Song Book

Bronze Knife

A few days ago I went camping with a friend, and somehow, from somewhere he had these fat billets of mountain mahogany; a gorgeous hardwood, which we were going to bring along as firewood.

We did burn most of them, but I hung on to one as I had a different vision for it than fuel.  I sliced the billet up into small planks, most of which was cracked and checked but I did get several smaller pieces perfect for knife handles.

I start a lot of projects, and many don’t get finished; I’m that kind of guy.  The good side of this is that there are many things around just waiting for a little momentum.  Sometimes I find something that would work well to finish a project and it all comes together.  This project is special, for one, the blade is bronze

Bronze is an alluring metal: the color, the antiquity, malleable, castable, and still hard enough to carve wood, skin a kill, procure a kill.  It is mankind’s first alloy, used by people who’s histories have been forgotten but their ancient, rust proof bronze weapons are still lying in the ruins of their ancient citadels.  Through our history back into forgotten times there have been “native” tribes interacting with “more developed” tribes and the concept of Empire has characterized many of these interactions.

In the past when I have put handles on blades I use epoxy or gorilla glue to attach one side of the handle.  These materials work very well, are somewhat toxic, and can be messy and hard to clean.  On my bronze knife I decided I would use pine pitch which had dried and hardened, such pitch still melts before wood burns, so I heated up the handle blank, gooped some pitch on it and stuck it to the tang of the knife.  As it cooled it hardened and the handle stayed in place!  Once I had attached one side of the handle I drilled two holes through the wood, matching the holes I had already punched in the tang.  Then I repeated the process on the other side.  It was now time to rivet the handle together, but first I needed to make rivets, so I clipped the head off some brass nails and used a hammer to slightly mushroom out one of the ends.

In the dawn of the iron age many native peoples witnessed the mass deforestation and destruction caused by mining for iron ore and fueling the furnaces to work the more energy intensive metal.  These tribes insisted on continuing their more ancient tradition of using bronze, in belief that the golden metal was less offensive to their home, their deities, their way of life, than iron; the black metal.

Both of these metals harden if you quench them when they are very hot.  For iron to have substantial hardness it needs carbon, but bronze already has everything it needs to harden.  Both metals also work harden; as you work them cold they get stiffer, harder, and more brittle.  If you work either metal when it is hard it is more likely to crack than deform, so you must anneal the metal if you are to continue shaping it.  that’s whats going on here: you can see the rivet resting on a coal so that it will heat up and soften.

Then I pass the rivet through the hole in the tang and handle give it some taps, and the narrow end of the rivet shows itself on the other side of the handle

From here I trim the rivet back towards the handle but not flush, then I strike with the ball of the peening hammer to mushroom out the other side of the rivet

I haven’t worked with bronze much but I like it:  I didn’t have equipment to cast this knife, but I was able to cast some bronze into a cube of metal, which I then forged down into the blade.  When glowing it is much softer than iron, and once I heated it up a bit to much and the thin tang of the blade turned from something like stiff playdough to more like cottage cheese.  Whoops!  No damage done, all part of the learning curve.  I also really like iron and it’s alloys: from it we make incredibly useful tools, and I enjoy forging blades, tools, and art out of iron.  The bronze for this knife is not an ancient alloy, it was mined (and copper mines are often more toxic than iron).  Still, we can take a symbol, and use it to represent a concept.  To further the duality of this project I ran up to the shop and used some power tools to refine the handle.  Mahogany is a very hard wood!  here was the result after some time on the belt sander.

Very pretty, but I wasn’t done yet.  The fibers in wood really like wicking anything liquid, especially water.  In general, the harder a wood is the less it acts like a sponge, but it will still absorb water, swell, and split around my nice pretty rivets.  this is part of why most things made of wood are sealed or treated in some way.  Modern varnishes are pretty gnarly and make a thin barrier at the surface of the wood.  I use boiled linseed oil a lot on my handles because it penetrates deeper and after a few months in warm temperatures the oil soaked wood is waterproof, durable, and not greasy, resembling a piece of wood which has been dipped in hot wax and rubbed clean.  While linseed comes from a plant I can’t go out into the woods and get some with which to treat my handle, but I can get pitch!  Repeating the process on the interior of the handle I heated the wood up by holding it close to the fire and rubbed it with pitch.  I did this repeatedly and then held the handle close to the fire and let the hot pitch bubble and soak into the wood.  Eventually the handle was saturated and crusty with pitch.  I let it cool and scrapped it off, revealing the smooth polished mahogany underneath.

Shiny dark, and almost as hard as the bronze, the handle is also impervious to water.  Pitch contains many compounds which are antiseptic, preventing disease and rot.  If I wasn’t so attached to my shiny new knife I would bury it in a hole in the ground, come back to it in five years to find it in the same condition as it is now.  If instead it were unearthed 2000 years later, we might find some of that wood still attached to the handle, the blade only slightly reduced by the ravages of time.

Now I see that I made more than a knife utilizing some older techniques; unlike much of my other work this blade will become an artifact.  Thousands of years after I am gone it will be known by someone who has no idea of this day, or me…

Faerie Sword

Hidden

Minotaur Helm

Yes, Ewoks were harmed in the making of this hat.  I am grateful for the little guy who gave his life so I could make this helm; though with his dying breath he did mutter something about being avenged seven fold…

Minotaur Helm

First, I stitched together a lining of Ewok fur

Then I went to work on the leather cap

Punching holes for sewing

Sewing the pieces together

Now to make the horns…

Then I butchered an old pillow to stuff the horns

It might all come together…

Things look very different after being stained

Sewing on the horns

Oops, I set this on the heater to dry and it burned some lines into it.  I reckon it will just have to become part of the patina.

Now to sew on the Ewok fur lining!

The finished product

I can fold the fur up, or roll it down for those cold Endor winters

I think I heard something…  what am going to say if I meet an Ewok out here?

Marcellus’ Lonely Grave on Endor:

Casting Unlimited; rings, coins, pine cones and more

Brass and Bronze, being alloys have many different varieties.  Some pour well and some do not, some are harder or more corrosion resistant, some have the color of an old door nob, some have the luster of gold, are pink, of even silvery if alloyed with large amounts of zinc and/or nickel.  Some spark and pop if heated to much, tossing molten metal oxides up and out of the crucible.  Many, including the brass which keys are made of contain lead, added to increase machineability.  I have look hard to find a casting bronze which contains no lead, has a nice gold color and pours fairly well, taking much detail from the mold. Huzzah

Ambidexterity

Due to persistent tendonitis in my hammering arm (right) I have decided to become a left handed smith.  I began today with the first steps of making a leaf.  With my right arm I could make a leaf in about 20 minutes, with my left it took me an hour to get halfway with a much more crude product.  It is marginally easier than trying to write left handed; a humbling experience and I am grateful for the right-brain exercise.  There is more to being a student than taking a class, reading a text, or exercising knowledge; it requires a disregard of aversion; openness to possibility.

Casting

I am not tech savy; I reckon I don’t care to be as I’d rather spend my time making stuff and exploring.  This was meant to be a video of me me casting a ring, however some things don’t like certain file types of other things, and certain web addresses to download converters are not recognized by my antiquated machine.  In lieu of video I captured some images from video, and here we go.

Torch, Crucible, and Mold

Lighting the Torch

Adjusting the Flame

Heating the Bronze

Quick, steady, and sure, pour that molten bronze

And now some pictures of the ring coming out of the mold:

Imperfections from my inexperienced hand, combined with this type of casting produces a fairly rough product.  For a super shiny ring much finishing is required…

Scrap

I made this blade many moons ago.  The steel is an old saw blade cut and ground, preserving the original spring temper.  The rivets were a heavy gauge copper wire.  The handle is piece of hardwood (hickory?) from a broken broom handle, soaked in linseed oil; sun cured, then rubbed with wax (making it very water proof).  I lug this around with me often; it lives on my pack and my right hand can find find it’s handle just above my right shoulder.

  As a youngster I found an old hatchet stuck in a dead tree, deep in the woods near the home where I grew up  I took it back and scrapped off the rotten handle, scrubbed the rusted metal clean and wrapped the handle with cord.  I still have that hatchet and I still harbor that childhood dream of discovery; it’s part of my draw to create:  That mysterious magical item I dream of finding in the lost woods or at the bottom of a crystal clear lake.

Doubt

Can I tel you also of my doubt? The fear that perhaps I am not making art, only pretty things?  Am I any more than a “pop” musician of crafts?  ah, but still it is fun, and I enjoy the process of creation.  Perhaps it is not for me to call what I do art; I will let others decide that for themselves…