The discovery of iron and how to work it changed human history. Tools, weapons, and daily life haven't been the same since. Here's your teen's chance to learn to control one of the basic elements of modern human life.
In this class he or she will be introduced to the basic smithing techniques of hammering, drawing-out, cutting, bending, and twisting. Using these techniques and a coal-fired forge he or she will heat a piece of iron to brilliant incandescence and with anvil, hammer, and tongs create a decorative and useful 'S'-hook.
This class is not limited to teens, but we do try to make sure that the teens outnumber the adults. The material presented is the same as in our regular "A Taste of Blacksmithing" class, but the class is scheduled to suit the time-constraints of a teen-ager.
Gift Certificates for are available.
one 3.5-hour meeting with a half-hour lunch break. dates×
Instructor: Carl West
Fee: $65 per student
Maximum 8 students, two per forge
Please wear proper clothing for visiting or working in the forge:
- closed top shoes
(Preferably leather, preferably high-topped. Sneakers are sufficient...
but sandals, crocs, pumps, mules... are not. If you can see the skin of your foot, or the foot of your socks, it's not good enough.)
- natural fiber clothing
(Synthetics are a risk because: IF a HOT thing touches them it's likely that the material will melt and stick to your flesh, making the burn even worse than it would be through a natural fiber.)
- long pants that cover the tops of the shoes.
(To keep hot coals and bits of steel from getting down into your shoes. Which I hear is a bunch of No Fun.)
Click here for more safety information.
This class is either: If you're interested in taking ATeensFirst and it's not on the calendar, please tell us using our Notification-List Page.
Dates and Times:
If none of the dates below work for you (or are already full), we suggest you
Add yourself to the Notification List for this class.
(The notification list gets emailed soon after classes are put on the schedule.)
- not upcoming on our schedule,
- or we've fallen behind in our clerical duties and not entered it in the database.
If you found it on our calendar page, we are planning to offer it on that date.