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Basic I: Beginning Blacksmithing

Meets the first Saturday of every month.  Learn the fundamental skills of blacksmithing while forging useful decorative items (trivets, BBQ tools), home hardware (hinges, wall hooks), and necessary blacksmithing tools (chisels, punches, tongs).  No previous experience required.  You'll learn how to light and maintain a coal fire, use an anvil, post vise, and hand tools to shape iron and steel, harden and temper steel tools, and work safely with hot iron.  Basic skills covered include drawing out, upsetting, bending and scrolling, twisting, punching, hot and cold cutting, fullering, riveting and forge welding.  You should come to class with eye protection and a hammer (1.5-2.5 lb. cross peen or ball peen is best).  If you have them, you'll find it helpful to bring a tape measure, center punch, steel file, wire brush, and blacksmith's tongs or vise grips.  (If you new to Blacksmithing please talk to us before investing any money in tools to make sure you end up with the right stuff)  We prefer not to limit class size or require pre-registration, so students may need to team up on forging stations during classes.  For further information, contact the instructor  

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Basic II: The Blacksmith's Craft

Meets the third Saturday of (almost) every month.  This is a course in the core skills of traditional architectural blacksmithing, including making the inevitable tooling required for such work.  You must have a CBA Basic I certification (by completing the Basic I course or testing out) to join this course.  Coursework largely follows "The Blacksmith's Craft" text published by the British Rural Development Commission (RDC), with several additional projects and skills.  We also discuss design methods and approaches, equipment selection and sources, ferrous and non-ferrous forgeable metals and other topics.  Even if architectural ironwork is not your focus, the skills, tricks and tool making you'll learn here will improve your forging and inspire new design ideas in whatever metal work you pursue.  We assure you have a decent basic set of hand tools, and both understood and can implement the skills taught in Basic I.  For those seeking certification, expect that at least two years of fairly diligent work will be required.  For further information, contact instructor

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Basic III: Forging to Dimension

A monthly meeting held on the second Saturdays of the month for Basic II graduates and master and professional blacksmiths.  This meeting includes and supports those working on their CBA certification in Basic III (which can be used to obtain Journeyman status in some counties.) For information, contact the forge coordinator