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Making an Athame
A traditional tool. ("AH-thuh-may" or "Ah-THAH-may")

We will forge a double-edged (blunted) mild-steel dagger for decorative or ritual use.

Blacksmithing techniques include:
Drawing out to a taper
Flattening on the diagonal
Upsetting
and Twisting

Gift Certificates for Making an Athame are available.

3 hours, one meeting    dates&times

Instructor: Carl West
$85 per student
Maximum 8 students, two per forge

Prerequisite:
No smithing experience expected or required.
Willingness to actually hit with the hammer will be invaluable.

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.

If you fall ill before class, do stay home.
And as soon as you realize that's what is going to happen, please CALL 781 81 oxide (781 816 9433) so we know not to wait for you.

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.)

Thursday, July 16
11:00am to 3:00pm
(2026)

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