Continuing techniques in Blacksmithing

A few months after the introduction course, I took the continuing techniques class at the Crucible. 

This class started out a lot slower than the first.  Most of the first class was a discussion of how heating and cooling effects the metal, and was something that I had wanted to get out of the first class. 

After that, we moved on to making a cold center punch.  The basic shape is easy - though it took me a while to get it right since it involved backing off on the amount of force in order to be more precise - just turning a square piece of metal into an octagonal one and then tapering and rounding the end. Then the piece has to be heated to the critical temperature and cooled down very slowly.  In the next session, we were shown how to use the grinders in order to clean up the pieces and make the point/edges better.  Then the piece had to be heated to critical temperature again, the tip cooled quickly in oil and then tempered to the right hardness.  Later in the classes, I had the chance to repeat the basic flow for a cold chisel.

The next part of the class was a candlestick holder.  The bulk of the work here was on making matching pieces of scrollwork.  We were given one template, and instruction on how to curl a straight piece to try to match it.  This turns out to be very finicky and tricky work, easy to mess up and hard to correct well.  The other parts, the center piece, bands and catch plate were fairly simple.  The last steps involve using a torch to just heat up the bands and driving them closed around the scrolls/center piece.  As you can see below, I ran out of time and didn't quite get finished.  When I get a chance, I'll probably finish this piece off.

Once again, it was a very good class.  The smaller class size gave a little more chance for one on one feedback from the instructor and TA.  Also, the addition of some of the theory behind the metal working was very good, even though it cut into the forge time a little too much.  Being shown the ability to make your own tools is an added nice feature of blacksmithing.  And the scrollwork, while very difficult and frustrating, inspired me to come up with my own project, which I'll be posting about as it progresses.