It’s always interesting to take materials back to the source: woodworking courses regularly head out to harvest birch; basketmakers can be spotted in local ditches cutting branches and twigs, and we even have the occasional sheep on campus for the fiber folk. But taking metalwork straight to the source—you don’t find that just anywhere! Enter Wayne Potratz, sculptor and ironworker and Phil Stephens, sculptor and blacksmith, to co-lead this unique metal experience. These two smelts will be Wayne’s final involvement in North House smelting. Students will build two types of smelting furnaces: a Viking-era style furnace and a brick hybrid furnace, then use them to make steel through the direct reduction of Minnesota magnetite iron ore into high-carbon steel. Additionally, the workshop may build small “Aristotle-style” furnaces to consolidate some of the smaller bits of steel produced into more workable blooms. The resulting steel blooms can be consolidated and hammered into billets suitable for tool and blade making. This course will be of interest to knifemakers, blacksmiths, sculptors, metallurgists, and students of the history of technology.

Each student should come away with a piece of high carbon steel in an amount suitable for a small blade or other tool.

Required Tools

• Leather shoes
• Safety glasses
• Cotton clothing (long sleeve shirt, bandana or cotton hat, blue jeans)
• Leather gloves
• Dust mask