Hi, my name is Neil Burridge. I am a professional #BronzeAge metalsmith who has over 2 decades of experience replicating artefacts for museums & private collections… #Archaeology #BurridgeBronze

Playing with fire and light, just a lovely image of me yesterday trying to cast a sword and the Gods abandoned me

I had used steel tools for year which leave deeper crisper lines but bronze tools had a magic, which brought the decoration alive

Beautiful curved bronze age knife which caught my eye and wanted to add the decoration using bronze tools. One thing became apparent the bronze tool burnished the imprints during decoration and were shiny

The blades were only 4 inches long but had charm to them

Years back i made two daggers for St Fagans museum, based on a Welsh find they fascinated me due as they had a triple step in the blade. They also had the dot decoration, all in all they looked rather stunning as a pair almost like dueling pistols

Must farm box the man who carved these just lives for his craft, i showed him the epic must farm report and asked if he could make one for me. Hand carved from field maple and alder, he feels strongly it was made as a gift with love for some one #Mustfarm

In the first light of dawn, i have made this sword probably 5 times before but for some reason this one called to my soul.

Wilburton sword and spears one of those rabbit holes i fall down every now and then and make a sword so beautiful i have to keep. The spears are from the Selbourne Blackmoor hoard some of the most iconic late bronze age metalwork

2016 casting demo on the Isle of Wright, a lovely limage of me before i became old and wizened still learning. Like the great Oz behind the curtain, people still look to me for enlightenment in all things bronze but the truth is i just make loads of mistakes more than anyone else

Probably around 20 days work in this pile, the the museum did not want it polished and only a small area finished. This brings my total of shields to 5 including one from a billet which is in the British Museum

The Bronze shield this one was made for the Chatterist museum along with a rapier and spear and it proved a massive learning curve . I even repeated the same mistakes that the original maker had made which was mind blowing, hoping to make another one when i recover some more.

Its been a busy two weeks running a workshop and had little time to post, but had a bit of time to tidy up this morning. I have quite a pile of junk gathering dust in my workshop 😆and thought i would dust it off, and it made me realise how much i love my craft 😊

This is the final assembly, the Yew is bit paler than expected but is one of the best blade to handle mating i have done for ages. The amber is lovely and the bone ring help me secure it to the handle and you can just make out me in the sun round taking the image.

Still a work in progress, 😊 Early Bronze age is so beautiful , and the way the pommel cmes to life in the sun

I dig this Łukasz Kieferling is a lost wax caster in Poland and his work is awesome, he gifted this to me when i saw his reconstruction's of the votive gods and dancers

kind of shows it better just like the sun motif where the hilt and decoration form a circle

Any guesses what it will be ?

Wilburton Sword and Selbourne spear currently working on one the same, the original sword from Lockerbie and was never finished. It also lacked the edge forging and the handle was broken, but it struck me as one of the most beautiful almost art deco bronze swords i have ever seen

This was a joy to make these, the amber was for Wiltshire heritage museum who were working closely with the Stonehenge center over a lone of the original dagger. The grave goods of ancient wessex are wonder, amazingly many of the golden graves are females.

There are also a few axes doing the same journey, when i was doing casting demos there most of the axes cast ended up with EH staff and are still treasured to this day 😊