Well Saturday was a long hot day in Tulsa, and I attended the Salt Fork Craftsmen Basic Blacksmithing course. I was really impressed with the things they covered in the course which is geared to those who have never hit hot metal before.
We stared at 8 am and called it a day at about 5 pm. We started with a basic safety meeting and learned to put hot metal under the forge and the usual importance of gloves,eye protection etc. Hammer control was stressed and we all praticed with some cold stock on the anvils. (we had 4 forges set up). Then we learned how to use a Hardy to cut hot metal, and made an S hook. after we all got done we were shown some variations to the hook and discussed how to create them.
The next project was a leaf made out of 1/4 inch round stock. (Mine did not turn out, I need to pratice spreading the rod out better) but some of the others made some fine leafs to which they added a key ring and had a leaf key fob. after that we started on a flux spoon which involved forge welding, With the additional mass to work with my spoon came out serviceable.
After lunch we finished up the spoon and finished the day making a center punch out of tool steel and leared how to harden and talked about tempering and anealing the steel we worked with.
When we were waiting for the forges to cool down so they could be loaded into the trailer, we talked a bit about what we all wanted to do with this hobby. When I told the instructor that I was a historical re-enactor he suggesed I come to his advance workshop in the near future and learn about working cast iron. He has a workshop on smelting and the various stages of iron smelting.
All in all it was a very informative day, and I learned a few tricks and tips. It was $20.00 well worth spending.
Man that sounds like a ton of fun. I wish they would hold stuff like that out here or at least advertise it a little better. Sounds like it was a blast. thmbsup
Quote from: BrokenHawk on April 02, 2012
Man that sounds like a ton of fun. I wish they would hold stuff like that out here or at least advertise it a little better. Sounds like it was a blast. thmbsup
I looked around at the Rendezvous I attended and asked the smiths who were attending about a local association. One of them finally gave me information on the Saltfork Craftsmen here in Oklahoma. You might try that approach or contact ABANA (American Blacksmith Artisans of North America) at www.abana.org/ (http://www.abana.org/) and ask about a group in your area.
Thanks I'll give it a go.
sounds like a lot of fun and learning useful blacksmithing is great.
If you look at some of my older posts in this thread you will see my first forge, and some pictures of the Late 1800's or early 1900's forge Bulldog Lady's Ex Husband gave us, the forge was used by her Ex's Grandfather on the farm and has not been used for several years so when we told them what we were doing it was gifted to us.
Gotta love itr When Ex's are able to remain friends....
Great stuff! I would love to attend that course, as well as the advanced. Going to look into that for sure.