One of my favorite historically inspired pieces....

[Wulf]

Had to post it -



Viking-style pattern welded sword by ABS Mastersmith Kevin Cashen. I'm still awed every time I look at this picture.

Another piece I've enjoyed viewing pictures of is a war hammer, made by Jerry Fisk, that won Best Art Knife at the Spirit of Steel show in 2002 -



Anyway, I'd love to see more examples of modern renditions of historically inspired weapons - particularly medieval style pole-arms, axes, war hammers and the like. Who else is making these types of weapons these days?

[J.Arthur Loose]

Kevin Cashen is one of my inspirational Smiths... I've had the pleasure of talking Migration Era swords with him at Ashokan and the New England ABS Hammer-in. At Ashokan he even let me tag along to handle some actual pattern welded Viking blades that belonged to a collector who was there. One of them is in a couple books of mine and there's something deeply powerful about holding a blade like that!

I love those traditional composite patterns!

Anyway, for those of you not familiar with Kevin's work:

http://www.cashenblades.com

...that warhammer is cool too... heh. Really makes me want to smash things.

Thanks for posting the pics, Wulf. How's the forging coming?

[Wulf]

Hey Jonathan

Forging is going well. I've made about a million mistakes in the past few months, which means I've made some good progress and am probably about 1/1,000,000th of the way there I even did my first forge weld a few weeks ago.

Anyway, as long as we're talking historically inspired blades, how about posting one of your saxes, like... say.... this one, for example:

[sjaqua]

Originally posted by Wulf
Anyway, I'd love to see more examples of modern renditions of historically inspired weapons - particularly medieval style pole-arms, axes, war hammers and the like. Who else is making these types of weapons these days? [/B]

Jim Hrisoulas (www.atar.com) has always specialized in historically inspired blades. In addition he makes a wicked War Hammer. (you can find it at http://www.atar.com/pics/z-hammer1.jpg )

In addition Tony Lemon (www.osoforge.com ) also makes historically inspired blades.

The primary market for such pieces are historical recreation groups and Ren Faires. Both these gentlemen are well know in that market place. I'm also happy to say that both men are good friends and are two of the reasons for my shift from knife collecting to knife making. It's my hope that in a few years I'll be at least a little known for what I do. I intend to follow in Jim's and Tony's foot steps. However I am going to try to produce some of the less seen styles and patterns in the historical market place.

[Wulf]

Thanks for posting those links, Scott.

I'm familiar with Jim's work - I've read The Complete Bladesmith and The Master Bladesmith (I love the chapters on spears, axes, and swords - great reference material!) - but I had not yet seen Tony Lemon's work. Looks like they do some great work over at Osoforge!

[Jerry Oksman]

here are some historical makers

Barta TEMPL
http://templ.oceany.cz/eng_index.htm

Raven Armoury
http://www.raven-armoury.co.uk/

Michael Bell - Dragonfly Forge
http://www.dragonflyforge.com/

Dragon fire Forge
http://www.angelfire.com/biz/dragonf...ry/index2.html

Don Halter - Krag Axe Forge
http://www.100megsfree3.com/kragaxe/Metal.html

Heimrick Armeor
http://www.heimrick.freeservers.com/

J. Hirsouaos - Salamander Armoury
http://www.atar.com/index1.html

John Lundemo - Odin Blades
http://www.odinblades.com/

Pavel Moc
http://www.swords.cz/

Dean Piesner - Forge & Anvil
http://www.forgeandanvil.com/knives.htm

Ragnar's Ragweed Forge
http://www.ragweedforge.com/Welcome.html

Scott Slobodian
http://www.slobodianswords.com/

Tony Swatton - Sword & the Stone
http://www.swordandstone.com/
Valentine Armouries
http://www.varmouries.com/index.html

Kirby D. Wise
http://members.tripod.com/~kirbywise/frampage.htm?

[Wulf]

Wow!

I'm going to have to schedule a few hours to browse all these sites! Thanks Jerry.

On an aside, I was lucky enough to meet some of the Raven Armory guys at the NY show last year. Very friendly and knowledgeable folks.

[Jerry Oksman]

I spoke to Simon from Raven Armoury myslf this past NY show. They make a lot of direct copies, meaning they are exact repro's of historic blades and they do some historically inspired, meaning it could have existed back then, but no one actually found one exactly like this.

They do a lot of the repro work direct from Oakshott's books so if you tell them the book, and page and figure number they will make you that sword.

[Don Halter]

I have several artifacts I'll be reproducing later this Spring and into Summer. One is a Danish axehead (circa 1100), and several smaller carpenter's axes from 14th-16th centuries. I'm sure the haft-axe will be the most popular!

I also have some langseaxes planned based on some examples from some German and Danish texts.


I think it's great when modern smiths work "old-styles" into modern pieces. The results are aften awsome works of art! I made a repro of a small 13th century utility blade from my collection. It's been used for everything from cleaning deer, to shaving down our house's doors, to cutting tomatoes (with proper washings inbetween ). The design is a typical drop point utility! Amazing how designs that work last through the ages. Even Jim Bowie carried a seax !


P.S. I've been redesigning my website lately. The link a couple posts above takes you to the armour page, www.kragaxe.com is my main index page.