Blacksmithing for Boatbuilders

This is a five-day course ending Friday

The time-honored craft of blacksmithing is alive and well. This captivating, five-day course, taught by master craftsman Doug Wilson, will expose students to the principles of the craft, focusing on hot-forging steel. Students will learn fundamental hand-forging processes and then have the opportunity to create useful items. No power tools will interfere with your understanding of the forging process.

Do you need a special tool or would you like to restore an old one? Can it be fixed, or will you need to replace the original? How about steel hardware? The lessons learned here will apply to both ornamental forge work and tool making with high-carbon steels. The mysteries of hardening and tempering will be addressed, and students will learn to properly heat high-carbon tools of their own making.

As students become more confident in basic blacksmithing skills during this course, they’ll move on to designing and making individual pieces to take home. The promise of success in this course will be limited only by the talent and enterprise of the beginner, and not by the lack of expensive or elaborate equipment and materials. And as students find themselves becoming more confident in their blacksmithing skills over time, they will discover, with pleasure and satisfaction, that they have become their own teacher.