Making VIKING Bellows | Viking Blacksmith part 1 - Viking Crafts (Ep. 8)

In this episode I am building a set of blacksmith's bellows for a viking forge.

There is little archaeological remains of bellows from the viking age but a few depictions exists. They both suggest a two bellows system of roughly the size you will see in this video and one depiction show very distinctly the air intake valves on the top side of the bellow. I decided to save on the metals used in these bellows and therefor sewed the leather to the boards with sinew thread. In the next video I will assemble the forge and build some kind of a stand or table for the bellows.

It was a day in autumn with both thunderstorms, rain and high sunshine in one of my favourite spots in nature. I was lucky enough to enjoy the company of the curious otter during many hours of the day.

Besides my modern Mora carving knife and the big spiral auger drill bit all the tools used in this video to create the bellows are based on finds from the viking age.

Music is played by me on my homemade Hurdy Gurdy.

Let me know what you think in the comments section below.