Dougherty Creek Forge

Peter Johnsson Visits Kevin Cashen

ericmycue — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 13:48:12 +0000

Peter Johnsson arrived in New Glarus for his annual visit. It was a very busy but profitable time. At the conclusion of the trip, I was able to drive Peter to Michigan for a weekend visit with Bladesmith Kevin Cashen. Kevin has set up a lab in his smithy for photographing and analyzing blade samples. His work is amazing. Kevin shared with us some of his lastest findings, and Peter was able to share with Kevin from his research with originals. Here is a picture of Peter explaining to Kevin some of his observations regarding the weight, balance, and proportions of medieval swords. Kevin and Karen were amazing hosts.

New Items in the works:

I have started working on two new two handed warknives. One will be similar to a large warknife I made as a commission. This is based on examples in Sweden. The second will be inspired by the Seax of Beagnoth in the British Museum. These pieces will be available for purchase and I expect to have them complete in the next 2-3 months. Below is a picture of the blades.

If you are interested in more information on these projects, contact me at ericmycue@verizon.net.

New Warknife

ericmycue — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 17:49:32 +0000

We just finished a new warknife.

The knife is 21.5″ (54.61 cm) overall, and the blade length is 16.375″ (41.59 cm) long and is made of 1080 steel. There is a single decorative groove near the spine on each side of the blade. The grip has German silver wire and a German silver butt cap. The grip core is oak with a dark brown leather cover. The knife comes with a travel/storage sheath.

Click here to see other pictures of this knife.

If you are interested in this knife, contact me at ericmycue@verizon.net

Huskarl Axe Complete

ericmycue — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 17:37:59 +0000

Welcome to our new blog. I decided to blog so that I could let people know what we are up to in a more timely and consistent manner; so make sure you check back to see what’s new.

We just completed a massive Huskarl Axe for my friend and customer, Patrick Kelly. This axe is based off of an axe I documented in Sweden with Peter Johnsson. It was from an undocumented Swedish find (ie. some Swedish farmer found it). The University of Uppsala has its archaeology department warehouse in a place called Husbyborg. We were allowed to come in and pull a massive amount of items off of the shelves. I wrote an article for the Albion website about this trip. Press here to check out that article.

Back to the Axe. This was a difficult project. This axe head is heavy and when you get the pieces up to welding temperature, it is quite an adventure to move it around the smithy. After several bad starts, I finally assembled it the way I wanted. The eye socket is mild steel and the blade section is 1080. I differentially hardened the blade section. The edge section is at 58 RHc, and the body normalized and soft. The blade is just under 10″ from point to point, and the haft is about 5 feet long and is made of hickory.

If you want more information about this axe, contact me at ericmycue@verizon.net.

Picture of Patrick in full garb:

To see a gallery of pictures of this axe, go here