From Sunny ( so far) Ashokan

Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith

Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith

ilmarinen - MODERATOR
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Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
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Good morning from Ashokan. This should serve as the Ashokan thread for those having posts and photos.

Yesterday was lovely. The sun shone, the food was great, the 9 hour drive went well. Today it will be windy and later tonight heavy rain will come in .... 1-2 inches of it.
Dan Moragni gave us a talk last night on the functional aspects of the design and use of bladed tools ( knives).
This morning Roman Landes ( all the way from Germany) will talk about "Edge Stability and Metallurgy".
Later there will be a great seminars on damascus inlay from ULFBERHT himself ( Rick Furer), and a forging lesson plus a scrimshaw class by Mike Davis.
 
Thanks Stacy, didn't see this one but Page directed me here, I started a thread in the Community to share photos, see this Link to the thread

Have a lot of the new buildings plus some shots of the open forging from last night.
G2
 
Wow that place looks very nice !! I will have to make it down there some time.
 
The Ashokan seminar is the product of the New England Baldesmiths Guild. It is a group of dedicated knifemakers who care about teaching each other, and anyone who wants to learn, how to make high quality knives. It is a no BS seminar, where science and technique are melded into skilled craftsmanship. http://www.ashokanknifeseminar.com/index.html Many of the guys who want to spread knowledge are on BF and HFB, and they come to Ashokan.


Aldo is sitting across from me right now, and says "Hi ( Which is new Jersey talk for, Buy more steel!)"


The classes and sessions yesterday were great. Roman Landes' talk on metallurgy and HT was real informative, and we all learned ( and un-learned) a lot about picking steel and doing the HT to get KNIFE edges. Much of the industrial HT and steel selection info is not suitable for knives.

The weather was great yesterday, and the rain held off until late, when everyone was in the pavillion forging . It stopped overnight and is nice again.
 
It was great to see everyone there, I wish I had been a bit more awake (next year I will take a vacation day before and after so I don't have to miss things due to exhaustion (I left right after lunch, grabbed a quick nap at home and have already been at work for two hours) third shift sucks the life out of you!

Anyway, it was a great time. Stacy showed up with a sweet Damascus langsaex with a scalloped spine ( I think he called it a Wolf's tooth saex), I had some of Aldo's first 1084 with me so Friday night while teaching a newbie to forge, I forged out a langsaex in an hour just to see if l could do it, but on Sunday we all decided that Matthew Parkinson had the best langsaex there! It was a thing of beauty and balance that I could easily see doing well in battle and light enough in the hand that you could swing it all day. The classes were great, especially Roman Landes' classes on edge metallurgy and sharpening, and Gary's sheathmaking. Ric Furer did a fantastic class on the type of forge welded inlay he used for the Ulfbert sword reconstruction (if you haven't seen it, Ric did a NOVA documentary on reconstructing one of the finest early medieval swords, the Ulfbert sword, with Kevin Cashen as his assistant last year), and Kevin did a presentation on "the 59.95 knife shop" about how to use your money effectively when getting started on knifemaking where he demonstrated that for less than $40 in tools and materials someone could get started making good knives if they buy good new steel and spend the rest of their
money wisely and make good use of resources most people already have. Jim Siska did his grinding demo, and a good time was had. The only disappointment was the food. Michael is no longer working in the kitchen, and the food, while adequate and filling couldn't hold a candle to the meals of previous years.

-Page
 
I missed this thread when i created my other, so i'll post my post here =D


So, I'm a terrible photographer... I dont have a good camera... but I do take a lot of photos!

Also, I have no idea now where to post stuff like this, as shop talk is the only forum I even read over here on bladefourms, so if it needs to be moved, so beit.


I just got back from Ashokan and got my photos up online

Page takes a minute to load as it's dynamically generated. I'm working on the captions for the photos now while it's alls till fresh.

http://www.tharkis.com/ashokan13.html

I also managed to witness a drive by shooting while there, and caught it on video.

http://youtu.be/5dFgoeWIzUo
 
How could I forget Mike Davis, especially his scrimshaw class. I have to say his repurposing of existing technology is brilliant! I am tempted to try it now if I ever get time.

-Page
 
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