[Sca-cooks] RE: Viking Clay Mold Casting classes

[Linda Anderson]

I am a member of Yahoo Groups but as I'm not a member of metalcasting I 
could not access the pictures, either.  sigh.




At 12:21 AM 3/3/2004 -0500, you wrote:
>Hej!
>     There are pictures up at (
>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Metalcasting/files/Olaf%27s%20Casting%20Classes%20at%20Penn/)
>of the classes I did at the SPCA camp last year.  Yes, period for the Norse
>culture is a side draft forge with a double bellows (2 bellows side by
>side).  Most significant find in the way of forge hardware are stones that
>the bellows pipe sticks through.  Many are carved with the face, presumably
>that of the god of the forge.  I am not sure what the various nomadic tribes
>did, I tend to stick close to home-Birka in the 9th century is where I am
>concentrating my research on.
>     The notes will get done as I am finishing the forge & test it out.  One
>of the requirements of telling people how to do some thing is doing it first
>yourself.  After I do that I will send you the notes.  I also plan to work
>on a couple of more projects, doing granulation with period methods & tools
>& seeing if my idea about how the Gottlandish burning glasses were made
>works out.
>Pax,
>Olaf
>----- Original Message -----
> > Oh! This didn't occur to me until now. I guess it would be simpler making
>the forge on/in the ground. But how do you get a good airflow into/under the
>fire? I seem to remember most modern forges at least, using a blower to blow
>air into the underside of the fire. Hmm. But the medieval bellows didn't do
>that, did they? They blew onto the side of the fire. So I guess the Norse
>could have done somehing similar. Did they use a bellows or something
>similar to increase the oxygen flow to the fire?
> >
> > What did the Mongols or other nomadic folks do? Using a hole does seem to
>be easier for a nomadic people rather than carrying around some kind of
>forge. Or did the Mongols not make their own iron, rather trading or
>otherwise obtaining it from other people? It doesn't seem like they stuck
>around enough to mine the ore, either. But I guess you could buy/steal/tax
>for the raw iron and then process that yourself.
> > Wonderful. Please remember that one of my standard policies is to accept
>article updates at any time. So you can write down what you have this summer
>and you can always update it at a later time. In the meantime, folks such as
>myself can be learning from the article, even if it isn't perfect yet.
> >
> > Stefan
>
>
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