Swordsmiths - some musings
Jake
Powning has an interesting story of the crafting of a classical Norse sword (I
think that's right) with six other swordsmiths from around the world. Called Arctic Fire 2013, the story is fascinating. The blade is hidden somewhere in the world. "All you have to do to win the sword is to be
the first to solve a two-part riddle: What is the name of the blade, and
where is it buried?" http://www.arcticfire2013.com/Home_Page.php
Good
luck on that one. Email me if you win. That's just cool.
I never
considered smithing of any type to be a beginner's trade. I mean sure, you
might be able to hammer a piece of metal, but shape it? That's practice. The
right metal for what you're making? Practice. Get it the correct hardness?
Practice again! Now what? Practice!
I can
see why a person should be an apprentice first. It's too bad I didn't live two
hundred years ago or more. I might have been an apprentice blacksmith.
I
suppose I might also have been an apprentice weaver, too, so maybe it's okay
the way it is.
This is
a good discussion thread on swordsmithing in general. To sum it up, a
swordsmith is an artisan crafter in metal, not just some beginner blacksmith
making a pointy piece of metal.
The same
site that has an excellent article on creating an anvil and a wide range of
articles on blacksmithing has an excellent page for those people who "want
to make a sword."
There
are many smiths who do blades, though. (I'm not endorsing any of them. I simply
did a search for sword smiths in Texas.) For instance, this one.
You have
to wonder at the life of a smith, though. I don't think it is exactly as
portrayed in the movies (and one site said so). I suppose there aren't any
female smiths who look like Cory Everson either (from Hercules: The Legendary Journeys).
According
to one on-line magazine, the best swordsmith in the world lives near Austin
Texas. Daniel Watson currently has four apprentices. It takes twelve years,
full-time to become a swordsmith: "Four
years in knife making, four years in sword techniques, followed by yet another four
years in either metallurgy or artistry." Obviously this is something I
should have started as a younger man. In 1990 I did look into it, but you
couldn't make a living as an apprentice, and I had child support payments. And
I was afraid of disrupting my lifestyle so extremely. (That last one haunts me
in so many avenues of my life…)
Daniel
O'Connor works out of Dallas, and makes hand-crafted wood-working tools. He
also makes fiddles. I just liked the site.
There is
a Dragonfly Mountain Sword School (Dragonfly Forge) in Oregon where Michael
Bell teaches classes, but in the twenty years of the school only one apprentice
finished graduation. It's just that hard.
One of the links gives other links. I found
them interesting, too, especially the third one, which is about ARMA and swords,
since my youngest daughter was big into ARMA for a few years (losing a tooth in
the process, actually!).
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