If I had a machine that cost thousands of dollars, a machine I relied upon for my livelihood, and that made that job easier, I wouldn't be too hard on someone that pointed out I need to correct deficiencies in said machine.
Cheers Rowan. your videos are very informative. I enjoy the information, your knowledge is vast. I will be a patreon very soon. Much respect from Neil @ scorched Earth Forge in North east England
I wonder what it feels like to hit something like a log with the metal handle. I bet it would be unpleasant. I wonder if it was wrapped in wood scales and leather?
When you consider that they made iron in small batches from bloomery furnaces; it tells you that this must have been a very important tool to have an entire handle made of it.
Do you think the original had some kind of organic handle? (obviously not survived the March of time) wouldn't the vibrations when striking things make this an arse to use? Great vid by the way :)
Looking at this shaft, I suspect it may have been bound in a fine or leather thong for a more comfortable and less slippery grip when covered in slaughterhouse gore. Hands at the time would have been the same shape and size as ours, and faced with a cow, bull or horse awaiting it's imminent demise, you don't want slippery hands ... trust me, they do sense what is coming.
Landrew0 well you can't really avoid loads of grinding when you make Damascus and knives 80% of the time... watch him forge something that ain't either of those and you'll see he can forge to finish.
I worked as an more industrial blacksmith back in time, and the main reason they learn that today is simply that the old methods take way to much time to be applied on modern off sale work. But, Yes, it´s sad that it´s a dying knowledge today, my old master told me that we should start with those old methods until we learned at least the basic skills from them, then we could use modern grinding machines and stuff if we wanted. It´s deffinitly a wisible differense between those methods and the time it tak to make things, things made with older methods often looks way better and will still stand and look beauty after hundreds of years if lycky, or at least deceniums, but crappy made things will still look cheesy, no matter what. Some time i actually realize that lot of grinding and machine cutting takes much longer time then doing things as they should be done... So those days i hawe started to go back and picking up older methods again in some moments to increase the quality and the wisible look. (Sorry for my English, it´s not my native language...)
I think you'll find Alec Steele is actually a champion of the "forge to finish" approach to blacksmithing. That being said, with damascus steel which he seems to be focusing on at the moment you get the best patterns by grinding through the material to expose the different layers. If you study viking swords you'll see that they were masters of grinding away different amounts of metal in different parts of their blades to produce different visual affects from what is essentially the same steel.
