Blacksmithing, day two.
Today we started off learning how to start a fire with coal, a fire starter, and cardboard. Bruce showed us how to maintain the fire and have constant oxygen in the fire. After the short demonstration, we all set off in our separate areas to start our fires. Once all the fires were going, we picked out pieces of metal and began our creations. Each time our piece of metal was in the fire we waited about a minute. After the minute we took the piece of metal out and it was GOLDEN and almost looked like lava. We have rules to prevent injuries by yelling “HOT METAL” when someone is carrying a piece of hot metal around the area. Occasionally we were hit by some of the flying pieces of fire which stung but never was very painful.
Then we began to smash our pieces of metal with a massive hammer. While we were smashing the hammer against the blazing hot metal on the anvil pieces of the metal flew out everywhere. Depending on the way you hit the metal it would either bend or flatten completely. In order to get the right bend we had to hit the piece of metal on the anvil at a certain angle to get the correct curve. After we finished up the last bit of our metal creations we had to quench the metal in water. The steam from the blazing hot metal and the water created a huge cloud around us. We put our metal away and we got back on the bus.