Today I happened to sit through a class on iron by Kettil (Darrell Markewitz).
He talked about sources of iron, the basic processes to extract ore and turn it into iron, softer (easier to work), vs hard (holds an edge but brittle) and how both would be incorporated into things like knives or axes.
He also talked about the quality of iron produced and showed objects to demonstrate how it was used.
The most striking figure for me (Auðr) was the average amount of iron per person in a household: 2 kg. What that meant was you would have a personal knife but not much more. A ship needed around 2000 nails. Your household would likely have an axe, maybe some metal-edged farming implements, a cooking pot, and possibly a bit more stuff like a cauldron hangar, pan or fork, depending on the size of the household. Things like fry pans and forks may have had wooden handles. A shovel would be wood with just a metal edge on the digging part.
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