This class picks up where "A Taste of Blacksmithing" and "A Forged Iron Bottle Opener" leave off. You'll learn more about shop safety and begin to work on forge-fire management, while being guided through projects that will begin to build your repertoire of basic blacksmithing techniques, including:

drawing out bending cutting twisting upsetting

splitting punching drifting riveting anticipatory choreography

and using: slitting chisel top&bottom swage monkey tool

The projects in Rudiments I are a barbecue fork and a pair of smithing tongs. There will be time after the hammers are down for questions and further discussion. Taking the classes Rudiments I, Rudiments II, and Rudiments III is the equivalent of taking The Basics of Blacksmithing class.

Gift Certificates for Rudiments of Blacksmithing I are available.

12 hours total in either four 3-hour sessions or five 2.5-hour sessions.    dates&times

Instructor: Carl West
Fee: $390; a $100 discount applies if signing up for three sequential Rudiments classes at once, total $1070. per student
Maximum 4 students

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.

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.)

This class is either:
- 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.

If you're interested in taking Rudiments of Blacksmithing I and it's not on the calendar, please tell us using our Notification-List Page.

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