Womens knife for norwegian national costum(pictures fixed)

[Rolf]

Since some of you have Norwegian roots, I thought this might be of interest.
Just finished this knife a customer ordered. It's to be worn a silver filigree belt that's part of the national costum for Jaeren. Jaeren is a region in the southern part of Norway. There are about 80 different national costums, called bunad. By looking at a bunad, you can tell where in Norway people come from.

I forged the blade in the traditional Scandinavian style, which is one layer of high carbon steel sandwiched between two layers of mild steel. The blade is 3" long.
All the bolsters + strap is sterling silver. The stones are topaz.

Best regards
Rolfkt

[Jerry V Lape]

I am not familiar with your styles, but the workmanship is obviously first class.  How do you fasten the metal sheath tip to the leather sheath? 

[Rolf]

I am not familiar with your styles, but the workmanship is obviously first class.  How do you fasten the metal sheath tip to the leather sheath? 

The leather sheath is made of "raw rand" leather. This tanning process produces a leather with three distint layers. The two outer layers are vegtable tanned. The middle layer is raw(untreated). The leather is stiff as aboard, and has to soak in water over night to be workable. The soaked leather is cut with an oversized pattern and sown on a wooden form. When it drys, it shrinks to fit the form and the middle layer turns rock hard. The outer layer is then cut away where the metal bolsters are attached  with glue.
Traditional glue was melted shellac. Now a days we use epoxy.

Best regards

Rolfkt

[Randy Hedden]

Rolf,

Fantastic knife and sheath in any country. I wonder where you find the time to do all pieces you turn out?

Randy Hedden

www.harddogrifles.com

[Tim Crosby]

 That's not a knife it is a work of art. What time period would that be from?

Tim C.

[Rolf]

Thank you all for your kind coments.

That's not a knife it is a work of art. What time period would that be from?

Tim C.

That's a tuff question. Silver filigree is an old technique in Norway. The first known examples date around 1100 (end of the viking era). The main period for it as "Bonde silver"(farmer's silver) was 1620 -1830 .   You can find patterns from 1620 used more or less unchanged up to today. You can also find lots of old patterns which have acquired new design element up through the ages. This knife is not a copy of an original, it's my own design inspired from filigree work  done around 1700-1800 .

Best regards

Rolfkt

[keweenaw]

Rolfkt,

I've followed you wonderful instructional pieces on your silver filigree work.  Great stuff.  A question I've had relates to attaching the wire and pieces to the bands.  You said you used silver solder to do it.  What type of silver solder do you use - melting temperature, etc.,  and what do you use for flux?

Thanks,
Tom

[Rolf]

Rolfkt,

I've followed you wonderful instructional pieces on your silver filigree work.  Great stuff.  A question I've had relates to attaching the wire and pieces to the bands.  You said you used silver solder to do it.  What type of silver solder do you use - melting temperature, etc.,  and what do you use for flux?

Thanks,
Tom

All the silver soldering on both the knife and powderhorn is done with nr.2 jewelery grad silver solder. It contains 675/1000 pure silver.  I buy it as 0.02" thick wire and as coarse powder. It working temp. range is 1238 - 1310 Fahrenheit. I use mostly two types of fluxes, Degussa powder flux and Novo liquid flux. What I use depends on whats to be soldered on.

With small parts like silver balls (knupper) and kruser:
I paint the bottom of the part with liquid flux and dip it lightly in powdered silver solder. The part is placed where its supposed to be, and then I wait 1-2 hours for the flux to dry out before heating. If you heat wet flux, it boils and the parts are lost.

Border wires:
The wires have to be file to the correct length before the ends can be joined together. Before they can be filed, the ends have to be soldered or they will unravel.You want the solder to stay at the very ends of the wire (not fill the whole wire). Therefore I use powder flux and touch solder the ends with 0.02" solder wire. I also use powder flux when I join the filed ends together. I use liquid flux when soldering the border wire to the sheet metal object. The wire rings are press fit to the object and won't move when the flux boils and now you want to fill the whole wire with solder.

Small filigree wire parts
The wires that make up the designs on the knife are called "valsa" thread. Their made by twinning two 0.015" pure silver wires together and then flattening them in a mill to 0.02". The thread is now rectangular, not round. It's cut to size and shaped with small pliers. The shaped parts are laid out on the sheet metal and sprinkled with powder flux. When heated carefully the flux melts gently and glues the parts to the sheet metall. A piece of solder wire is painted with liquid flux and the parts carefully touch soldered to the sheet metal.

Pickling silver:
After each round of soldering, the piece has to be pickled to remove old flux and scaling before more parts can be soldered. Pickling is done by "cooking" the part in vitrex solution.

Best regards

Rolfkt

[keweenaw]

Rolfkt,

That is a beautifully written description of your soldering technique.  Thanks!

Tom

[mr. no gold]

Simply magnificent!!!
Dick

[smallpatch]

Rolfkt,

My friend, you still amaze me. 

I get so hung up on my American heritage,  it seems like I've totally forgotten my Scandinavian heritage.

My grandmother was born in Oslo, my granfather in Copenhagen.(Where my great grandfather was a postman)
  They immigrated here (separately)  as children.  Their families homesteaded in South Dakota in sod houses. 
They met later in life as adults, and the rest is history.  In their 75 years, they saw America evolve more than in any other lifetime.

From riding horseback, to automobiles, to flight, to a man on the moon.


Anyway, thanks for reminding me about that part of my ancestry