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Teen Knives
A multiple knives class paced for teens.

In this class the student will start by learning the basic moves of knife-making on a piece of mild steel, ending up with a letter-opener if all goes well, and then move on to a piece of high-carbon spring steel and make one or more small knives, suitable for cooking, eating, or general use.

Focus will be entirely on making a knife; only those tools, techniques and concepts needed for knife making will be addressed. The fires will be managed by the instructor.

Techniques include: straightening, drawing out, forging high-carbon steel, twisting, flattening, annealing, filing, grinding, hardening, and tempering.

Gift Certificates for Teen Knives are available.

15 hours in five 3-hour meetings    dates&times

Instructor: Carl West
Tuition: $450 (includes all materials) per student
Maximum 4 students, one per forge

Prerequisite:

Required: A rapid Covid test that day.
Yes, really, we're still asking for it in 2024.
It's still out there, and no fun at all.

"A Taste of Blacksmithing", a Boy Scout Merit Badge in Metalwork (blacksmithing option) or equivalent is strongly encouraged; the more experience you have, the better the knife or knives you make are likely to come out.

Please wear proper clothing for visiting or working in the forge:
closed toe shoes (preferably leather, preferably high-topped. Sneakers are sufficient, sandals, crocs, pumps, mules... are not), natural fiber clothing, long pants that cover the tops of the shoes.
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 Teen Knives and it's not on the calendar, please tell us using our Notification-List Page.

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