Google Engineer Shows How To Forge Swords and Knives 201
An anonymous reader writes "Niels Provos, an engineer at Google working on malware and phishing protection, is showing on YouTube how to forge knives and Viking swords. The process is absolutely fascinating and follows the steps of Viking blacksmiths from a thousand years ago. It starts by taking small bars of metal that get heated and hammered together until they become a solid piece. He then shows how to form it with the hammer, heat treat and polish it. All the videos are narrated explaining the purpose of each step. Sure beats sitting in front of the computer."
Re:Would love to do this (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't need acres. Many hobby smiths are using a space of little more than 100 square feet for a shop. Of course no power hammer, just forge, anvil, and some small power tools.
While I don't make knives (not because I can't) my "workshop" is my driveway. Everything gets put away in the garage when I am done. A person can start out using a coal or lump charcoal fired forge made by digging a shallow hole in dirt, and using a hair dryer with an iron pipe on the end for air. Find a large steel slug, or piece of axle, or railroad track, say 30-100 pounds for an anvil (and it will be better than a cast iron anvil by far). Get a couple hammers such as a 2 pound ball pein and a 3 pound cross pein to start with. You can use long stock without tongs, and make your own tongs (Remember the BLACKSMITH makes the TOOLS, not the other way around)
Car or truck coil spring is nice stock to make knives and tools out of for a beginner.
There are forums dedicated to blacksmithing and knifemaking.
Phil
Re:Slashvertisment, but: (Score:4, Interesting)
At least mine was more tech geek releated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZuyYBgI2Qg [youtube.com]
and very similar to what the original article was about.
Re:I praise Satan everyday for power tools. (Score:4, Interesting)
Well now I'm curious. It turns out whenever the word 'cost' appears in a Google search the results tend to point to online shops. But here's what I found: http://www.vincelewis.net/vikingsword.html [vincelewis.net]
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Sustainable-Farming/Small-Breed-Milk-Cows.aspx [motherearthnews.com]
So a good Viking sword was worth 12 milk cows, and each milk cow is apparently worth about $2500 so $30000. Well that's assuming the value of a milk cow is constant throughout history. Not quite a Lexus, maybe an Acura.