ground spine. Note the pattern and kukri curve:



I'll be making one similar in shape, but with a four-core interrupted twist, offset on either side... i.e. when you turn the blade over, the twisted sections are replaced by straight sections and vice versa. It will be handled like the one with the close-up above. Here's the billet, taken with my nice, new custom white balance camera :



I'm going to go forge this puppy right now, so maybe there will be pictures this evening...