The New England Blacksmiths' Fall Meet
This was my second NEB meet, and it was great meeting again many of the people who I had met in the spring. This meet had two demonstrators, Michael Saari on friday and saturday, and Clint Wright on sunday morning. The meet took place at the CT Eastern Railroad Museam, which is a bit hard to find, being in a remote location... in the middle of town. There's a 3/4 mile dirt road heading out to the place which is easy to miss, but it's a nice location and well worth visiting if you've never been. Unfortunately I did not get as many pictures this meet as I though that I had, mostly due to the fact that my camera was on the wrong setting much of the time and many images came out too blurred to salvage.
The Images!
New England Blacksmiths Fall Meet photos in chronological order
Friday
Testing what type of steel a whole bunch of angle iron was that was donated for Iron in the Hat
Inside the rebuilt Roundhouse
A nice power hacksaw inside the building
Helping Fred set up his MONSTER tent. You could practically fit several families in that thing.
Saturday
Michael Sarri starting a suffolk latch
The demo setup, with Doug DeLurey's Big Blue power hammer
Everyone watching the demo bright and early Saturday morning
The Iron in the Hat table
Some of the objects for the live auction
Michael Sarri using the power hammer to quickly forge down the thumber for the suffolk latch
Another picture of the same, Robert tending the fire in the background !
Rosco!
The Turntable in the process of being rebuilt
Working over at the Green Coal area
Keith Clark's home made anvil, formed from welded together pieces of rail track and thick sheet metal
Some of Michael Sarri's tools and pieces he forged out for demos
Someone trying to forge a sufolk latch of their own at Keith Clark's setup
A view of the other forge setups at green coal
John D'Abate managed the green coal area, and made himself a corkscrew for a bottle of wine he had
Keith Clark starting to demonstrate two different animal head forging techniques
Forging the horns for a ram's head, normally they'd have been split before this, but Keith forgot a chisel
Forging down the muzzle, which raises the horns a bit
The front of the head is now a square which needs to be rounded off
Forging a back curve for the head to give it a natural look
Finishing the neck curve for the 'hook' which makes the head look right
The basic head blank, you would now punch in eyes / nose / etc
Keith demonstrating how he makes a bulldog / pug, using half inch square
Finishing the 'nose' and folding it over for the top of the head
Forging the head flat
Forging out the ears with half faced blows to draw them out. This dog lost an ear when the blow sheared it off
The mostly finished pug head
After chisling some eyes and nose and mouth in the face, "Lucky" is missing an ear still, poor Lucky
A ram's head that Keith made
The ram's head from the side
Supper time, steak, corn, beans, baked potato
The start of the live auction, with the sufolk latch Michael Sarri made earlier that day.
A norfolk latch handle swage Michael Sarri made
"Do you want to feel it? You need to touch it !" Trying to make a sale at the auction
Gathering at green coal to chat the night away. The last of us went to bed close to 1am, John, Rich and myself huddled around a coal forge for warmth all night
Sunday
Early sunday morning, looking at one of the trains
Another train, only a few people were awake at this point
A wonderful NEB cake... which no one ate, this was because of the TONS of wonderful food and sweets already provided, there was no room !
A section of fence forged by Clint Wright showing the use of angle iron forged framing
Clint Wright and Steve Melady talk while Doug gets ready to sell some more tongs
Clint starting his demonstration
Showing how making cuts in angle and then forging can make botanical shapes
An old swage block in the tail gating area
Another view of the swage block, quite worn on one side
Everyone watching Clint demonstrate various things with angle iron
Clint preparing to forge weld some angle iron to a round bar
Clint tending the fire, commenting on how even though the coal was making huge clinker plates, it was better than what he usually uses
Showing a finished forge weld of angle iron to round bar
Opening out the end of the angle iron over the horn of the anvil for a leaf type shape
Various objects made from forged angle iron