Historical Find Ancient Viking Toolbox

[Stew Denton]

Hi All,

I read this article with interest. The toolbox got buried under mud, and the tools are thickly caked with rust and virtually can't be identified yet. It will be interesting to see how much they can determine and to what extent the tools can be recognized.

They were from a Viking fort 1000 years ago. One of the significant things is that there is a complete tool box, not just single unrelated tools. The article talks about spoon drills, and there is a picture that looks like a dowel maker to me, not what the article says.

Anyway, interesting, and hopefully we will learn more about it eventually.

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2016/12/05/1000-year-old-viking-toolbox-found-at-mysterious-danish-fortress.html

I know that some of us know about ancient tools. Is there any hope we will be able to know exactly what the tools were, eventually? What do you think?

Stew

[Jim Koepke]

Interesting find.

jtk

[Frederick Skelly]

Learned some things I didnt know. Thanks Stew!

[John K Jordan]

I read this article with interest. The toolbox got buried under mud, and the tools are thickly caked with rust and virtually can't be identified yet. It will be interesting to see how much they can determine and to what extent the tools can be recognized...

Fantastic!

A blacksmith who makes viking axe reproductions told me some axes discovered buried in mud deep in a well had survived with enough of the wood from the handles to determine the type of wood used. Now he uses ash for his handles for a measure of period authenticity. It will be interesting to see what can be discovered from the toolbox.

JKJ

[Pat Barry]

Things would be cleared up significantly with a bit of wire brushing and localized sandblasting (JK). Actually though, a good xray scan and CT scan would be likely first steps to follow. They are both very nondestructive and the results can be amazing at showing the details under all that rust.

[Kees Heiden]

I have always wondered if an xray scan would be usefull to investigate unreadable makers or smith's marks on antique planes and chisels.

And I don't think they will take a wire brush to those finds!

[John K Jordan]

I have always wondered if an xray scan would be usefull to investigate unreadable makers or smith's marks on antique planes and chisels.


Since xrays require a material density difference I suspect it would be difficult to see anything from a mark that you couldn't see with the eye. Also, the resolution from typical xray sources is pretty low. (I was an industrial radiographer at one time.) Neutron scatter might work but I'm not familiar with that.

A physical mark on steel always creates subsurface deformation which is still present in the metal even if the surface marks have been polished away. This can sometimes be brought out by etching. (This deformation used to cause me grief when preparing nuclear reactor samples for metallographic inspection under the microscope.) But I would hate to be the one to experiment on a valuable antique tool. "Oops, that destroyed the surface, sorry. Let's try another one."

How about a scanning electron microscope? That should be non-destructive.

JKJ

[Jim Belair]

This looks similar to the Mastermyr chest, the reproduction of which was a popular project a few years ago.

http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/whutchis/mastermyr.pdf


Here's mine.

348975

348976

[Pat Barry]

Since xrays require a material density difference I suspect it would be difficult to see anything from a mark that you couldn't see with the eye. Also, the resolution from typical xray sources is pretty low. (I was an industrial radiographer at one time.) Neutron scatter might work but I'm not familiar with that.

A physical mark on steel always creates subsurface deformation which is still present in the metal even if the surface marks have been polished away. This can sometimes be brought out by etching. (This deformation used to cause me grief when preparing nuclear reactor samples for metallographic inspection under the microscope.) But I would hate to be the one to experiment on a valuable antique tool. "Oops, that destroyed the surface, sorry. Let's try another one."

How about a scanning electron microscope? That should be non-destructive.

JKJ
Industrial xray equipment these days can have very high resolutions - easily see things 1 mil or small in size, that said, for those old viking tools, penetrating a bunch of rust to see the tools underneath would be little difficulty. On the other hand, seeing something that isn't there because it was rubbed away, like a modern makers mark, does't seem really feasible with xray. If the mark is just buried on a bunch of rust though, I bet you could get a decent image. SEM is relatively non-destructive but typical SEMs are very limited on sample size - you wouldn't want to cut up an old tool sample to fit into a SEM.