I recently turned 50, and my sister gave me a “ Forge a Viking knife” day course at the Boneyard forge in London for my birthday. I went a couple of weeks ago, and it was great fun. I’ve done a couple of similar courses before (I wrote up the first one here: https://guywindsor.net/2020/01/forged-in-fire/), so I had some experience, but most of the group had no craft background at all. There were seven of us in total, and it was as fascinating to me to see how our very skilled and experienced instructor Dan (shown at the anvil in the photo above) kept everyone safe and made sure everyone went home with a decent knife that they had done a lot of work to create. As a teacher of dangerous skills myself, it was fascinating to see where his attention went, and why.
Crafting the knife
We started out by drawing out the tang,
then shaped the blade,
ground the back and the cutting edge, shaped the handle:
Heat treated it, and sharpened it. (Not shown!)
With so many in the class, and my hands full with hot steel, I didn’t get much in the way of photos, but I do have a pretty little knife that is almost all my own work. It required exactly three expert taps in just the right place from Dan to get it straight, and the inside curve where the blade meets the handle was done for us all (I’m guessing because it’s the bit of grinding with the highest risk of an accident).
I’ve now sharpened it to a somewhat more refined edge, and made a simple saddle-stitched sheath for it.
It’s a coming-of-age present for my godson (who almost certainly never reads this blog, so it’s pretty safe to post this, I think!).