This was my first attempt at braiding flat steel stock. I’m sure that someone that does a lot of blacksmith work finds this easy to do. Not for me! It took me many hours to figure this out and get it all to bend where I wanted it. The braids turned out a bit rough, but I feel it fits the rest of the rough work on the frame. I added a few wrought iron fence elements at the top corners, and cut and welded 1/2″ strips of mild steel into ship lap configurations at the bottom and top center.
The ship is a figure of a Viking Drekar Long Ship, by Design Toscano. I did quite a lot of work on it to get it to fit as needed: I removed, modified and relocated the oars, removed and fabricated a new wooden mast, removed the supplied full sail and made my own which I then rolled up and tied in place in its stowed position. Worked out very well.
I don’t know who took the photo but it is from the TV series “Vikings”. This is a silk poster made in China. The actor is Travis Fimmel, as Ragnar Lothbrok. The photo and text is also found in the book “The World of Vikings” by Justin Pollard and Michael Hirst, which follows along into the fourth season of the series.
All this steel and glass add up to quite a bit of weight. This frame weighs in at 35 lbs.