Secrets of the Viking Sword

Watched it and thought they did a fair job. Wish they had left out all the "hype" and spent more time with Ric and Kevin. Inquiring minds want to see every step of the process(es). As knifemakers, we could care less about watching (staged) re-enactments of a bunch of "goobers" trying to act like Vikings.

At least they decided to use real makers, instead of mass producers of wanna-be products.

Robert
 
Doesn't seem to stream for me, I think its only for US citizens. Oddly the Samurai Sword episode streams, but I think because its been released in Canada as well by now. Will just nab a torrent when there's one that isn't fake. S'pose I could use a proxy though..
 
I finally got to watch it. Ric and Kevin did a great job, I kind of wish that some of the other stuff was left out, but the guy doing the cutting demos is well known with several books out so I imagine they thought he was an important to have him in. Ric demo'd crucible smelting and Bulat (also known as Wootz) at the Ashokan seminars a while ago (we did a crucible smelt onsite the second year I saw him present there) great stuff!

-Page
 
I thought it was a great show. Seriously doubt I'll ever hammer out a blade but good stuff indeed. Thanks for the link.
 
In making the steel in the type of furnace shown in the film; can a number of clay crucibles be placed in the furnace to allow a number of ingots to be made at the same time?
 
For anyone that missed it and can't get it to stream via the website above, it's showing again at 2am CST on PBS WTTW.
Saw a list of showtimes in an email when I got to work today... apparently a few people from my company's (Arcelor Mittal) global R&D team were involved as well as a couple people from my home plant in Burns Harbor, IN.

Got the DVR set....
 
BoT,
The short answer is that if there was an easy way to make lots of wootz, you would see lots of wootz for sale.

In a crucible furnace, the main requirement is to heat the crucible evenly and really hot. Then it has to cool slowly. It is pretty much a process for a single crucible in a sealed charcoal oven. The alternative is doing a crucible melt in a big modern gas fired metallurgical ( smelting) oven. In that, you could heat as many crucibles as you could fit and cool them at a controlled rate. That would be a time and gas expensive operation.
Many of the modern wootz guys do a single crucible in a gas fired toroidal flame oven ( like a small back-yard foundry oven) and then pack the crucible in thick insulation to cool for a day or two.
 
Finally got to watch it (no virus issues here, but those sites can be tricky to navigate and rife with tripwires). Was pretty cool finally putting a face to Kevin's name! Also a cool show.. and agreed the theatrical parts could have been left out, or put in for a few seconds, not repeatedly. I swear I saw that sword hit that wooden shield 10 times.. the same high speed camera footage..

I was curious about how brittle dendritic steel is during the first stages of drawing.. if you heat it to forge welding heat, is it still going to crack if say you squashed it in a press or used a high power hammer, or just belted the crap out of it by hand?
 
Rick Marchand said:
My antivirus software did not like that download at all. It found 2 trojans among other nasties. Luckily, my browsers are all sandboxed.
Click to expand...

mgysgthath said:
Finally got to watch it (no virus issues here, but those sites can be tricky to navigate and rife with tripwires). Was pretty cool finally putting a face to Kevin's name! Also a cool show.. and agreed the theatrical parts could have been left out, or put in for a few seconds, not repeatedly. I swear I saw that sword hit that wooden shield 10 times.. the same high speed camera footage..
Click to expand...

I had no problems with the download and no hits on my antivirus.
I skip Internet Explorer which is a larger antivirus target than Firefox.
I also use ad blocking addin's on Firefox which seems to block lots of bad stuff.
It helps to miss any hidden buttons on a page which may be virus downloads.

uTorrent, Firefox with Adblock Plus and the free Avast antivirus - nothing fancy , all free software.



I agree that they do repeat lots of the theatrics and could have put in real info instead, but it's made for public consumption not for us.
At least they put in photon micrographs, very clear demos on that.


I'm curious about the glass and sand used.
Rick weighed it all out, suggesting lots of trials and testing to arrive at a good recipe.



Would the kiln really be fired with wet clay?
Did they really hand bellows it the whole time, or just for the camera ?
He knocked off the crucible at the end suggesting he makes them, what would they be made from?
 
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The crucible also came out hot and glowing, yet it's supposed to slow cool for a couple days? I wish there was a behind the scenes with these guys ;)
 
Lets just say that everything we see on TV isn't shot in the order we see it. There may be as many as six Lassie dogs in any episoded of Timmy and Lassie. Days may be shot in hours, and an hour may take days to shoot.

I was at the shoot of a Scottish quasi-historical film. They shot all the close up fighting inside and outside the castle ( just a mock-up set) for a day. Everyone who wasn't in the close scene just yelled and banged their weapons together and looked foolish. They shot all the death scenes first, then the close fighting, then some large group shots from several directions.The next morning they shot the scene where the ramparts were stormed and the castle was set aflame. In the final editing they put it all together and made it look linear, but some of the joy was gone by knowing how it was filmed.
 
Kevin talked about that documenary while we were at his Iron Age Challenge. He said he had to walk away and hold his tongue for many parts. Ric was a little more relaxed about the historical accuracy of some things. Kevin said the bellows "sucked" (literally) and were actually catching on fire during use. I guess they were whipped together quickly without the proper valving so they actually sucked sparks and ash in as they worked.
 
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