Courses

Get ready to cook over the campfire and learn the basics of blacksmithing by creating your own set of handmade iron cooking tools that you can pack in your trunk, portage in your pack or break out in the backyard.  Students will create tripods, adjustable chain hooks, and grates, as…

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,…

Always wanted to try your hand at the forge? This is the place to start and continue to develop your blacksmithing skills. You will be introduced to the basic skills of the blacksmith including safety, fire control, tools and equipment in both a classroom and 'on the forge' setting. Student…

From fireplace tools to shelf brackets and kitchen racks, decorative ironwork can highlight any part of the Northern home. This course will enable beginners and intermediate blacksmiths to work alongside master blacksmith Michael Jones to design and build their own unique piece of ironwork. The course will start with a…

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 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…

Homemade food deserves hand-forged cutlery! In this introductory blacksmithing course students will make a variety of useful kitchen utensils.  Students will start out making smaller projects on the first day as they learn the fundamentals of managing a coal fire, understanding hammer control and using jigs. The second day students…

Students in this class will use forge welding techniques to create a typical northern European Late Iron Age knife blade from separate bars of wrought iron and 1085 steel. Each student will then complete their blades by learning appropriate grinding techniques and fitting traditional Scandinavian hardwood handles. This class will…

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…