Alex Bealer Blacksmith Association

Call me when you pick a date. I was wondering if this is a church sponsored troop?

I'd love to help! Not that experienced teaching blacksmithing, but I do have experience teaching.

Jim Guy

Thanks for the offers! I'll find out more about the sponsors, but one of the scoutmasters is a police officer Rick works with. I don't think there is a date set, rather they will work with the schedule of those helping. But I should be able to find out more in the next week or so.

Linda

Linda Holmes-Rubin

I want to thank Dan Tull, Jim Guy and Andy Scott for their help this past Saturday with the Scouts. I could not have done this alone! Thank you all so much! We had 10 boys, plus two guests, many of whom had not even hammered a nail, let alone forged iron and everyone made something and some proved to have real talent. They learned to taper, bend, make a right angle, and twist. They also did some riveting. They all made hooks, then they worked on either a steak turner or a spatula as their two projects. They camped down by the creek at my house for the weekend, so I also enjoyed lunch and dinner courtesy of the scouts, along with a wonderful campfire.

Not everyone finished both projects, but one of the things I learned is that a little more than one day was needed for boys this age (11-14?). They were in the fire all day from around 10 AM until around 6PM and we (especially me) were all getting tired, so we stopped for dinner. We didn't have enough time to get back to work and still have a campfire, so a few tasks will be left to the leaders to help them finish the tasks for the badge.

I did learn a few things about hosting such a venture. We had enough forges and anvils--2 coal and 2 gas forges and 5 anvils, to have a good balance of forge and anvil time for all of the boys. We had 2 vises and five slack tubs. All of the equipment was in a lumpy circle so we could circulate around and help. We could have used a couple more instructors because I was more of a gofer, since I knew where everything was, plus, I'm sort of shaky on demonstrating. We also needed one person in the shop to supervise when we started drilling the spatulas. One for each forge, plus an extra, would have been a better mix.

It also would have helped if the scoutmasters had gone over the requirements and the metalworking questions ahead of time, since we just had the one day for doing the hands-on part. A few of the boys did their homework, but most did not. I should have followed up with the troop leaders to make sure this was done, but we didn't expect it would take so long to finish the projects either. I surely underestimated how long it would take for them to do the skills required, but most of the boys had never done anything like this, so next time I would allow 2 days to do a similar program. Then everyone could finish and no one get over-tired and risk accidents. But it was also great to see how some of the boys who picked it up quickly jumped in to help others. There was some real teamwork.

Another thing learned--I should have gotten all uniform material for the demo skills and the projects, and then borrowed enough tongs to properly fit the material. There was a severe tong shortage, and some of the boys had the frustration of using tongs that didn't really fit the work.

All in all, it was a great experience. The boys were excited to be forging iron, they were very well behaved, and everyone learned a lot. We may have sparked something in several of them who wanted to know where to get equipment and how to learn more. The troop is from Stockbridge, so all of you in that area who may be interested in showing one or more of these boys what you do, let me know and I'll put you in touch.

The reason I'm spending all of this time describing our weekend is that I think this is something our guild should be doing more often. It is also a good way of getting young people interested in blacksmithing. I may look at doing a project like this every year, if I can count on the same kind of wonderful help I had this time.

Jim, don't wait long to post the pictures, I can't wait to see them!

Linda Holmes-Rubin

I wanted to thank Tom Davenhall for his presentation about teaching school groups about blacksmithing. It was very helpful, and since this is something we should all be involved in to promote our craft, it is very useful to have advice and suggestions from those who have done it. If anyone else is going to teach or demonstrate to a group, could they please post a paragraph about how it went, what went well, not so well and what they might do differently? I think a lot of us would find it useful.

Maybe a long term project could be a teaching handbook?

Thanks Tom!

Linda Holmes-Rubin