Canterbury Viking Folding Knife

[sjaqua]

Well it's done, just in time for Knife Expo. This is our reproduction of the Viking Age Folding Knife in the CanterBury Museum. I say "our" because the carving on the bone handle slabs was done by my Lady Wife. This was Sandra's first attempt at carving bone, the first time carving with a Dremel tool.



The blade you have seen before. It is a Viking style composite multi-bar pattern. This was from my first attempt at a composite pattern. While another knife was made from the same billet, this blade was the reason I attempted the pattern in the first place. And as such, this blade got the best patterned portion of the billet.

[polarbearforge]

That looks really good.

Jamie

[circlepknives]

Wow Scott that is amazing work! Pass my congratulations on to your wife also, she did a great job with the carving!

Is this one going to be available sometime in the near future??

[Greg obach]

sweet
nice work on that... blade and carving

right on !!

Greg

[Jeff Pringle]

Way to go, that looks fantastic!
Very Viking.

[Alan L]

Sweet! Excellent work on both blade and bone.

[J.Arthur Loose]

Nice work, guys!

PS. There will be something in the mail for you tomorrow!

[sjaqua]

Thanks everyone. This really was a team effort.

Yes it is going to be available soon. It will be on my table a Knife Expo on the 24th. However, it may already be sold. The club president has expressed an interest in it. But we will see if he still wants it, now that's it's done.

This is an art piece and not a real user. There really is nothing backing up the bone handle slabs. And the mechanism is loose, except in the fully open position where it's nice and firm. It's a function of the design. The scales don't grip the tapered and beveled blade well, but they do hold the square tang section very well.

The original shows the bone tight the blade bevel, but that has to be due to shrinkage over the ages. Because if the seem along the bottom of the bone is as tight as the drawing, then there is no place for the tang to go when the knife is opened. And as the bottom seam is perfectly straight, we interpreted that to mean it was originally an open frame construction.

[mstu]

Looks great Scott. I've been looking forward to seeing someone reproduce this ever since I first saw the archaeological drawing around 3 years ago.

Michael

[Roger Gregory]

Absolutely superb! I've been looking forward to this ever since seeing the first post some months ago, thanks Scott.

Wouldn't it be great to be able to see the original alongside this one?

Roger

[sjaqua]

Originally Posted by Roger Gregory

Absolutely superb! I've been looking forward to this ever since seeing the first post some months ago, thanks Scott.

Wouldn't it be great to be able to see the original alongside this one?

Roger

Well except for the fact that our reproduction is 15% larger The original is very small. A Cub Scout knife would look large next to it. In almost every case, I have needed to enlarge viking era knives by about 15% in order to fit a modern hand.


And sorry about the delay in finishing this piece. It's only with a knife show coming up that we could warrent the time to complete what amounts to a show piece for us.

[Andries Olivier]

Great work. I guess this is as close to the original one will ever get. I gather from the construction the second pin in the front acts as a stopper for the blade in the open and closed position ?
How did you space it up at the back to keep the handle slabs apart ?

Nice engraving.

[sjaqua]

All four pins are epoxied to the bone to hold the frame stable. The original no doubt used tapered and peened pins. I din't want to rish damaging the bone by peening over the pin heads.

The outer most pin at the tang end acts as a pivot. The inner pin at the tang end acts a blade stop in both the open and closed positions. The blade has a notch on both sides of the piot point that this pin fits into. In the closed position, the blade stops just short of touching the inner pin at the oposite end.

[Jonathan Gage]

Hey Scott, you beat me to the punch at Expo 06, nice job. Its been around two years since we have each been talking about trying this project. I've been waiting to get a decent piece of Mammoth and it may be another year before I get a nice mammoth peice in my hands to get around to it. I still have the pic of the front side with the Borre ring pattern on it you gave me, but I cannot find the back side pattern you gave me last year. Is there a link where I could get this pattern again? Again, nice job

[sjaqua]

Jonathan,

You can find a four view drawing of the knife at http://www.canterburytrust.co.uk/sch...ry/gall10a.htm

Funny story here. The artist responsible for this drawing reads my forge blog as it turns out.

Also Jonathan, we were at the Southern California Renn Faire, today. And the walking stick you gave to Sandra generated many fine compliments.