Wacky Winter and a New Hope

I mentioned already that all three of my fig trees and most of my pomegranates seem to be dead. Today I glimpsed a hint of green at the base of all three fig trees and although most of the pomegranates are indeed dead, a few of them sprouted fresh leaves from their trunks too.

 

Dead fig treeSprouting leavessprouting leaves
sprouting leaves

There is still substantial and irreparable damage that nearly makes me cry, but if the roots are alive and strong, these buds can grow into a meter and half long and on the fig two centimeters thick sticks, so I might have figs again next year. Provided the winter will not be totally wacky again and will not finish what this one has started.

I think this is one of the personally visible consequences of global warming. Frost bellow -20°C would not be a problem for neither of these trees – all of them have survived multiple winters like that. But this year the frost came suddenly in February, after it was abnormally warm from November through to January. So it came when the trees were already preparing to wake up. I will have to think of something to shelter them from such abnormal weather in the future.

I was relieved to see that the grapevines survived without damage and are growing like mad. And a little surprised too – I expected the figs survive without problems and vines suffer damage..

The Daily Bird #694.

This year I finally managed to make a picture of a singing male black redstart. They are always nesting somewhere close, but I never found out where exactly. Possibly in my neighbour’s garden.

They are cheeky and swift builders – one day I forgot to close the barn door for the afternoon and they have built a nest in there, that I found out a few days later (abandoned, of course, since the barn was closed in the meantime). I am trying to provide them with suitable nesting places but they insist on building nests in the most insane places possible, where I only find them when I destroy them by accident at the same time – like in the concrete mixer, or under the cover on the wood chopping block. I have to be careful to close doors and windows in the spring, and to cover any holes where I do not wish to be surprised by a bird’s nest.

I do not mind them nesting here, what I do mind is me accidentaly destroing said nests.

Male Black Redstart

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Youtube Video: FightCamp 2015 Federschwert longsword tournament – HEMA

I normally do not like to watch sports, but I liked this very much. Somehow these fencing matches look interesting and much more real than modern fencing or over-choreographed Star Wars jumping matches.

In the very first minute is a moment of two opponents sizing each other up, both deciding to wait for the other to strike. The tension in there is very intense, palpable even through the screen.

Very interesting is also the match that starts at 12:47 between a very diminutive woman and a huge bulky man. Lesson to be learned here is unfortunately that in these competitions size does matter – to my amateurish eyes she does not seem any less skilled than he does, but she just does not get within striking distance before he does. Longer hands mean longer reach and longer reach means huge advantage. So everything else being equal, the bigger guy wins. I certainly hope she did not feel discouraged. I am not fan of competitions for this very reason – it is not only a test of skill, there is always a lot of variables outside of anyone’s control that can affect the outcome.

And the most memorable point is that in the last match a sword breaks (32:39). What is interesting about this is that it does not break at the striking point, but just near the handle, at the strongest part. Given that this sword was made from modern steel with modern technology one has to wonder how often did swords break in the past?

The Beautiful Town Idstein – Part 4 – Schloss

German, as well as Czech, has two words for a castle. One is “das Schloss” which means a luxurious aristocratic residence. The other one is “die Burg” and means a fortified luxurious aristocratic residence.

Castle in Idstein

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From what I have been able to decipher on German Wikipedia the castle in Idstein used to be both of those. Originally it started with a lookout tower (the previously mentioned Hexenturm) around which a fortified residence was built. Sometime around the Renaissance period the castle was rebuilt from fortress into purely representative luxurious dwelling.

First picture shows the castle as seen from the town. The castle itself is located uphill and can only be accessed via the gate near Rathaus.

 

Castle in Idstein

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At the foot of the Hexenturm is this beautiful building connecting the base of the tower with the gatehouse (named “Alte Kanzlei”). This building, at least its lower parts, is what remains of the original fortress. There were some significant damages to be seen, right behind the gatehouse the original stone wall was bulging out and it had markers on it probably to keep an eye on the bulge. Unfortunately in our somewhat chaotic and unguided stroll through the town I did not make more pictures  of the remnants of the original fortifications, because I did not know where to look and for what.

However I did make a picture of the main castle building. With “chemtrails” behind it. Today it serves as a high school, a much better purpose than a demonstration of wealth and power.

Castle in Idstein

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Making a Rondel Dagger – Part 5 – Bounce

I lied to myself when I said that I will continue even though the blade might not be hardened properly. I just could not do it. Even though the knife will in the end be just ornamental thing, a wall hanger that will never be used, I could not bring myself to making a knife with improperly hardened blade. So I had another go at it. Fail again, the steel was still soft and it was not only surface – I tried to break of the tip and it bent and straightened as if it were copper. So I had another go at it, using water as quenchant – a big risk because in high carbon steel this can lead to the blade cracking or even exploding into bits. Fail again, it remained soft.

At this point I had to reconsider. I was convinced that I did everything correctly, testing with magnet for the austenite transformation etc. and I am already relatively good at assessing the temperature by the glow color, so I did not think the failed quench was due to wrong temperature. The quenchant also could not be the problem, since I hardened three blades in it without problems and one at the same time as this one failed.

So I surmised the problem lies in the steel. Perhaps it was surface hardened file and when I did the test with ferric chloride I had all the hardened steel ground off already, so it could not show in color. Or perhaps I burned off the carbon due to the not-so-well functioning protective coating. I consider the first option to be more likely. Anyway, I could throw this blade away and start anew, or I could do what I mentioned before – surface harden it.

Theoretically this makes for a very good dagger, because under the hard and brittle surface remains soft and tough steel, which means the dagger would not break easily when hitting something hard – like an armor. But it is a long process that burns through a lot of charcoal with results unsure. And the layer might be too thin and get ground off during polishing.

I succumbed, knowingly, to the sunk cost fallacy and decided to go for it in an attempt to save the blade. This is what I have done:

Cleaned dagger blade

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First I have cleaned the whole blade thoroughly with angle grinder and a twisted knot wire brush wheel. After that I also scrubbed the whole blade with abrasive pad (similar to Scotch-Brite, only different manufacturer). Whilst doing this I noticed that the blade got slightly blotchy and pitted, so there was definitively more material burned off than I am happy with. Inevitable after three failed quenches. Theoretically quench could be attempted infinite amount of times – but practically the blade would burn away pretty soon.

 

 

Blade packed in charcoal

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Secondly I took my limited supply of stainless steel foil and wrapped it around the blade forming a little trough. Not wanting to perform more than one experiment in one project I did not experiment with the hardening material and I used powdered charcoal. Any organic material would do, really (sugar works extremely well I might add, and in the future I intend to experiment with bone dust and various mixtures from easy to get chemicals), but they give blotchy, coloured surfaces, and with charcoal I had a best shot to get evenly hardened and evenly coloured surface.

 

Package enclosed

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After filling the trough about halfway with the powder I crimped very tightly the edges, folding them twice and pressing the folds together in a vice. It is important to get the package as air tight as possible. But the tang was not packed in, because that was supposed to remain soft. Thus prepared package was now ready for heating. For this I have used my improvised setup build from fireclay bricks, but without forced air supply (a fancy way of saying I left the vacuum cleaner in the workshop). I filled the fireplace with charcoal, buried the package in it, lit it and left it to its own devices over night. Under an impromptu cover because it was raining.

 

The next day the package was burned through near the tip, a bad sign. But the charcoal dust was still all in there and it did cling to the blade very nicely – I had to scrape it off. A good sign. But I decided to repeat the process once more just to be sure.

Today, after I returned from work, the weather was again good so I could have another shot at quenching this cursed thing.

And it is a success. The blade is hard as glass on the surface and there are no cracks that I see after cleaning it with wire brush. I hope no hair thin cracks shows later on.

Tomorrow the blade goes into the baking oven for heat treatment 150°C half an hour. Maybe two courses.

Youtube Videos: Capwell & Easton: A medieval knightly effigy in Dennington, Suffolk

This is a very interesting and informative series of three videos about a knightly effigies, what they are, why they were made and how they can help us understand the history of medieval armor from times where very few real exemplars are left. The series takes overall about an hour. Info on Tobias Capwell can be found here -click-

 

The Beautiful Town Idstein – Part 3 – Hexenturm

Hexenturm means “Witch tower” and according to this plaque it is the oldest building in Idstein.

Plaque Hexenturm

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The only way to approach the tower is through the gate. This is the view of the tower as one approaches it.

Hexenturm

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Hexenturm

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And another angle, from the entrance to the castle. And the view of the pavement leading from the gate to the castle and the tower, which looked rather interesting in the evening light.

Hexenturm

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Tiles

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The name was given to the tower allegedly because there were incarcerated women accused of witchcraft, but according to German Wikipedia there is no evidence for his although the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Whatever the truth, nowadays the tower has a much better purpose – it is  a nesting site for kestrels Falco tinnunculus and jackdaws Corvus monedula. We have heard the birds but we did not see them and of course, even had we seen them I could not make pictures.

Hexenturm

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Anatomy Atlas Part 5 – Skull Base

Skull base is really more interesting than the shell that covers our bulbous brain lobes. This is where our brain stem resides, the evolutionarily oldest structures in our central nervous system that could be called “brain”. That means that here are the exits of most of the brain nerves and, of course, the spinal cord. Here also enter and exit all the blood vessels supplying the brain with oxygen.

Skull base

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Profesor Kos has put a great emphasis on the fact that here is the position of the brain stem, because any damage to the brainstem is most likely to be lethal. And what he constantly warned about was the danger of hemorrhaging in this region, which can occur after even superficially mild concussion. He mentioned the absurdity of movies and media in general portraying  hitting someone in the head as a routine way to knock someone out. But it is extremely dangerous, especially hits delivered on the top of the head.  A hit on the top of the head transfers most of the force right down to the base of the skull and if it causes there a damage to even a small blood vessel, it can mean game ever.