The Black Viking
Autor: Giuliano | Publicado: 2012-03-15T15:21:00-07:00





This is the Viking Twin B. But after taking a different turn, he ended up as the Black Viking.

At first I was going to make the visor like I did with my first viking battle ready helm.
http://giuarmaduras.blogspot.com/2011/07/elmo-viking-funcional.html
Burning linseed oil and then scraping it off.
But after burning the oil, I liked the results and left it like that.








Since it wasn't a order and still did not have a buyer, I could experiment with a few things I wanted to try out, like blackening the frame of the helm. I used then the same oil in the visor to keep all colors close. You can see in the reflexion the thick wax layer I used to protect it afterwards.






It came out quite nice! But it didn't go along with the model. A blackening pattern like that is characteristic of the 16th and 17th centuries. But if I blackened the domed pieces the hammer polish might disapear. So I made a quit poll in facebook to see what people think. There were many different opinions, and I was almost deciding to blacken it all when a buyer came up. He wanted it all black as well, so let's get to it!




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In the first couple layers of blackening, the steel turned out into a live sky blue color. Very beautiful! But it had to be far more dark to match the rest of the pieces. So I kept burning.





Very good! By now I was satisfied with these plates.



By assembling it I could take a better look...



It was when I noticed the diference that different substances make. Since at first I wasn't thinking about blackening it, I didn't care much with what kind of oil or wax or whaterer I used to protect the steel from rusting. And it turned out that I used different substances in the domed pieces before using the oil to blacken it. They shined in a blue color, while the rest was lilac.
Accidentally I discovered a great technique of the so called "blueing" using substances avaible in the time!










Very prety colors... but something so colorful was far from what me and my client desired. And since he said he didn't mind much if it wasn't all perfectly homogenous, I started to agressivelly atack all pieces with oil and fire.
I didn't have much experience with blackening big pieces, so I wasted a lot of gas and time trying to come up with something that made me happy. It ended up nicelly!

Here is the completed helm!


Since it was hammer polished - instead of by sanding and polishing paste - the surface still has a slightly irregular reflex, showing clearly it was hand made.












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I use to make all componets of my work pieces (in this project I just didn't make the washers that I used in the leather lining), including the buckles used in the chinstraps. A similar one was used in the Viking Twin A, or the White Viking.



I handmade them out of iron. Here it was cut out and folded.



After some work with the files and chisel.


Then the spike, also handmade of iron.







The araucaria pine tree, that I use as my symbol, burned into the inner side of the chin strap.


&nbsp;The leather used in the lining is thickcow rawhide. It was made to last!



And behind the lining.




Final weight is around 1,9 Kg.


It was an interesting project. Mainly for leting me learn a couple of things about blackening. I didn't escape from commiting some mistakes, and there were times my OCD whimpered. But even on that, this project helped me.
I am happy with the results and I'm sure my client is also gonna be very satisfied.