Junk Science...

http://www.ted.com Why do people see the Virgin Mary on cheese sandwiches or hear demonic lyrics in "Stairway to Heaven"? Using video, images and music, professional skeptic Michael Shermer explores these and other phenomena, including UFOs and alien sightings. He offers cognitive context: In the absence of sound science, incomplete information can combine with the power of suggestion (helping us hear those Satanic lyrics in Led Zeppelin). In fact, he says, humans tend to convince ourselves to believe: We overvalue the "hits" that support our beliefs, and discount the more numerous "misses."

So, dear readers, you may be thinking 'What?'
There is too a connection here, especially if you refer back to the September 30 post " Now from China ".
My interest in traditional skills and experimental archaeology often involves the same kind of skeptical viewpoint so wonderfully illustrated in Shermer's lecture segment. Enjoy!

So - You want to join DARC

Neil Peterson and I (who manage information requests for DARC) often get asked just that. This is the reply we worked up together. I also refer readers to the DARC FAQ page.


The Dark Ages Recreation Company was formally founded in 2000, primarily to provide high quality living history presentations centred on the Viking Age to museums. The Company's core principles are the result of discussions going back to the early 1990's. Many of these concepts were derived (if not outright raided) from existing museum interpretive programs, other living history groups, and considerable personal experience on the part of the initial founders. Another key aspect to the activities of DARC is the use of experimental archaeology to re-discover ancient working methods. Although the members of DARC are always keen to meet, and perhaps adopt, other 'kindred spirits', expansion into a wide based 'official' organization is not our intent.

DARC is a fairly tight knit group centred in Ontario, Canada that works as a single organized unit and does not support 'branch clubs' outside of our local area. As a result we grow very slowly.

This means the first question we ask is "where are you"? If you are outside of Ontario, the fit will be very poor. If that is the case we would suggest you join a local chapter of the SCA, Regia Anglorum, or The Vikings. If none of those appeal you can always start your own group (just don't call it DARC). In rare cases people in remote locations are invited to participate in DARC via e-mail discussions but generally we recommend the Norsefolk email group.

If you are in Ontario then we would suggest that you begin by reading over our website (www.darkcompany.ca). This explains our interpretive stance, general operation approaches, something about our current work, and even a general description of who is involved. This is quite important, as each of the available re-enactment groups, even in the same time period, have often quite different approaches. For example, DARC does not engage in any combat activities. Note that we have decided not to repeat a lot of basic information on the Viking Age - other web sites cover a lot of that. We do include an extensive bibliography and web links for basic research.

Assuming that what you read still makes you think you would like to join us then the next step is to come out and talk to us. Watch for our upcoming public presentations, or one of our camps inside the framework of the SCA. This gives you a chance to come see us in action. Yes we always look busy, and yes there are always a lot of people asking questions. Do take the time to hang around and talk to us. We are rarely so busy that we don't want to meet new people.

This step is important, because we want to 'check you out' as much as you should be checking on us. Dates should be on our calendar and you can always feel free to email us at info@darkcompany.ca We'll pass your email to the person best suited to answer any (specific) questions you have. We do get a lot of questions sent to us and we can't answer them all. Questions that show that you have put some of your own time into the topic are more likely to get an answer than "tell me everything you know about how the Vikings did this".

Normally, if there appears to be a good fit in attitudes and approaches, an individual may be invited up to one of our general workshop / experiment weekends. These are held at private residences, centred on a specific activity (and mostly not living history re-enactments). There will often be a blend of DARC and other interested individuals, but this allows someone to interact with the group on both a practical and social level.

In the past DARC has run two different types of workshop activities.

• Special Sessions involve hiring an instructor and renting a suitable facility. The assigned workshop coordinator remains in control of each event. Costs are born equally by participants, with spaces limited as determined by the instructor.


• Open Workshops are held at private homes with limited space and facilities. In this case the host has full control over the access and conduct of the event.

Any active member of DARC can hold a workshop or event at the time and place of their choosing, inviting the whole group or specific subsets of people as they wish. Members of DARC attend or don't as their schedules and interests dictate.

Typically, if there appears to be a good fit in personalities, we will invite people to participate on our closed e-mail discussion group. This gives new folks a chance to come up to speed on what the group is doing, and a better idea of just who knows about what area of research and skills.

An 'active' member of DARC is one who posts on the list and shows up for workshops and non-museum presentations that interest them. There are no group membership fees.

As most of our public face is related to museum presentations, we use a different system internally than most other living history groups. Each public presentation is specifically designed for the institution, and individuals from the pool of active members are selected based on skills, abilities, and experience. This is different from most other groups who use the 'who can show up' method. It is important for members of DARC to understand that they may not be recruited as individuals to participate in specific museum or educational programs. Numbers of participants, skills, or equipment required, may vary considerably depending on each museum or school's requirements. Participation in DARC thus does not ensure inclusion in these programs.

So if you have read this far and you still want to talk, many of us will be at an SCA Arts and Sciences Competition in November, come out and chat!

Neil Peterson / Darrell Markewitz

Now from China...

I was wondering how long it would take the Chinese to jump on to the 'smelted iron for weapons' band wagon. Turns out not very long. Dynasty Forge was only established in 2003 - and carefully manages not to mention very often that they are located in China.

(from their web site)

The Steel

The Daimyo Tamahagane blades are made using high-carbon Tamahagane iron sand, the traditional ingredient of the true Japanese sword. This sets our swords apart, as it is very rare for blades to be made outside Japan with this material. By sourcing our Tamahagane from China, we can create a superior product at a fair price. The iron sand, through a low-temperature smelting process, combines with carbon to form fairly crude high-carbon ore. The resulting material is broken into smaller pieces that are sorted by carbon content. As much as half of the extracted material contains insufficient carbon for sword-making.

Tamahagane/Jade Steel

Our Tamahagane/Jade steel is smelted by our craftsmen in the traditional process that pre-dates modern steel producing technology. Starting from iron-sand and charcoal,the raw materials are heated in a clay smelter, producing a solid steel bloom that is smashed into smaller pieces and hand-sorted by our smiths for carbon content. These fragments are then forged and folded into a solid billet from which a blade is meticulously shaped. This traditional process produces an inherently impure steel, and it is these very impurities that give the steel a complex and organic grain.

Looking over their site , you will see that the stress is on 'traditional' Japanese blades and processes. Little is actually said or illustrated on the physical methods used. Surprisingly, virtually nothing on the tamahagane smelting method. Nothing on exactly the forging methods either. Although the term 'hand forged' is used repeatedly, I suspect massive use of power hammers (with shaped dies) is the actual case.

I find the pricing irregular. It appears the blades seen on the company web site are the higher end - with considerably more care on the furniture and scabbards. The range seems to be $2500 US +. Comparing to their other blades, it appears they are charging roughly double for the smelted iron material.
Surprisingly, Relics in London Ontario is offering one of the simpler 'production line' blades from Dynasty for roughly $2200 $US+

Now - of course the Dynasty product are for finished swords. Their normal high end work looks pretty well finished (sorry I could not poach an image to show)
But notice that they charge $500 for carbon steel, $1300 for layered steel, and $2500 for smelted steel. Note that a finished katana is in the range of 2 - 3 lbs. I would expect you to start with maybe double that material to create a layered blade, perhaps three or four times the finished weight with bloom iron.


For comparison, Lee Sauder (by far the most experienced iron smelt master in North America) has pegged the cost for raw blooms (per pound as produced) at $22 USD and consolidated to billets at $32. (Note that I personally think this is not near enough! Although our smelts here at Wareham generally tend to smaller blooms, its still roughly $300 plus in consumed materials for each smelt event. With our typical yields at 8-12 lbs, at Lee's prices we would not be recovering the raw cost!)*


The reason I am commenting on all this - there is a FALSE 'mystery' being placed on bloomery iron in the blade making and collecting circles. The process is not as controlled as many individuals are making out that they can achieve. No one now working (certainly in North America, and I suggest anywhere in the world) can state: I need carbon content XX - and I can get that result inside a smelter. Worst, those few who pioneered and reserrected the ancient techniques are quickly being lost in the dust of those rushing to cash in.

Historically, the smelting process was ALWAYS a random one. Predictable results could only be ROUGHLY achieved by exact duplication of both method and most important, materials. After the smelt, the resulting bloom would be typically fractured, and then carefully examined and sorted. This is where specific carbon content material could be selected and set aside.

(Looking back over this post, it seems random and rambling, even for me. There are clearly at least three or four individual topic areas could be expanded here?)

* Thanks to Karen for pointing out my error on not specifying 'per pound'

Norse and Anglo-Saxon Knives - grind profiles

I was short on a posting for this week, so thought I might toss out this tid-bit based on an ongoing discussion from Don Fogg's (excellent) Bladesmith's Forum

Topic: Sword grinding the ancient european way
http://forums.dfoggknives.com/index.php?showtopic=14894

... Later Anglosaxon pieces had blades that got wider past the handle, adding to the blade-heavy feel...
(Alan)

A good number of the A/S and Norse knives I have looked at have a taper to the thickness of the blade (looking down the back edge) getting thinner from handle to tip. So even with blades wider closer to the tip than at the handle (the classic seax shape) the mass is not as far forward as one might think.
Generally the artifacts are considerably thicker at the back edge than most contemporary blade makers. This is no doubt due to the use of softer wrought iron and almost always much lower carbon content metals than in modern blades. Thickness in the range of 1/4 inch (or more) on a small knife blade is common.

Other readers might be interested in something I started working up - Knives from the Viking Age (based mainly on the finds from York, England)

Its hard to actually find a single volume source for information on Migration Era knives (swords, yes - but just on knives?). I have been working in fits and starts in trying to tie bits from various museums and reports into some kind of summary. One thing that becomes clear when you start looking at a lot of artifacts - the historic knives were generally quite small (at least to modern eyes) with most knives * less * than four inches in blade length.

If readers are interested in the topic in general, search past entries here (use "Viking Age", Knives).