Alex Bealer Blacksmith Association

April's meeting was at Stephen Fowler's up in Acworth. Steve makes blades in Japanese and other styles. He demonstrated on basic knifemaking.

Steve's shop is in the corner of his garage. I'm sure I wasn't the only one excited to see someone turning out good looking blades in a shop that was put together in places with chewing gum and baling wire. He's got a homemade forced-air gas forge and put together his own anvil out of a length of forklift fork welded to a piece of 5x5 inch square stock. Ingenuity is high, and he gets the most out of his tools.

Steve made two knives out of W1 steel and put on in Iron in the Hat. He went over forging to shape, tapering the edge, quenching properly (with an intentional demo of how NOT to do it!), grinding, and testing. It was a very accessible demo, and he got lots of questions.

After Iron in the Hat, which was excellent this month, scholarships were drawn for the 2006 year and the gas forge raffle was drawn. Jared (?) won the gas forge. He's a 13-year old beginner, who already has an anvil, but needed a forge to get his shop started. Jared's dad was also present, and is a fireman, so our insurance guy will still be able to sleep at night after we sent a 13-year old home with a potentially explosive device.

After IITH, Steve did a second demo on a japanese style of heat treating with clay. Very cool stuff.

There was smoked turkey and a ham for lunch, and we fell to with gusto. It rocked. Worth the drive.