Courses

Our ancestors produced sharpened tools of stone—axe heads, knife blades, and arrow points. Learn how flintknapping evolved and how to identify appropriate base materials from which you can produce a variety of sharpened stone tools. This class will introduce the basic techniques of pressure flaking and percussion, providing the basis…

Outfit your own blacksmithing tool chest while developing and refining your skills on the forge. In this course, you will create the set of tools needed to become a backyard blacksmith, while simultaneously learning the basics of blacksmithing. Initial tool projects will include tongs and fire-tending tools. Heat treatment, forging,…

This course is an introduction to the basic skills of the blacksmith, including safety, fire control, tools, and equipment in both a classroom and "on the forge" setting. Student projects will be tailored toward individual skill levels. The class will begin with basic projects such as decorative nail-in hooks to…

This course will introduce students to the methods and techniques involved in hand crafting an all-metal friction folding knife, a project suitable for beginners to experienced smiths that want to learn more about knife making. Students will learn to forge, grind, heat-treat, and polish a carbon steel blade using coal…

Combining blacksmithing and jewelry-making, this course offers an opportunity for beginning and advanced students to develop their skills as they forge and craft a Damascus ring with a silver liner. Students will begin by forging a piece of Damascus steel, a particularly beautiful and ornamental steel filled with folds and…

Highly prized for centuries for its uncanny strength, ability to hold an edge, and distinctively beautiful swirling and flowing patterns, Damascus steel is art—forge welding at its finest—as you combine different types of steel, forge them through fire, and hammer them into one solid billet. Like a baker uses kneading…

The North House Blacksmith Shop excites the curiosity of adults and kids alike, as hammers pound, sparks fly, and red-hot metal becomes a fire poker, hook, or other tool right before their eyes. Try your hand at the forge in this family class, as kids and adults work together to…

Learn to forge the quintessential tool of the North Woods. This tool packs big results in a little package: the size of this axe lends itself to be easily portaged yet has enough weight to handle any camp chore. This axe will be constructed out of a single solid piece…

This class will utilize traditional hand forging techniques to produce small iron bells typical of those from 9th century Sweden. Once the bell is forged the seams must be brazed securely to allow the bell to ring with a clear and bright tone. Students will use the technique used in…

Learn blacksmithing through making several small household items from the Viking age. This class will utilize traditional hand-forging techniques to produce everyday iron items typical of those found in the archeological record from 9th century Sweden. Over the course of three days, students will forge a cloak pin, a firesteel,…

Ten centuries may have passed since the Viking Age, but the components of knife-making remain the same:  fire, steel, skilled knowledge and effort, and the usefulness of a small pocket knife. This class will utilize traditional hand-forging techniques to produce small Viking Age knife blades typical of those found in…

In order to turn bowls on a foot-powered lathe efficiently one needs a well-made hook tool. These turning tools are not manufactured in North America and are therefore difficult to find. Most pole lathe bowl turners have to learn to make the tools themselves or find a blacksmith to help…

We’re no stranger to taking materials back to the source: woodworking courses regularly head out to harvest birch; basket makers can be spotted in local ditches cutting willow, sweetgrass and cattail; and we even have the occasional sheep on campus for the fiber folk. But taking metalwork straight to the…

Learn the basic techniques and tools of blacksmithing in this intensive project-based class for women taught by a professional woman blacksmith. Students will explore the aspects of using fire as a tool, and will practice techniques such as tapering, spreading, twisting, punching, upsetting, shouldering, splitting, and dishing. Students will leave…