My happiest forging experience happenend a few years back at an upper secondary school.
The school has three days every year where pupils from lower secondary school and their parents can come visit to help the kids decide upon their educational path in life.
I was invited to demonstrate some forging even though the school does not offer forging classes.
The school supplied me with an anvil, hammers and tongs, a pile of gravel and bricks etc.
We buildt a very crude and primitive forge in the morning.
Lots of people came to visit, circulating from class to class and ended up in the forge. Once in the forge they lost interest for the other classes.
The room was full of kids, waiting impatiently for their turn to hammer hot steel.
Every now and then I forged a small knife as a demonstration and then I let the kids have a go at it.
The headmaster came by and was very pleased. He said that he had never seen kids showing that much interest in anything else before.
Several young people wanted additional info on what was needed to set up a forge as they wanted to make knives at home.
They were quite surprised by how little it takes to make it happen. A few bricks, charcoal and a hairdrier, an anvil shaped object, a piece of steel tubing and off you go.
Seeing all the enthusiasm made this experience one of my happiest moments ever.
The school has three days every year where pupils from lower secondary school and their parents can come visit to help the kids decide upon their educational path in life.
I was invited to demonstrate some forging even though the school does not offer forging classes.
The school supplied me with an anvil, hammers and tongs, a pile of gravel and bricks etc.
We buildt a very crude and primitive forge in the morning.
Lots of people came to visit, circulating from class to class and ended up in the forge. Once in the forge they lost interest for the other classes.
The room was full of kids, waiting impatiently for their turn to hammer hot steel.
Every now and then I forged a small knife as a demonstration and then I let the kids have a go at it.
The headmaster came by and was very pleased. He said that he had never seen kids showing that much interest in anything else before.
Several young people wanted additional info on what was needed to set up a forge as they wanted to make knives at home.
They were quite surprised by how little it takes to make it happen. A few bricks, charcoal and a hairdrier, an anvil shaped object, a piece of steel tubing and off you go.
Seeing all the enthusiasm made this experience one of my happiest moments ever.
