I recently spent a week or so at Tharwa Valley Forge, doing a couple of courses. “One dayu, One Knife”, and “Blacksmithing Foundations”. Both were amazing, and I wish I’d done them years ago! The One Day, One Knife (with stock removal, rather than forging) certainly lived up to expectations – it was the perfect mix of doing the hard yards and learning the basic skills of grinding and shaping and heat treatment, with a little help from the instructor just to finesse the final shape.
Not a bad final shape 🙂 The handle was a bit painful – the guy who runs the forge got all excited about a synthetic (G10) when everyone else had wood, and it was harder to work. But it was the right choice – it’s a great look, especially the orange inset 🙂
The second week was a pretty full-on blacksmithing course, basically building all the tools needed to get forging from scratch
Not pictured, a propane forge that we also welded up from a steel pipe. And then used. So we used the tools to make more tools, which I always like, and at the end of the week, everything there has been used, and works, and I can use it to make more things.
Apparently I have a thing for tiny hammers. Go figure. It’s a really cute tack hammer, though.