Young Smiths 2012 part A

It would be very difficult to do justice to the magnitude or grandness of the adventure that the Young Smiths 2012 was.
I am simply going to start in where I entered the scene, and let the pictures speak for themselves!

Young Smiths 2012 was composed of four young blacksmiths including myself. In order of age, we were as follows:

Me, Dave Custer, 19 years old, just turned 20. 6.5-years experience, Columbia Kentucky
(you all know what I look like!)

Kainon Baumer, 17 years old, just turned 18. 1.5 years experience, Austen Texas

Daniel Riffe, 16 years old. 3 years experience, Sugarland Texas

Alec Steele, 14 years old. 3 years experience, Norfolk England

Here we are all together!

So here is how it came about. All four of us boys have taken classes from Mr. Brian Brazeal and we use his style of tools and techniques as the basis for our forging theory!

Somehow, Mr. Brian and his wife Karen, organized the Young Smiths 2012 venture and got us in as demonstrators at the national ABANA conference. ABANA is the Artist Blacksmith Association of North America, and the conference it hosts, is the biggest blacksmithing event in the country. There are MANY MANY MANY talented blacksmiths that NEVER get to demonstrate at something like that in their entire lifetime. It is a true privalidge and honour to be permitted to be demonstrators at the National ABANA conference.

So, about two weeks before the conference, the youngs smiths met at Brian's place in Mississippi, to practice and prepare for their demonstration slots. Kainon, Daniel, and Alec, all got to Brian's place on the 7th of July. At that time I was not a part of the Young Smiths. Brian had asked me to go to the conference back when I took a class from him in March. Unfortunately, I had some other stuff going on and was not able to plan on attending.

Then, as a sudden turn of events, on the 9th of July, my plans fell through. So, I called Brian and asked if they still had room for one more in the Young Smiths group. He said they really needed one more person so that they could have two teams of two. Two days later, on the 11th of July I was in Mississippi. 

The other boys already had time to practice so I had some catching up to do.

The first thing we did was notice how many BEAUTIFUL hammers there were laying around. It may not be in the book of world records but this has to be the largest collection of BEAUTIFUL hammer in the world.

The first project we did was making a 5 pound hammer for one of our supporters. All four young smiths worked on the hammer and we all signed it at the end. We all took turns doing different parts, and turned out quite a nice hammer if I do say so myself!

We also practiced one of the pieces we were planning on doing at the ABANA conference. We decided a frame with a bird and cattails would be a good demo piece for ABANA. Here are some pictures of us practicing a frame in Brian's shop.

After a few days of practice and a short informal demonstration for a local blacksmithing group in Mississippi, we loaded up, and hit the road. The ABANA conferece was in Rapid City South Dakota. Our route to South Dakota took us up through Mississippi, into Memphis Tennessee, then Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, then clear across South Dakota.
Here are a few pictures!

I tried to get pictures of all the state lines we crossed, but the camera I was using was slow. You only get one shot, and I missed a bunch! :(

That's all for now! more to come! LOTS more to come!

John C Campbell July 2012

Hello folks! It's been what like two months since I blogged last! Well I've been busy.....so busy in fact that it will take more than one post to update you on all I've been doing, and probably several hundred photos to help tell the story.

For now, I'm going to take you all of the way back to the first of July! I was awarded a schollarship to take a class at the John C. Campbell Folk School in Murphy North Carolina. The class I chose to take was the first week of July. The theme of the class was traditional Colonial hardware. The class was taught by Mr. Jerry Darnell, an excellent instructor and blacksmith. I took a class from him last year as well, and thoroughly enjoyed the drive that Jerry puts in his classes. It's no child's play, and in order to keep up, you have to have a solid skill base.

Enough talking though.....let's see some photos!

Here is Jerry demonstrating!

Here is one of me working......many thanks to Mr. Jerry for being the photographer!

Here is the whole class here! Mr. Bob Alexander (standing just right of Jerry, who is the guy in the white shirt standing in the middle,) acted as the assistant instructor and is always ready to answer questions, and just generaly a huge help!

Receiving my certificate and T-shirt!

At John C Campbell, blacksmithing isn't the only thing going on! There are a dozen or so crafts being taught each week! This is a bird done by the wood carving class. Pretty neat huh!

Here are some pieces done by the wood turning class!

Here is a picture of the blacksmith display table!

And here is everything I made!

First up here is a spatula! This actually wasn't on the list of things we were making, but I finished my other products early, and had time to do this extra piece!

The next couple of pictures are of a five-piece door latch!

Here is a set of split hinges I did!

These are blanket chest hinges!

This is how they work!

Here is a set of 24 inch strap hinges with a bean on the end!

And finally here is a dutch heart finial!

After I took the John C. Campbell class and got back home, I was fortunate enough to become a part of a group called Young Smiths 2012. This group was organized by Mr. Brian Brazeal, his wife Karen, and Brian's assistant Mr. Lyle. Two days after I got back from John C Campbell, I was off to Mississippi on a Greyhound bus, to join the Young Smiths. The Young Smiths 2012 group was composed of four young smiths. Alec Steele from Norfolk England: 14 years old, Danial Riffe from Sugarland Texas: 16 years old, Kainon Baumer from Austin Texas: 17 years old, just turned 18, and then myself from Columbia Kentucky: 19 years old, just turned 20.

The main event for the Young Smiths was the national ABANA conference. ABANA is the Artist Blacksmith Association of North America. The conference is the largest blacksmithing event in the U.S., drawing several thousand blacksmiths from around the world over the course of the four day event. Demonstrators included an Italian blacksmithing team, a coppersmith family from South America, well known names in blacksmithing such as Mark Aspery, Gerald Boggs, and Darrel Nelson, an iron ore smelting demonstration, knife making demos, and more.
Young Smiths 2012 were honoured to be schedualled demonstrators at the national conference this year.

The Conference was in Rapid City, South Dakota.

However, this Young Smiths adventure started at Brian Brazeal's place in Mississippi. All four of us young smiths were at one time or other, under Brian's teaching, so we came together at his place and had several days of preparation before starting on the long treck to Rapid City.

I'll leave it at that, and the next blog will cover our month long adventure throughout the entire mid-west, as we demonstrated and taught the art of real blacksmithing!