Hammer Skills
The class is equally suitable for young teens, pre-teens, and
adults and older teens that need practice to improve their hammer skills.
The class focuses on hammer technique, drawing out, twisting, and
bending. In particular, the student will learn to deliver power, improve hand/eye coordination, and deliver controlled strikes with the hammer, creating a smooth surface on the piece being worked. Arm-strength and stamina will also improve. On the mental side of things, patience, preparation, and attentiveness will be practiced.
Its intent is to develop these basic skills sufficiently to prepare the student to work on our standard Rudiments material, whether in the regular adult evening course or the after-school or summer teen programs.
For adults, Hammer Skills can serve as a remedial class for those who had some difficulties in "A Taste" or "Rudiments", and want to practice a bit before continuing. A Taste of Blacksmithing remains the recommended intro class.
For teens, Hammer Skills can serve as a substitute for "A Taste", or go between "A Taste" and "Rudiments" to build up hammer skills, or while waiting for a section of Rudiments to open up.
For pre-teens, Hammer Skills is the only class we currently offer.
The class runs through a series of simple projects, mostly
different types of hooks, though the occasional plant-stake or skewer may show up. All the projects will have roughly the same level of difficulty and use a similar set of techniques, so that students can attend the class whenever convenient. The purpose is to work on strengthening a small variety of important basic techniques, rather than covering a lot of different skills.
The projects will vary somewhat to maintain interest and to suit the individual student, but have enough similarity allow the student to develop some familiarity with the processes and vocabulary, and also make it easy to see their progress.
Some section of Hammer Skills will run afternoons, presently scheduled for 1:30 - 4:00, with a snack break partway through (bring your own snack!)
The cost per week will be $85, and class can be registered for on a week by week basis, or by the month. There will be a slight discount for one-month packages ($320/month).
Broadly speaking, this class will eventually prepare the student to
take our regular Rudiments series classes or, for the student who had
trouble with Rudiments I, help them prepare for Rudiments II.
2.5 hours, variable number of meetings $85 per week, or $320/month.
Full Description, Dates, and Registration Information.
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We'll be participating in the Innovations of Yesteryear festival along with various other artisans, entertainers, and educators. Come visit!
We'll be doing some demonstrations of traditional blacksmithing techniques, making household (and Renn Faire!) objects, and showing off our Striker Team -- several smiths working with sledge hammers on a single anvil.
The two day event will be on June 25th and 26th of 2011 from 11 am to 5 pm each day.
For more information about the event, please go to the website at http://www.winslowshire.com
Just upstream from the Weeks Memorial Footbridge, we'll be demonstrating traditional blacksmithing techniques, and the Striker Team will put in an appearance with their two-handed sledge hammers. 
We are the blacksmiths at the Topsfield Fair again this year.
Prospect Hill Forge will be 'performing' at the 
PHF will be demonstrating, but not selling anything, from no later than 10am (and maybe earlier) until 4:30.
The WMAA Open Studios takes place each year on the first weekend of November. The 76 artists of the WMAA open their homes and studios to the public. Works of all media imaginable are demonstrated, displayed and discussed.
PHF will be at NEFFA for the three days of the event, participating as staff and dancers, probably not demonstrating blacksmithing.
What is 'Steampunk'?
This is a demo at the Centennial Patriot Muster "Camporee". Outdoor cooking tools such as tripods, flesh-forks, trammel hooks, spits, skewers, spoons and spatulas will be the order of the day. We'll be editing this text as we get more information.
Here are a couple of the official fliers:
We'll be demonstrating blacksmithing and offering our wares for sale.
We will be one of sixteen crafts booths doing demonstrations on Park street in Worcester. The street will be closed to automotive traffic, so bring your walkin' shoes.
This is a chance to watch a number of smiths at many levels of skill working hard and fast to beat the clock AND each other.
We'll be demonstrating traditional blacksmithing techniques at the 
This is more a participatory demo than a class per se. We expect it to take all day. If it rains, we'll be doing it indoors at the smithy. If the weather is nice, we'll be doing it outdoors, a little further out in the suburbs, at a location TBA.
This will be our second year at the Riverfest, and we expect to be just one of many interesting demonstrations, activities, and entertainments.
This will be our second year at the Riverfest, and we expect to be just one of many interesting demonstrations, activities, and entertainments.
We're not coordinating, offering transport, or charging for this -- we're just encouraging you to take this day to make a trip to Saugus -- it's what we'll be doing.
We'll keep your teen busy from eleven in the morning till three in the afternoon, and send her or him home physically tired yet mentally invigorated. In the process, we'll teach him or her an ancient art, craft, and science that's pretty much as old as civilization itself.
In this class we will make a fire-steel from high-carbon steel and learn to use it.
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 a small, simple, one piece knife, suitable for cooking,
eating, or general use.
Topics will vary, ranging from Aluminum Casting with the Coal Forge to Explorations in Foldforming, from Knife Sharpening Techniques to Twisting the Afternoon Away. Some topics will repeat regularly, such as our monthly Striker Team Practice, some topics will come up every few months, and some just once a year.
In this three hour class you will be introduced to the basic smithing
techniques of hammering, drawing-out, cutting, bending, and twisting.
Using these techniques and a coal-fired forge you will heat a piece of
iron to brilliant incandescence and with anvil, hammer, and tongs create
a decorative and useful 'S'-hook.
3 Days of Hot Metal at The Ashokan Center, Olivebridge, NY
This class will focus on the basic fold-forming concept of working sheet metal by folding, working, and unfolding and its application to hot iron.
We will introduce Mr. Lewton-Brain's methods of working sheet metal by folding, deforming, and unfolding. There will be demonstration and hands-on work, mostly in copper, which will provide a quick overview of the range of form-folding techniques.
This is a special session of Open Smithy intended primarily for students of our special classes. These sessions are typically scheduled just before or after the classes in question and are intended to give those students a chance to continue their work with minimal interruption.
We opened officially on May first 2007 but our Grand Opening Bash was later in the month, so it seems fitting that our Birthday Party should be a bit late too and the evening of Saturday the 16th of May fits that bill beautifully.
We may demonstrate some of the wonders of blacksmithing. We usually convert one or two of our forges to grills by charging them with charcoal instead of coal (bring things to cook on a stick or grill), and mull cider with mullers and loggerheads. Unlike most barbecues, weather doesn't change our plans, we are set up to do it indoors.
You'll learn how to use punches and chisels to open mouths, punch noses and eyes, and cut ears and horns to make fantastical creature heads with unique personalities.
This class covers the production of a traditional and useful heart-shaped trivet, based on several in the Sorber collection of colonial wrought iron. 
Shane, is this picture the sort of knife you'll be making?
We'll be exploring the aluminum casting technique known as 'The Foam Vaporization Method' or 'Lost Foam'.
This will be a three day class in which we explore the proper making of a knife, its fittings, and the final finish of the work. We will make a clip point hunting knife with a guard and pommel, with a wooden grip.
Prospect Hill Forge is happy to host your party, be it to celebrate an Engagement, an upcoming Marriage, an Anniversary, a Birthday, a Bar Mitzvah, a Reunion, a Bat Mitvah... any day that is so important you want to remember what you and your family or friends did that day for the rest of your life.
We're going to take some time to work on the Bin of Broken Tools.
The semi-annual meeting of the New England Blacksmiths.
More info at:
We'll be taking an evening away from the forge to go play with hot glass in the Hot Shop.
We opened officially on May 1st, 2007, but our Grand Opening Bash was later in the month, so it seems fitting that our Birthday Party should be a bit late, too. The evening of Saturday, the 14th of May, fits that bill beautifully.
The class will be conducted as a Directed Open Smithy, with each student having a choice of making:
Come learn how to make leather sheaths suitable for that knife you made in our Simple Knives, Nothing But Knives, or Advanced Knifemaking. Guest instructor Jessica Reynolds is a professional leatherworker and sheath maker at the New York Renaissance Fair. She'll introduce you to the tools of the trade, how to measure, cut and sew your custom sheath, and some quick tips on shortcuts.
Guest instructor Jessica Reynolds is a professional leatherworker and sheath maker at the New York Renaissance Fair. She'll introduce you to the tools of the trade, how to measure, cut and sew your custom sheath, and some quick tips on shortcuts.
Part of our Sundays at the Forge series.
In the twelve meetings of this course, you will be exposed to the
basics of the language of blacksmithing. From "smash-it-flat" to forge
welding. There will be practice pieces, exercises, samplers, problems,
and actual projects all aimed at building your smithing vocabulary and
fluency. By the end of the course you should be well on your way to
thinking like a blacksmith.
As with 
In this class you will make a pair of simple butterfly hinges, suitable for use on a cupboard, small chest, or box.
This class is specifically geared to the production of a simple, elegant and functional candlestick. In the process of making it, you'll cut threads with tap & die, form a tenon, forge pipe, and work with sheet steel.
In this class we will address the techniques necessary to produce a towel rack, be it wide or narrow, intended to hold an elegant cloth towel or a roll of toilet paper.
This is more a 'session' than a 'class', it is a chance to work with the technique in general or to spend the evening investigating the variations on a particular fold. Most sessions will begin with a brief demonstration of a particular fold or some aspect of hammering or opening. (if there's something in particular you'd like to see in the demo, make a note of it when you sign up and we'll do what we can.)
This class continues where "A Taste of Blacksmithing" leaves off. You'll
learn more about shop safety and begin to work on forge-fire management, while being guided thorough a series of projects that will begin to build your
repertoire of basic blacksmithing techniques, including:
This class builds on the skills developed in 
This class continues where 
Do you have fine kitchen knives that don't seem to cut as well as when you first got them? When you try to sharpen them, do they seem to cut worse, rather than better? 
In this class the student will start with a piece of high-carbon spring steel and make a small, simple, one-piece knife, suitable for cooking, eating, or general utility use. This class is intended for intermediate students; there is another class, 
The twist is a very common ornament in blacksmithing, largely because the aesthetic return for your labor investment is huge.
The whittle tang is a fairly quick, easy, and medieval way to hold a handle onto a knife.
In this class we will make a corkscrew suited to opening even the finest of wines.
Learn to make your own jeweler's hammers.
The sizes you want, the shapes you want, when you want.
In this class we will make a long-handled two-tined fork suitable for cooking at the grille or over the campfire.
In this class we will make a tripod for cooking over a camp fire.
We'll be learning to strike and to master, with single strikers and with teams of strikers. Striking directly and with set-tools. This is not so much a class in the usual sense as it is an ongoing practice session. There will be training for new people as they arrive, and practice for the more experienced. The projects we work on will be for the smithy or for sale by the smithy. Accordingly, the hourly rate for Striker team practice is lower than the usual Open Smithy rate.
Rudiments IV can be seen as the first four weeks of Basics II.
If you've made a dragon head, maybe in 
A chance to work on your own projects or continue on a project begun in a class.