By Christopher Brown
What a great expression, too often we let the grass grow beneath our feet, too often we rationalize with weak resolve to put off until tomorrow, that, which we could do today.
Recently, I found myself cast back in time to a place of honest toil and hard labour and you know what? At the end of the day, I felt empowered, connected and a better person.
‘I had struck while the iron was hot!’
Too many tried and true crafts have been displaced by 21st Century lifestyle and the pursuit of modernity. We were gifted with hands, arms and muscles to create and craft implements and objects to ease our lives.
Horseshoes for the humble hoofed horse, an axe to fell the oak, weaving a basket, darning an old, holed sock, building a dry-stone wall or simply whittling a toddler’s toy out of a chunk of wood.
The other day I found myself enrolled at Van’s School of Blacksmithing in Hawkesbury.
Not knowing what to expect I showed up at 10:00am to be greeted by the diminutive and affable ‘ Spencer.’ Waivers were signed and I was shown a fine kitchen knife and an impressive Bowie knife and asked to choose which one I would like to make. I always liked the concave nose of the Bowie, the curvaceous blade and so, selected that knife, my mate, being a chef, selected the kitchen knife.
With very little ceremony, the six students were ushered by the charming Spencer into the Blacksmithing forge where weathered leather aprons, goggles and ear plugs were provided and Spencer gave a succinct health and safety briefing followed by a pointed introduction, using an old school blackboard and stick of white chalk to the art of blacksmithing our knives and axe heads.
Following the theory, Spencer gave us a practical dry demo of safe Anvil and mallet usage and we were suddenly igniting our forges, working our bellows and heating our coals. The six novice smiths stationed at our designated glory holes armed with tongs, spiked poker, and a piece of steel bar to heat through stages of red to orange to yellow hot. (the ideal forging state).
For the next two hours, we heated and hammered and heated and hammered again, serenaded by the roar of six glowing, and flaming fire pits and the sweet intermittent ringing of hammers striking hardy anvils and white-hot steel. Spencer, ever vigilant circulating amongst his apprentice ‘Smithy’s’, advising, correcting form, and demonstrating as necessary. True to his word, by midday we had all completed our basic knife forms and retired for our bag lunches. Spencer taking some time to show us his own exquisite work on two magnificently crafted swords.
In the afternoon, we were given a demo on grinding wheel procedure before the six of us were stationed at our individual machines and then the sparks really flew as we honed, cleaned, and sharpened our blades, eventually we selected walnut slabs and fitted the hilt and honed the handles. A final wipe of oil on tempered blades and wooden hilts and the knives were complete. An impressive armory of six handsome hand-crafted knives and an axe worthy of Paul Bunyan.
By late afternoon, the valiant company of six face-blackened Smithy’s bade farewell and thanked the sterling Spencer, left the warmth of the forge, and set forth into the crisp, chilling dusk which awaited outside.
What a heck of a day, we had gone back in time to a rustic and honest age, we had forged our own tools using our own hands which were dirty and blistered, but it felt fantastic to be using our muscles and mitts for what they were really intended, instead of ‘ pushing buttons’ in a button driven era. Civilization is losing its tenuous grasp of the past. Too many forgotten crafts are slipping adrift of our accelerated life as we sleepwalk into oblivion.
So, ‘Wake up!’ and ‘Sign up!’
‘Strike while the iron’s hot!”
Connect with a bygone age. And, if any of this resonates with you, take advantage our regional good fortune that Spencer of Van’s School of Blacksmithing is ready to take you back in time and empower you with skills that you never knew you had.
