Some of you have seen the Daneaxe that Dave Budd made for me.
Well I've been carrying it around with a leather mask that Dave made for it and although that was serviceable enough, we both knew it was not really "Authentic" for the period.
As far as we can tell from Archaeology, wood was used to mask weapons such as swords and also tools such as axes, a practice that survives to this day in Scandinavia.
So this made another nice little project to improve my wood working skills.
For reference, the face design comes from a Runestone at Aarhus and the battle between Jörmungandr and Þórr comes from one of the horse bows found at Mammen.
It was made from a very well seasoned piece of oak panelling (Hard as nails!) and the axe channel was carved in both sides before being glued together. The modern glue would have been sufficient for the job but I added the stitching to reinforce the join because the Viking age glue would not have been as strong.
Coloured up with some oil and tar then secured with a bit of reindeer hide cord.

Well I've been carrying it around with a leather mask that Dave made for it and although that was serviceable enough, we both knew it was not really "Authentic" for the period.

As far as we can tell from Archaeology, wood was used to mask weapons such as swords and also tools such as axes, a practice that survives to this day in Scandinavia.

So this made another nice little project to improve my wood working skills.
For reference, the face design comes from a Runestone at Aarhus and the battle between Jörmungandr and Þórr comes from one of the horse bows found at Mammen.
It was made from a very well seasoned piece of oak panelling (Hard as nails!) and the axe channel was carved in both sides before being glued together. The modern glue would have been sufficient for the job but I added the stitching to reinforce the join because the Viking age glue would not have been as strong.
Coloured up with some oil and tar then secured with a bit of reindeer hide cord.
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