The New England Blacksmiths' Spring Meet
This was my first ever NEB meet, and it was great ! I learned so much from watching and talking with others, and it was wonderful to find out just how many metal pounders there are such a short distance away from me. I had always felt like I must be practically alone, having never met anyone besides a couple of bladesmiths prior to this last weekend, with most of the bladesmiths not intrested in any other general blacksmithing. It's wonderful to know just how many helpfull and experienced smiths are out there =)
Unbeknownst to myself untill after the fact, one of the people who I was talking with over the weekend was a reporter from my town's newspaper The Call. They were doing an article on the meet, and I was quoted and mentioned by name in their article. Here is a link to the article which was the cover story in the Monday June 4th issue. (hopefully this link stays current) Heavy Metal Weekend
The Images!
New England Blacksmiths Spring Meet photos in chronological order
Friday
The front of the Hannaway blacksmith shop
Pond and rock cliff on the farm grounds
More of the frog pond area
Some of the local wild life peering about
Starting to set up chairs for the demo area
Hanging lights under the tent
Starting to set up the green coal area as people arrive
Lugging out anvils and forges for the green coal area
The swage block and tool stand in the Hannaway shop
Board of directors meeting friday afternoon
All the tables set up under the tent and ready to go
The NEB portable demonstration forge set up
The other side of the demonstration forge
View of the fields behind the Hannaway shop
At Martell's Metal Works in the evening
Tong and tooling rack at Martell's
The forge at Martell's
An old Dupont power hammer at Martell's
A laser line level used for accurate measurements at Martell's
How they measure each stair individually
A railing in the works at Martell's
An open faced die used for a variety of shapes at Martell's
Another open faced die
A basket twist done in the center of a large bar
Another shot of the open faced dies for their power hammer
The stock rack at Martell's
Some demonstration pieces at Martell's
A punch press used to put a curve in a railing in the works
A Southbend milling machine
Some pieces of work on the back wall of Martell's shop
A hammer rack at Martell's
Saturday
Lighting up the demonstration forge saturday morning
Trying to get the fire going
Some of Lucian Avery's demonstration pieces of work and tools
The fire finally going strong
Poorly backlit shot of Lucian showing his prepwork before he starts a job
Some gorgeous chasing and repouse work done by a visitor
Another shot of the same
The back side of the same
People hard at work in the green coal area
People inside the Hannaway shop
Lucian working on the thumber for a door handle
Lucian filing larger the hole for the thumber in the handle he had created earlier in the day
Another shot of the same
Yet another shot of the same
Lucian holding up the finished thumber
A better shot of the sillouette of the thumber
Lucian starting a second smaller Suffolk door latch
Starting the punched hole for the thumber
Drawing of how to then bend out the handle below the punched hole
The handle after being swaged round
An antique blacksmith's tool bench with a single board top
Another angle of the bench
A firepot, the bench, and the top of a greenriver #3 foot vise
People watching Lucian demonstrate
More watching people, and Lucian checking the fire
Jaw inserts that Lucian used for upsetting
A nifty clawed foot that Lucian had made
A trivet which Lucian had made
More of Lucian's demo wares
A shelf dragon Lucian made
A piece showing grain growth due to temperature
Multiple scrolls split from a single bar
People at work inside the Hannaway shop
Some demo hooks and pokers inside the Hannaway shop
The Hannaway forge
Swage block and tool stand in the Hannaway shop
A cute pug wall hook
Sunday
Getting the fire going in the morning as the sky gets very overcast
Starting to draw out the stem with the tenon
Same as the above picture
The tenon broke off at this point, to be repaired later
Finishing drawing out the stem for the leaf and acorn
Lucian planning out how to make the oak leaf
Most of the small group of us who hung around in the rain to watch Lucian demonstrate
Someone was kind enough to let Ian borrow and umbrella
Ian tending the fire while Lucian draws out how he's going to make a large oak leaf
People keeping dry in the pouring rain while watching
Jim sledging to just start drawing out some 1" round bar
Lucian and Jim drawing out a leaf from
Jim and Lucian drawing out a leaf
Some anvils which Ed Cannon had refurbished. An American, a Peter Wright, and a Henry Wright
Some short videos I took with my camera on sunday morning
Lucian and Jim drawing out 1" bar stock (45s .mov)
Ian tending the fire in the pouring rain (27s .mov)
Jim trying to tire Lucian out with the sledge (16s .mov)