The wolf tooth spear has fascinated me since I first saw it in the 'Swords of the Viking
Age' by Ian Pierce.
A Spear Born of Fire is a new video series in which I will be recreating such a spear
from scratch.
In the Viking Era, the spear was the most common weapon.
It had long range and was much cheaper than a sword.
The anatomy of a Viking Era spear is a fairly simple.
It is a weapon with long wooden shaft, frequently made from ash, and has a pointed tip of metal
and can be used for thrusting.
To attach the spear point to the wooden shaft, the spear head needs a socket.
Since steel was expensive, the socket was usually made from wrought iron.
The spear I am making here will have a wrought iron socket and wrought iron core.
It's cutting edge will be from carbon steel and just like the original there will be a
wolf tooth as well as a twisted start pattern.
As first step, I need have enough wrought iron to create the socket.
I am using old wagon tires that I am forging into rectangular bars that I can then stack
on top of each other and forge weld.
This will give me enough material to forge a 5 in wide sheet of wrought iron.
For those of you in metric countries that's roughtly 12.5 cm.
As you might know by now from watching my videos, everything that has to be forge welded
needs to be cleaned meticulously.
If you look at the sparks, you do not see any branching which indicates that it's iron
with almost no carbon.
For me, forging a spear head comes with many different challenges.
First, the socket requires forge welding and the socket material is fairly thin, so will
lose heat very quickly.
Second, one the socket has been welded, another welding step is required to attach the iron
core.
Afterwards, several more forge welding operations are required to get to the final result.
Each of them has its own chance of failure.
For me that means, I need to approach the whole project with patience and look at it
as a learning experience even if there should be set backs.
Fortunately, Tony is visiting again and we will succeed of fail together.
To prepare the package of iron bars for the forge, I am mig welding them together and
am also making myself a long handle.
At least, initially that is much easier than using tongues.
Wrought iron can be forge welded at much higher temperatures as its melting temperature is
much higher than steel.
Anhydrous borax serves me as flux and protects the surfaces in the forge from building up
scale.
Once the billet of wrought iron is at forge welding temperature, the power hammer makes
quick progress with.
A few strong hits and the surfaces are welded.
Now, we have a large piece of wrought iron that needs to be forge into a fairly wide
sheet of metal.
A fuller under the power hammer is likely that fastest way to make progress here.
Fortunately, for creating fullers in swords, I already have such a tool ready.
Unfortunately, my piece of wrought iron is a little bit too tall to work well here.
This means we have to resort to the human power hammer.
After a while or processing the iron with the sledge hammer, the dimensions have been
reduced enough to go back to the power hammer.
I am sure many of you may be wondering what all of this has to do with making a spear.
Well, that's a good question.
Back then, even just acquiring the iron would have been quite expensive.
Most likely a blacksmith would have acquired it in bars and would then also have to forge
it out into a sheet.
Similar to what I am showing here.
As you can see the material is getting wider and wider.
In terms of thickness, I want to leave at least an eigth of an inch.
That's roughly 3 mm.
And to get to there, a lot more fullering is required.
To ensure sucess, we are making twice the material that is needed.
So, if we fail to forge the socket on the first attempt, we have enough material to
try again.
The width of the iron is now too wide to fit in my propane forge.
Fortunately, the side blast forge does not have such limitations.
The sledge hammer can be helpful sometimes to even out the surface especially as it's
difficult to fuller the outer sides.
While I hope that my videos may be interesting and perhaps also be a little bit educational,
it is difficult to capture the full athmosphere and visuals of the process.
Perhaps, the following captures a different perspective.
By now, we have spent a lot of time and effort just into making a wide sheet of iron.
The dimensions are about right now and it is time to form and forge-weld the socket.
And that is exactly what I will show in the next episode.
I hope you enjoyed the process so far and will stay with me on my journey to recreate
this impressive wolf tooth spear.
All you have to do is subscribe to my channel.
If really is easy, you just have to click the button.
I know you want to do, so just do it.