Vikings Build New Oseberg Ship The Old Fashioned Way

Would you like to see how Vikings built ships without power tools?

The series of links at the end of this post from the Traditional Crafts Blog in the UK are loaded with pictures of exactly that feat being accomplished over the last 2 years in Norway.

A recreation of the Oseberg ship using the traditional tools and methods of 1200 years ago has been underway. As the video explains, before the axes swung and the trees fell, the planning phase included numerous trips to visit, inspect, and measure the original Oseberg, and modern laboratory research questioning whether the excavated original was even put back together correctly or not.

More from Stiftelsen Nytt Osebergskip who brought you the video.

RECONSTRUCTING THE OSEBERG SHIP

This gentlemen, courtesy of Ydalir Vikings in the UK, is holding a Viking Side Axe.



Notice how the cutting edge is angled off away from the line of the haft. This side axe is one of the numerous specialty axes Viking Shipwrights used. This one trimmed out the planks from a felled tree to the proper and uniform thickness they needed to build ships. And then they'd finish off the high spots with planes like the one below.



And holding all of those axe hewn planks together? Thousands upon thousands of them. You can bet the original builders of 1200 years ago went home with their ears ringing after a day of this.

Here's a collection loaded with pics of the way both the original and the new Oseburg, as far as can yet be determined, was built 1200 years ago.

Part 1

http://greenwood-carving.blogspot.com/2011/11/building-worlds-most-iconic-viking-ship.html

Part 2

http://traditionalcraftsblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/building-worlds-most-iconic-viking-ship_15.html

Part 3

http://traditionalcraftsblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/building-worlds-most-iconic-viking-ship_16.html

Part 4

http://traditionalcraftsblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/building-worlds-most-iconic-viking-ship_575.html

Part 5

http://traditionalcraftsblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/building-worlds-most-iconic-viking-ship_9878.html

Part 6

http://greenwood-carving.blogspot.com/2011/11/building-worlds-most-iconic-viking-ship_2321.html

Part 7

http://greenwood-carving.blogspot.com/2011/11/building-worlds-most-iconic-viking-ship_4461.html