The first week of class was taught by master bladesmith Joe Szilaski. He is an older gentleman originally from Hungary who has been making knives since he was 14years working as an apprentice smith. I found him to be an excellent teacher. His methods and techniques tended towards the more traditional or "old school" style of smithing. We were able to spend a lot of time outside of class with the teachers as well so i got an earful and then some of stories about his life and tips about bladesmithing from him.
Here is Joe doing a demo on forging the edge of the blade.
To my surprise and utter delight they wasted no time in getting us into the shop and actually working on stuff as opposed to lots of class time and theory.
By late morning of the first day we were already starting to forge out our very first blade.
This is the progress i had made by the end of the very first day. The blade is mostly forged out, with a little refining left to do, and the handle has been forged half way to complete.
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