BALCONES FORGE
Blacksmiths of Central Texas
January 2004
John Crouchet, President
Harvey Wise, Secretary
Jerry Achterberg, Vice President
Vince Herod, Editor
Gerald Pollard, Treasurer
Lorelei Sims is the featured demonstrator at the 2004 Balcones Forge Winter Workshop.
Photo by Gerald Pollard.
President's Corner (Begging Again!)
It looks like most of my new job as President is going to consist of begging. Last month, I was asking for ideas, then for volunteers, and now I am asking for contributions to the big auction in February. We are very pleased (and, I might add, proud of ourselves) to be hosting Lorelei Sims as our demonstrator for the big February demo. We expect a big turnout because Lorelei is a well-known and talented blacksmith, as well as a great entertainer. This is a woman who knows how to work a crowd! She has some strange and unusual techniques that you probably have not seen before, and she accomplishes a lot with her trusty chop saw!
Once we bring in the big spenders and high rollers from Houston, Dallas, Oklahoma, and elsewhere, we hope to sell them a few choice items at the Saturday Night Auction to help finance our scholarship fund for the next year. Lots of Balcones members are going to need some financial help to make it to the big conference in Kentucky next summer, and our scholarship committee will require some major money to make it happen. Think hard and look around for what you can give to help make our auction a winner. If you can make tools, please make some for us now. If you have forges, blowers, anvils, or any other tools you would be willing to donate, please do so. Books always sell well at the auction. How about forging us a nice set of candlesticks or a samuri sword, or maybe some fancy kitchenware? Please don't think I am talking to someone else. This message is for YOU. We need some help here, so dig deep, partners, and don't show up empty handed!
While I'm still in begging mode, I should mention that we did not yet get any volunteers to take care of the big coffeemaker. Let me point out that whoever takes over the coffee duties for this year gets to decide just how strong (or weak) the coffee is going to be, as well as what sort of coffee we will have! If you think we should be serving Ruta Maya Columbian #3 or Amaretto-Kona Surprise, just sign up and make it happen! (If you don't much care for the idea of drinking Ruta Maya Columbian #3, then I suggest you volunteer quickly or prepare to be quiet about it!)
We got some good suggestions for improving the meetings. Of course, a number of folks requested that we have a PA system for all of our demos, since our meetings are larger now. To get back to the good old days when we all knew each other's names, members have asked to return to wearing name badges at all our meetings. Ruth Carter volunteered to magically make that happen. Thanks, Ruth. Everybody would like to see some high-powered demonstrators at our regular meetings and not just at our annual big demo in February. We have some ideas on who we might get for these "small-scale" demos and we will be working on that. Last, but certainly not least, some folks have expressed a desire for some hands-on blacksmithing instruction in conjunction with our meetings. Our own blacksmith extraordinaire and ACC instructor, Larry Crawford, has graciously volunteered to run some training sessions following lunch at some of our meetings. If you want to learn, the chance will be available. If you already know everything, then we could use your help with the teaching.
Our meeting to build treadle torches has been moved from March to April. We will be meeting at Rick Dawdy's middle school shop in San Antonio, where we made the original treadle torches a few years ago. In a gracious gesture, Rick's middle school students will be cutting some of the parts for us ahead of time. Special thanks to Rick and Jerry Achterburg for making this happen.
I look forward to seeing you at Steven and Al Deitz's in San Marcos on January 31, when we all get together to forge a little limestone! Don't forget your goggles.
John Crouchet
Meeting Info: The January meeting of Balcones Forge takes place the 31st just south of San Marcos, Texas at the home of long-time member Al Dietz. Al will host the meeting and his son Steven will be demonstrating something a bit different….classic forms carved in stone.
Now you know why the trade item is a chisel or cutting tool.
Eye protection is always a must at our meetings but this time NO one will be allowed to watch without proper eyewear.
The meeting will start at 9am and you might want to bring along a chair. Steve says his Mom is doing the cooking so be sure to stay for lunch.
Directions:
I-35 to South of San Marcos.
Take the McCarty Road exit. Go West across the railroad tracks to a stop sign at Hunter Road (dangerous intersection). Cross Hunter & go approximately 2-1/2 miles to Paso del Robles.
Turn Right on to Paso del Robles and into the first driveway on the right.
An Interview with a British classically trained Blacksmith by Reynolds Cushman
Average is not a word that comes to mind when excellence is involved, nor is it a fitting adjective to describe Brit turned Canadian, Mark Pearce. At about 6' 4'' and a lean 275 lbs., he tends to dwarf the anvil he leans over to work on as he forges out steel with the deliberateness he has acquired over 20 years of smithing.
Many North American smiths have acquired great skill and talent in forging steel, but only a handful of the estimated 10,000 hobbyist and full-time blacksmiths in the U.S. and Canada have received extensive training through a pedigreed state or private institution. Mark Pearce is such a smith. The benefit of such an education and apprenticeship such as he received is apparent to even the casual observer. Every hammer blow is purposeful, every tumble well timed, every finished product exactly as originally envisioned.
Pearce began his formal apprenticeship as a teenager in 1983. Later, he interviewed for a highly prized and equally competitive slot in the COSIRA program in Britain. He was one of five blacksmith apprentices already employed with a master blacksmith selected for that year. COSIRA is the acronym for the government funded Council For Small Industry In Rural Areas. It trains many trades in jeopardy of being lost, from roof thatcher to wheelwright to blacksmith
COSIRA stresses traditional smithing skills in its 2-year blacksmith program. Students spend one month is the teaching shop, then go back to work for two months with their master, before returning for another month. Hand hammering is mastered in the program as well as forging on the power hammer. When a student successfully completes his two-year stint, he returns to work with his master full-time until he himself obtains his master certification.
Pearce was recruited to jump the pond to go play American Football in a Nova Scotia university and this began a 6-year foray into catching, blocking and tackling - skills not taught at COSIRA. After completing several years with various Canadian Football League teams, Pearce settled in Calgary and retired there.
He confesses he wasn't hearing siren voices calling him back to the anvil, but the reality of finding a career after pro football led him back to what he said he enjoyed and "could make a living at."
He looked around Calgary in his last season on the gridiron and saw that there was not a single company doing traditional forging in blacksmithing. Quick to seize upon an opportunity to carve out a niche, he began approaching designers, architects and builders with his portfolio. Granted, he hadn't been in the fire much for years, but he was confident his skills would quickly return, and he was proved right. Calgary is a vibrant city and growing fast. It was a propitious choice he made to plant roots there. The oil and gas industry pumps big money into the coffers of many local players, and they like to build mansions. Sixty to seventy percent of our clients are related to oil and gas, he points out. There is lots of railing work, and he gets the lion's share of the high-end work.
His business, Mystic Forge, has blossomed over its seven years in existence and his 4-blacksmith business is now booked out seven months in advance.
Pearce confides that making it in this business is tough if your quality of craftsmanship is not sufficient to separate you from the metal fabrication shops. Now, however, he has designers whispering in clients ears, "I've got the guy for you….I'm the only one who has him."
While that claim is a stretch of the truth, it is true that making it in blacksmithing has a lot to do with gaining the confidence of these designers and builders, he says.
These same builders, designers and architects all have had to be educated to the options they enjoy when specifying steel elements in their designs. Some frankly were unaware that they didn't have to use just square stock, that tapering and flaring was still possible.
Today, most of his business is forged railing, but they also execute the gamut from fire gates, lighting fixtures, window grills and courtyard gates to hinges. While they do have some individual clients approaching them about work, eight to 10 companies are responsible for most of their backlog.
While there is no substitute for good clients willing to pay for quality work, Pearce points out a few pitfalls apt to doom a forging operation if attention is not given them. Necessary pre-work is critical. Taking the time to make the right tools, jigs or other helps to aid rapidity of manufacture is imperative. He also talks about charging a fair price. He has heard one competitor brag about getting $16,000 for a $10,000 job. But these same people are soon out of business as they have no referral or repeat business. "They show again under another name," he adds.
"We invite high-end customers to shop," he says. After they come in he thinks they'll see the difference in what the competition does and what they do. "We put on a little show for them," he smiles. They watch us sweat and we show them we are the only ones who can to what they want, he explains.
While at Ironfest in 2003, Pearce put on a day and a half of demonstrations for the blacksmiths on hand to observe. Few had seen forge welding done without use of a fluxing material, and he walked through the paces methodically.
He took two, 1/2" square bars and prepared them for forge welding by first upsetting both surfaces to be joined to about 5/8". Next he laid the upset end on the near edge of the anvil at about a 30-degree angle, with the opposite end down from the face of the anvil. He began hammering the overlapped portion, creating a shearing action on this crossection. As the metal began to separate from the bar, he lowered the angle to about 45 degrees and continued this motion with each hammer blow, reaching about 60 degrees.
The scarf was now roughed in but needed to be cleaned up and made dimensional in the off sides. So, while the scarf was bulged in the plane of the tongue of the scarf, it was forged back to near dimensional size in the other two faces of the stock. The scarf could be said to resemble a duck head. With both ends to be joined forged in like scarfs now ready, he buried the two in the coke forge for a soaking, head up if you will. Once a forging temperature of near 2800 F was reached he was ready for the next step.
While still in the forge, he put tongs on the opposite ends from the scarfs. The next step all occurs in about two or three seconds: he pulled both bars out simultaneously, shook them straight down once, causing the scale formed to fly off. Rotating the left hand to bring the scarf head down, he then pressed the two scarfs into their yen and yang positions, he dropped the tongs us was using to hold the piece to his right, picked up his hammer and gave the joint a series of fast strikes, sending sparks flying. It was now forge welded together. Before more seconds passed he reinserted the bar into the forge and brought it up to forging temperature again, but not up to 2800 F as before. Once the steel could be seen to be molten on the surface while peering into the forge, it was pulled out and more rapid, short stroke blows given, tumbling the piece. This "wash weld" served to erase any remnant of a forge weld line still visible. Essentially, the molecules of the two pieces were now intermingled such that no forge line was visible because it didn't exist any longer! Voila! Forge weld without flux and without a forge line. It was not necessarily remarkable, but most smiths present had never seen it accomplished before.
Several smiths looked at the piece attempting to discern where the weld was, but in vain. You'd need an electron microscope to see the union point now.
Mark Pearce has agreed to return to Texas for a one-week hands-on forging class in early April 2004. Details are not nailed down as to city, shop, cost or curriculum. Input is welcome and if you can host this event, please raise your hand high. If you are interested in participating in this 12 person class, please contact Reynolds Cushman at 281-630-2874 or rmcushmanxiii@excite.com.
Down in Houston
Blacksmiths and Those Interested in the Honorable Craft of Blacksmithing,
The Houston Area Blacksmith's Association Inc, HABA, is showing the work if its members at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, HCCC. HCCC is located at 4848 Main Street, Houston, TX.
The HABA Exhibit opens February 11, 2004 and closes March 7, 2004
The Opening for the HABA Exhibit is Sunday, February 15, 2004, from 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM.
HABA members will be demonstrating in the HCCC parking lot March 6, 2004, from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM, weather permitting.
Coming to Marble Falls February 28 and 29th Lorelei Sims !
Our special guest this February 28th and 29th, 2004 will be Lorelei Sims, a master at forging the elements of nature. Some of you may have seen Lorelei as a very popular featured demonstrator at the ABANA Conference in Flagstaff. A versatile and fearless blacksmith, she is the owner and resident smith at Five Points Blacksmith Shop in Charleston, Illinois, where she works on everything "from railings to railroad cars".
Lorelei has recently forged a series of public art commissions dedicated to indigenous plants of the Midwest. She will be showing us some of her magic at forging botanical forms in iron.
The descendent of many generations of Danish coppersmiths, Lorelei brings a special inspiration and touch to her work, which is evident in the beautiful and very intricate work she forges.
For an advance look at some of Lorelei's commissions, check out her website at:
www.blacksmithchic.com
Seating will be limited so get your registration in soon to avoid being disappointed.
A registration form is on the back page of this edition. Costs are as follows:
Members, $40 Non Members, $50 Saturday evening meal, $12
The workshop will be held in the same location as the last few years. For those who have yet to attend, that is:
Larry Crawford's Hammerfest Forge Marble Falls, TX
Look for a map in the February newsletter!
From pipe to flower. Lorelei transforms cold steel to warm natural forms. Photos by Gerald Pollard.
President's Letter
January, 2004
Dear ABANA Affiliates,
It's promising to be an exciting year for our members. Your Board met in Memphis at the Metal Museum in November. Former board member Elizabeth Brim joined the board as Bob Fredell left us for a well-deserved rest. Thanks Bob for all your work in improving ABANA's Affiliate programs and overseeing the new Affiliates Resource Manual, along with all your other insights contributed to board actions!
After three long days, the business and budgets of ABANA were hammered into shape. Please visit the ABANA website www.abana.org and click on Business to view the Minutes of the 2003 ABANA Board Meeting and the 2004 Budget. New officer selections are listed on the ABANA Board List and committee assignments are listed in our Divisions List, all included in the Business section of the site.
THIS IS YOUR ORGANIZATION!! Its success depends on the interest of volunteers. I am astonished at the unselfish amount of work put into the organization by your board. I would appreciate your giving them a "Thanks, well done!" when you meet a board member in your travels. BUT it is YOU who makes the difference! Volunteer to work on an area of interest. A quick look at the ABANA Division Chart will show which committee chair to contact. ABANA is just like your shop: "Effort in---- Results out!"
I am hoping everyone is a volunteer at the 2004 ABANA Conference in Richmond, Kentucky, July 7- 11. Chairman Dave Koenig has put a tremendous effort into organizing and documenting this conference and would be the first to tell you that it is the volunteers who make it a success! Contact Dave Koenig, davekoenig@abana.org, if you have an area of expertise or time to share. As we get closer, additional ways to help will be apparent. It may be just lending a hand when asked, introducing someone new to the organization or, like me, just being a "fetch it". But opportunities abound.
All ABANA members should have received a 2004 Conference Information/ Registration brochure with their copy of Hammer's Blow, Volume 11, #4, Fall, 2003. If you somehow missed yours or are new to the membership/ attending your first conference, please contact the ABANA Conference office for your copy. Just email conference coordinator/ registrar Michele Devine, conference@abana.org and request a copy or call (706) 310-0323. More on opportunities to volunteer to make this a banner year for ABANA as the year progresses, until then.....
Don Kemper
20100 NW 61st Avenue
Ridgefield, WA 98642
(360) 887-3903
dkemper@abana.org
