Get in touch with your inner Viking. In this three day course with master blacksmith Thomas Latane, students will forge either a battle axe or hewing hatchet with a tapered rectangular eye socket. This shapely early form is made up of three to five pieces rather than the two used to produce an axe with a simple wrapped eye. Parts will be forged to shape, forge welded together and further forged to refine. A high carbon steel bit will be welded between layers of low carbon steel, shaped, hardened and tempered. Students wishing to create a hewing hatchet may leave the blade thicker and less broad and weld the high carbon steel to one side rather than in the center of the edge. The low carbon body of the axe will remain soft enough so it can be decorated cold with punches as time allows to give it the look of the original models.