Viking Pattern Fire Steel
- Thread starter hillwalker
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The side plates started life as a couple of large cast strapends from Russell Scott.
The top part was then filed to fit and drilled through for the animal head terminal before the whole thing was rivetted together.
The top part was then filed to fit and drilled through for the animal head terminal before the whole thing was rivetted together.
Oh, I forgot to mention.
The steel is a very old file with the teeth ground away. Heated to bright yellow then quenched in ice water (I can hear the sound of teeth grinding in forges up and down the land)
This actually gives the best performance, spark wise, of any of my steels to date.
The steel is a very old file with the teeth ground away. Heated to bright yellow then quenched in ice water (I can hear the sound of teeth grinding in forges up and down the land)
This actually gives the best performance, spark wise, of any of my steels to date.
Nice job Waylander 
, there was also another type with a steel mounted in wood and I was recently commissioned to make a couple of blades to be incorporated into a leather pouch which should be interesting.
By heating the steel to yellow you are increasing the grain size (good for sparks) and then such an aggresive quench will leave the steel very hard, also good for sparks, unfortunately this isnt possible with all firesteels. You can get away with it with a file and if you just want sparks a file is the best material for it with I suspect mostly similar composition to my favourite Stubbs silver steel but with the more popular forged C shaped steels the decorative arms would be left very fragile. You should get a similar result if you heat the steel to yellow, hold it there for a while to increase the grain size then allow it to cool to just above non magnetic before quenching and luke warm water is fine
, there was also another type with a steel mounted in wood and I was recently commissioned to make a couple of blades to be incorporated into a leather pouch which should be interesting.By heating the steel to yellow you are increasing the grain size (good for sparks) and then such an aggresive quench will leave the steel very hard, also good for sparks, unfortunately this isnt possible with all firesteels. You can get away with it with a file and if you just want sparks a file is the best material for it with I suspect mostly similar composition to my favourite Stubbs silver steel but with the more popular forged C shaped steels the decorative arms would be left very fragile. You should get a similar result if you heat the steel to yellow, hold it there for a while to increase the grain size then allow it to cool to just above non magnetic before quenching and luke warm water is fine
When making C shaped ones I used to just quench the sparking edge which seemed to work quite well.
Certainly I never broke one and the only person I know that did break one of my steels was useing the arms to knapp a new edge on a flint.
Certainly I never broke one and the only person I know that did break one of my steels was useing the arms to knapp a new edge on a flint.
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