Konstsmedjan

24/09/2021

This may be the last video I publish for quite some time. It may also be my best video this far. It is a sucsessful attempt at making pine tar. High quality brown tar, made off-grid.

This is a rather unusual way of making tar these days. It is also a way of making tar of a higher quality than you’d buy in the store. This is brown tar, or ...

17/09/2021

https://youtu.be/1SQonceri4w

The forest project is coming to an end. The wooden chest is full of tools and need little more than a coating to be done. Still there is at least one more to...

10/09/2021

https://youtu.be/BpGEX6sZViQ

The responsible tool-user take care of the tools; make sure they do not rust, blunt or brake before their time is nigh. Making a tool chest was part of such ...

03/09/2021

The smallest dirt mound tar kiln ditch i have ever seen... But then of course I have never really seen one being used either. Only the traces in Swedish forest. As far as I know this is The old way of doing it.

Tar can be found in any sort of fat wood but getting it out of the wood, enough to coat a wooden chest, can be a bit of a venture. Previously I have sometime...

20/08/2021

Nails are trickier to forge than you’d think, in order to make it as simple as possible I prefer using a nail header, this is one way of making such a tool. ...

20/08/2021

This time we get al meta again. A nailheader similar to the one found in the original Mästermyr chest is forged to make nail for my contemporary Mästermyr style chest... I all goes round and round again...

Nails are trickier to forge than you’d think, in order to make it as simple as possible I prefer using a nail header, this is one way of making such a tool. ...

06/08/2021

This was fun.

You need tools to make tools and other tools to work wood. At the moment I am making a wooden tool chest and got curious of saws. I have never made a saw bef...

11/07/2021

When researching this project, I was repeatedly advised to use dry wood, “a chest like that will always have been made from dry wood, even back a thousand ye...

19/06/2021

But I need to forge a bit every now and then and making hinges for the chest is a pleasant brake from all the wood work. Check it out to see a blacksmith back in his safe zoon.

I have made hinges of all sorts but this must be the most primitive ones. Forging the mechanism can sometimes be a bit tricky but in the Mästermyr hinges tha...

12/06/2021

And so it begins, the carpentry of a blacksmith... soon I will have a place to put my tools.

The Mästermyr tool chest is one of the most extensive archaeological finds of Viking era tools made in Scandinavia. The blacksmithing tools are well known th...

06/06/2021

My name is Gustav and I am a PhD candidate at the University of Gothenburg. As a researcher I wanted to start from the beginning but I am one of the blacksmiths trained as an artist and now 20 years after starting to forge full time I seek up my roots and make an almost archaeological project. My roots are not contemporary art iron or steel, I could forge bronze, copper or even wax and still forge at a proper level. The roots of a blacksmiths, the way I see it, are the tools used, the hammers tongs and the hands swinging them and their intertwined relationship: the skills and the techniques.

I am making a tool box from scratch and filling it with hand tools, but what came first? the chicken or the egg? I need tools to make tools; forging tools to make woodworking tools, wood working tools to make a tool chest. In the end primitive tools can be used throughout quite a bit of this process, the result do not stand and fall with the tools but rather with the skills and judgment of the maker handling them. Surprisingly enough there is not much research done in this theme; the professional handling of less then ideal tools. But that is what I do (when not trying to find words to describe it as academic research).

If you want to support the work or just get a glimpse of the Swedish forest when the winter gives in to spring do not hesitate to click the video or go to my You tube channel and comment, share or just like this post, it means a lot to me. I have around 20 videos already and almost a hundred subscribers of whom I am super pound, than you for supporting me this early in the process. As the Mästermyr tool chest is being built there will be a few more videos where I make the chest and the complementary tools needed as well as brown-ish tar and charcoal for the forge. Or if you are just interested in the academic discussions I am all ears and eyes, this corona lock down is killing me and I am starting to get desperate for a comment, critique or just connection to someone, anyone. Did you reed this fas? is that person you? Keep in touch/ Gustav Thane

When making a Mästermyr tool chest a drill may come in handy. As it happens such a drill pattern can be found in the original Mästermyr find itself. I have m...

28/05/2021

And now the woodworking project made from scratch is back. This time I make 16 mm thick boards out of the log I split in a previous video. These boards will be used to make a Mästermyr inspired tool chest to put all the tools inside used to make the chest. Come along and follow me on the journey : )

Bare hands are too soft to make a wooden chest. But metal, fire and nature can be turned into tools given time and skills. With the help of a human being the...