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I Forge Iron

My trip to Illinois


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Hi all,

Stan Schwartz, aka trying_it, invited me out to southern Illinois for a couple weeks! Here are some pictures of the forge I'm using, a commissioned spear tip I finished a couple days ago, and the nice landscape around Stan's place. Tomorrow I get to go to the SIUC smithy and meet Daryl Meier, so I'll have pictures of that as well as Possum's hammerin this weekend.















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Julian....where in Southern Illinois are you? My shop and farm is located down between Goreville and Vienna. Is there some sort of hammer-in this weekend? If so, let me know and give directions and I'll try to attend. I'd like to meet other smiths around here. I'm the southern most member of the Illinois Valley Blacksmith Association and most of the guys I know are way north.

Steve

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sorry you can't make it Dutchman :(

Stan's PC is pretty slow uploading pictures and most of my time is spent at the forge or in the shop, so I'll put off uploading pictures until tomorrow. Today I got some good ones of pattern welding...I think I fell in love with the gas forge :)

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update:

we decided to head out Saturday night from Possum's, it was fun :) my camera is still full of pictures but I'm sure someone there had a camera. I got to meet a bunch of folks from IFI and talked a lot about laminated/damascus steel, one of the main things I'm concentrating on right now.

I only got about a week more here so I'll make the most of it. I'll start uploading pictures now, they'll be up sometime today.

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  • 2 weeks later...

alright, I'm back home in Arizona now; Stan's computer didn't want to take the pictures from my camera, but I have them here.

Here's pictures of doing powdered damascus as well as stacked layers, the SIU carbondale forge (they had a big press, several air hammers, a bunch of coal/gas forges, and lots of tools!), and a large smithy we visited with a 300lb Nazel air hammer (they were making a bronze gate). They're kinda mixed up, but mostly the pictures of welding and billets are before/after things. I'll have pictures of some finished products when they ship here.

There's a couple big cans of powdered damsacus in the making there, they welded up nice :) Stan is the guy holding billets, I was doing the picture taking.

I had a blast in Illinois, I learned a ton, made some fun stuff, met a bunch of people, and now have lots of ideas for college! :)

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Heavens to mergatroid (sp?) Julian. Wish I'd a know you were coming, you guys coulda headed up this way and helped me out....er...um... I mean, checked out my shop! Glad you made it to the SIU forge shop. One of these days I'd like to get downstate to check it out myself. Glad you had a good time in the Land of Lincoln and your welcome back anytime you wanna get away from that Arizona heat.
-Aaron @ the SCF

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  • 6 months later...

I tried my best to open doors within this region and let Julian have a good look inside of each. It was a real pleasure having Julian here! My family and I cannot wait until he returns here again some day.

Many may think I just sit on my can all the time around here, but some of the pictures Julian posted above should disprove those misconceptions.

My shop is located on Rt127 between Pinckneyville & Nashville, IL. Anyone wanting to visit here can easily reach me at this email addy: [email protected]

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