How Did YOU Contract Blacksmithosis? | Introductions Come First, Right? | Forum

What year was it Alfred "Call me Freddie" Haberman had a demo day in a shop, South Seattle I'm thinking, my wife and I went and really enjoyed it. Think I have a picture of it somewhere, your in it and Dorthy Stigler and Haberman, see if I can find it.

1982-1983 I'm guessing.

I have always had an interest as my Great Grandfather (who died before I was born) was a blacksmith. Yeah yeah I know everyone had a blacksmith grandfather.

I watched the Woodwrights shop on pbs for a while and same as Grant wanted to make some woodworking tools. I picked up several books at the library including the Weygers books. I started and did lots of forging with a barbeque lined with clay (dug from a local hillside) and a hunk of I beam.

Grant is that Seattle Wooden Boat Society the group that runs the Seattle Center for Wooden Boats? When my wife and I were in Seattle about 18 years ago we rented a rowboat there and rowed out and around in the lake. That is a fabulous facility, I could have spent many hours there but my wife was not that interested and we had to get on the road as we were heading up to BC.

Larry L;2373 wrote: . riding rides and chasing girls.. ..

.... and as for chasing rides and riding .....

I think the very first time I saw a blacksmith was when I was in 3rd grade and living in PA, we went to a historic house as part of a class trip and they had a blacksmith there demonstrating, and it was neat but over the years every time I saw a blacksmith working I went and watched for a while. But what sealed it was I was thinking about what to do with myself after I was first injured in 04. I had a fascination with Japanese blades and I made contact with the first time with Michael Bell. Fast forward to last fall when I was finally able to start getting a workshop together. But not only by then had I become more interested in blade making but also in the artistic aspect of Iron and the things you can do with it. I know I havent posted much about things I am trying to work on but it will come. I still have good days and bad days dealing with pain so.....it sometimes takes a bit to get things finished on top of having a 5 year old running around but I will get things done in time.

I was really interested in making knives when I was 15. They were usually crude stock-removal bowies from saw blades.

I picked up an issue of Knives Illustrated and saw one of Hugh Bartug's pattern welded swords. I was curious as to what pattern welding was all about, and that's how I was introduced to blacksmithing. To this day I have never forged a blade as I feel my skills aren't there yet, nor am I as interested in knives as I used to be. However, seeing blades like Larry's pattern welded kitchen knife makes me think hard about giving it a whirl.

Growing up in Colorado I would watch the old blacksmith in the town of Kremmling. My mom was an RN at the hospital there. The blacksmith shop was across the steet and the blacksmith lived at the hospital because there was no nursing home in town. He was maybe 80 or even 90 years old in the 1970s. I remember watching him change a wagon wheel rim in 1976 during the Centennial. My grandfather did a little blacksmithing and had numerous coal forges and anvils that he would buy and sell and on hand to use. My interest in hunting and the outdoors has led me to want to make my own knives and hawks. I joined the ABS and the NWBA and haven't looked back.

In 1977 I had a Metal Shop II class in highschool. We had a blacksmithing assignment to make a coal chisel and a anvil out of railroad rail It was one of my favorite things I did, still have the chisel and use it every day. I was told then there were no more blacksmiths and never gave it another though till 10 years later I stumbled accross a book " Practical Blacksmithing and MetalWorking" by, Percy Blandford. I then stared to look for more in formation and how to build a forge but kept hitting a dead end for coal, Looking back now I gave up to easy. Another 10 years went by and I found the Arizona Artist Blacksmith Assc. and ABANA. Then it all began and I was hooked. If I only new in then late 70's about ABANA and the classes that were available then things would have quite different for me now. The internet has made a huge difference for people now.

In 1987 while in the Marine Corps I was living in the town of Jacksonville NC. I had read every book I could find on blacksmithing. A museum in Richland, the next town over, had a great curator, Albert Potts. He would bring in folk artists on Sunday afternoons to do demonstrations. One cold and icy Sunday, I read in the paper that he was going to have a blacksmith at the museum demonstrating civil war pieces. When I arrived there were about six others who had also braved the cold. Shawn, the blacksmith was just lighting off his forge. He had a bellows and all his equipment was homemade. He did his demo in an hour then everyone else left. I didn’t. I had tons of questions. He looked at me and said I could stand there all day and you could ask questions but instead he handed me a piece of steel and commented, “you are only going to learn this by doing it”. So I started hammering and we ended up talking for two hours. He asked me why I wanted to blacksmith. That was simple. I wanted a set of ice carving chisels. I explained that I was a trained chef with a degree from Johnson and Wales University and unwilling to pay thousands of dollars for something I felt that I could make. I helped Shawn pack up and I decided to just go home and do it.

I searched flea markets for tools and found a good vice and a hammer. I built my forge and bellows. I drove to Wilmington, NC and bought my first bags of coal. So Saturday morning came I had worked to do I needed tools for the forge a shovel, poker, rake and water can. Well with in an hour the wooden arm on the bellows broke. Not giving up I made one out of steel lifting the bottom of the bellows by hand I forged my first Eye then forged welded it. Feeling good yes I can do this. So now I could start on my list.

Then something strange happened. My neighbor Derwood came over. “What do you think you’re doing”, he asked. “I am blacksmithing”. “No, you are doing it all wrong”, he said. Then he picked up my rake and started pulling my fire apart. “It’s ok. You can light it up again now get in my truck”. Now Derwood was in his 90’s and I had a lot of respect for him. He was still cutting his own fire wood to heat his house. Down the road we went, off the main road and onto a dirt road through woods which felt like forever. The woods cleared and there were thousands of acres of corn. We pulled up to an old tobacco barn. “See that stand of trees over there? That is where I was born. The house bunted down years ago”. In the barn we went. “She’s here somewhere”, he proclaimed, “If you can pick her up you can have her”! There she was in a corner under a tarp… an anvil, battered, chipped and old. I walked over and wrapped my arms around her and off we went. She was now mine and I hers. Years later I found out where the anvil had come from. Derwood told me he had received it from the great great grandson of John Ford the first blacksmith in Onslow County, NC in 1774. After a lot of research I found out it was made by Mouse Hole Forge. I tended to the abuse she had suffered over the years and to this day she still serves me well.

A few years later I moved to Chapel Hill, NC to take over as Executive Chef of UNC Hospitals. This is where I met George Berrett of Storybrook Metal Shop. We became friends and I would watch what he was producing and go home and make the elements I had seen in his shop. Every time I lit off my forge I had work for hire from fixing farm equipment to making custom pieces for people.

In 1999 I moved to Sarasota, FL. I started working for the Golden Apple Dinner Theatre as the Technical Director. I set up my shop and got my first big commission. The Venice Cathedral needed a fence for a cemetery. I installed it on the morning of 9/11. Since then I have produced pieces for collectors and worked with members of the Histicorial Society recreating and expanding existing pieces from old Sarasota. I’ve also had pieces commissioned by a Japanese cruse line and Bush Gardens of Tampa.

I blacksmith for the love of the art. Who would have thought from that cold North Carolina day I would find my self 20 years later under an old oak tree in 90 degree weather with 90 percent humidity listening to that old anvil ring and boy does she sing.