Hand Forged Norse Wolf Bottle Opener

These exquisite Iron Bottle Openers are made for us by a Master Blacksmith in his own Forge. In fact, he MANUFACTURES almost all of his Forge Tools right in his Forge!

They measure 5.75″ Long, about 1.5″ at the Widest point and are 5/8″ Thick!

The photographs (Credit to Jakob Faram) show some of the Process from The Fire into the Hand!

From the Faram Forge :

“Each of these unique bottle openers start out as a 5” piece of 1/4” x 3/4” mild steel flat bar. they are heated up bright orange and worked over the anvil using a 4 lbs. hand hammer. The hammer blows are applied half-on, half-off the edge of the anvil and this is done to isolate the nose area of the wolf. The same techniques are then used to isolate the ears and draw out the neck area. Light hammer blows are then made at a lower heat to smoothen everything in preparation for the details.

Now for the fun part; giving these life! For this I use quite a number of specialty punches, fullers, and chisels to work in the details. All of which were hand made by me in my shop. All the fine work is done from the head down leaving a blank area at the bottom for room to create the bottle opener section. This is done by hot punching a slot onto the material and then driving a 5/8” round drift through to open the hole. I then forge out the hole to a little over the size of a quarter on the horn of my anvil. Then a tool called a “ball fuller” (ball shaped punch) is used to spread the metal out at the base of the opening. I hammer down the top of opening in the vise to the proper form to facilitate the functional area of the bottle opener. At this point I test these on a bottle of beer I keep hanging around in the shop. If I can hook the bottle cap and pick the bottle up, then the opener works great. Now everything is essentially finished, save for clean up using a wire brush and the application of the eye. For that step, the eye is drilled and bronze wire is inserted, peened over and polished. Finally everything is coated by heating up again in the forge to a very warm heat, just past touchable, and then I apply Johnson’s paste wax for the finish. There you go, still warm out of the forge and ready to crack open a cold one with style.”
~Jakob William Faram