Spokane County Fair

Epilogue:

In the daily blog, I mentioned the Russian grandpa I met at the Fair, who had been a blacksmith since age 14. His name is Vasily. He came to my shop last Friday and spent a couple of hours, during which he forged and finished a knife from a piece of 5160 steel I had on hand. He had brought a piece of what was allegedly stainless steel suitable for knifemaking, but rejected it after giving it a quick test.

Here's his test: He hammered out one tiny corner of his steel to about the thickness of a razor blade, then quenched it in water after raising it to dull red heat. Set the quenched corner on the anvil and gave it a gentle whack. If it had been suitable for knifemaking, it should have broken. Instead, it simply bent. Couldn't be hardened!

Vasily loved my Rhino anvils in my shop, said they were far superior to the anvils he'd worked with. He had never seen a power hammer. He had never seen cable damascus either, and was skeptical when I told him that's what the stack of cable lengths is for ̶ until I showed him a set of pieces illustrating all the steps, then showed him a finished blade blank. Now he's eager to try making his own damascus blade.

Most of the work he did back in Russia was making and repairing farm implements, like plows. He has done a lot of forge welding, including wagon tires.

In the coming months I hope to learn a lot from him. Just meeting him would have been worth the time and effort of the 10-day Fair!

Sunday, September 19, 2010 - last entry
Sure enough, we got rained out. Got the fire going about 11:00 and those heavy clouds dumped their load at about 12:30. It seemed prudent to start packing. So Larry and I got things 90% put away in my orange trailer, and Don showed up in time to help with the last few items.


As we were packing up, we were invited to participate in the Spokane Valley Heritage Fair next May-- where it will be okay to sell things we make. Sounds good to me!

This Fair was a great success. Our fervent thanks to the Inland Empire Steam & Gas Buffs and especially Myron Fuller for giving us space at the fair, and for all the smiles and fascinating conversations with the Buffs who came over to our site to visit. Thanks also to Don Lightfoot, Larry Schultz, John Huffstutter, Ben Lee, Blaise, Sharon McGrew and Lynn Bain for the time and effort they put in to keep the anvil ringing and the forge hot.

For me, this has been a huge leap toward my dream of building an active community of blacksmiths in Eastern Washington. The doors that were opened for us at the Spokane County Fair 2010 will lead to decades of friendships and blacksmithing enjoyment.

Sunday morning, September 19
[It is soggy this morning, and the sky looks heavy far into the southwest where our weather comes from. But, we will brave the elements, fire up the forge and keep it going until at least mid-afternoon. In the past few days on several occasions, kids and parents have gladly stood there in the rain watching us pound metal!]


Saturday, September 18
Fortunately, the weather man was wrong again. No thunderstorms, hardly any rain, and we even got about 45 minutes of sunshine. It was a very nice day for blacksmithing at the fair!

The day started slow and built up to a low-medium level of chaos. The most kids we had waiting at one time for their doggies/kitties/flowers/smileys was 12.
Overall, it was a peaceful and relaxing day. Larry and Ben came in the morning and stayed until late, so there was always someone to turn the crank on the forge blower, hold long pieces of iron when necessary, go get coffee or food, or watch the display and talk with visitors.

A lot of the people who visited today saw us on TV over the past 3 days. I still haven't seen it.

The most interesting fellow who showed up today is a gentleman who makes a hand-powered machine for processing wheat. He wants some parts hand-forged. And, he invited us to spend a day teaching blacksmithing to shop students in a local high school.

Best surprise of the day: a very nice gentleman brought a whole gunny sack full of deer antlers to trade for a custom piece of ironwork for his wife. She will get the best I can make!

Think I've figured out where everybody's grandfathers' blacksmithing equipment went. The equipment is stored, and the owners hope to find a use for it someday. At least a dozen people told us today about their collections of forges, anvils, leg vises and smithing tools-- and their hope eventually to learn how to use the equipment. A couple of them perked up at the idea of taking a class, but most were too busy farming, raising kids, or herding cats.

Today was another good day for demos: we made hooks, knife blades, and lots of leaves. I started putting holes in the stems so they can be hung from a chain.

Score for the day: 3 "Do you make horse shoes?", 5 "Can you make swords?",
14 "My grandfather/uncle/dad was a blacksmith." Another 4 probable smithing students and one father/son team of knife making students signed up.

Here is a photo of John Huffstutter's display of latches and hinges. Great way to show your wares!

Attachment 1002

If the weather cooperates tomorrow, it should be a great day!


Friday, September 17
Fortunately the weather man was wrong! We got a little spatter of rain and the wind came from the northeast instead of the usual southwest, but it was in fact a very pleasant day.

Pleasant but exhausting! Schoolbuses full of kids began arriving at 9 am and never stopped until about 4 pm. It was like one of those cattle stampedes in the old westerns, thundering hoards of children, each carrying a wooden disk and wanting a flower, doggie, kitty, clover, fish, spider, vampire bat or smiley face burned into it. Don arrived about 11:00 and pretty much saved my life. We burned up 40 pounds of coke just heating the wood-burning tool, and my arm aches from the work.

Here's a photo of the first wave of kids. The line was full for the next five hours!

Attachment 1000

For me, the highlight of the day was when a Russian family stopped at our site about 6 pm. 75 year-old Grandpa was examining all the tools, looking a bit wistful. I started up a conversation with the family and it turns out that Grandpa, recently arrived from Russia, had been a blacksmith in the old country since age 14. Very nice family, very nice Grandpa. I invited him to come to my shop after the fair and he (and his granddaughter and her husband) promised to come. He said he promised to show me his knifemaking techniques. I hope he will actually come, and that he will keep coming to the shop, so I can learn as much as possible from him!

Score for the day: No time for anything but wood burning, but I wouldn't trade the day for anything!



Thursday, September 16
[Last minute update: Thunderstorms and high winds are expected Friday, rain on Saturday, and more thunderstorms on Sunday. But the show must go on! Blacksmiths are impervious to heat, so why not wind, rain and lightening too?]
Some days start out better than others. This day did not! Arrived at the fairgrounds at 9:00 and our canopy had blown down overnight. Not just blown down, but self-destructed far beyond possible repair. The sky was filled with heavy clouds. I had forgotten to bring a bag of coke and a bunch of steel we needed, and had left some crucial keys at home. My cell phone died.

Went back home, loaded up the necessary things (including my cell phone charger), got back to the fairgrounds at 10:00. Sharon (my very sweet wife) ran out to Big 5, bought a new canopy for us, and got it to the fairgrounds just as it started to rain.

Well, it all worked out. We got the canopy up, got our ironwork displayed, got the fire going, and the rain stopped.

Here are some photos from today:
Attachment 993
[Sawmill with a hit-and-miss diesel engine. Great machine!]

Attachment 994
[Branded disks]

Attachment 995
[picking flowers]

Attachment 996
[Steve, Don and Blaise]

The branded disks have proven to be a pretty big deal. Kids see other kids carrying smiley face disks, and demand to be taken to the blacksmith exhibit so they can get their own. But now we've expanded our repertoire to include flowers, jack o'lanterns, dog faces, anvils and flowers. Usually adults with kids are too busy to stick around and talk about ironwork, but the clamor of the kids attracts a crowd. Usually some of the crowd stay to ask questions.

Channel 6 came by and shot some footage of our smithing activities.

One of the more interesting conversations today was with a farmer who has a complete blacksmith shop, untouched since his grandfather last closed the door back in about 1930. The farmer wants the shop to be exhibited in a museum. I think we can help him--

Score for the day:
2 "Can you make horseshoes?", 7 "My grandfather/uncle/father was a blacksmith", 3 "Do you make swords?". 5 more possible students, 2 possible commissioned art projects, 2 schools asked to arrange demos.

Rain is forecast for the next three days. 14 mph winds tomorrow with rain all day. Doesn't sound like we should expect a big crowd!

Wednesday, September 15
Today was pretty busy. The KXLY TV interview at 6 am was fun; the anchor and his cameraman both learned to make leaves. John Huffstutter got there in time to be on-camera along with Don and me, then he had to go off to work. Don spent the rest of the day at the forge & anvil, and Ben spent most of the day. My sister, Lynn, helped out in the evening.


[Photo of Myron Fuller (Director of the Steam & Gas section of the Fair) & Steve]

Practice makes perfect: I've perfected the 3-minute bronzed leaf. Made and handed out a couple dozen of them yesterday. It always attracts a crowd, elicits lots of "OOHs and AAHs", and it's over quickly enough that only a few severely ADHD individuals wander away in mid-demonstration.

Score for the day: 2 "Do you make horseshoes?", 5 "Did you really make that sword?", 10 "My grandfather was a blacksmith", 2 "I have an anvil about this big. What would it be worth?". And a bazillion smiley faces branded onto wood disks. Another four or five likely students signed up.

As usual, Don's salmon serving dish attracted the most attention. Next most attractive to our visitors was - of all things - a railroad spike knife with twisted handle. >sigh<

Lots of retired metalworkers with garage shops admire the Rhino anvils. Might end up with a few anvil sales.

I toasted sandwiches on the forge.

Notes for future reference:

A guest book
A jar to drop business cards into
Put wheels on everything heavy that needs to be moved
Have some hand-outs printed up--
the principles of hardening and tempering
where to find, and how to choose, anvils and forges
catalog sheets on items for sale
list of references & websites with information on blacksmithing & knifemaking

Looks like it's going to rain a bit tomorrow. We'll find out what happens when the forge is under the canopy!


Tuesday, September 14
Today was a day of demos. I was on my own most of the morning and needed something to hold the attention of small crowds, something I could do while talking and intermittently turning the crank on the coke forge's blower. That something turned out to be making bronzed leaves. Seems like I made a dozen, and handed most of them out to onlookers.

Then about 11:00 a young fellow named Blaise showed up and volunteered to be my apprentice for the day. He'd had some experience with his own forge, so I agreed, conditional on his joining the Steam and Gas Buffs so he would be covered by their insurance. He joined, and so became my apprentice for most of the remainder of the day. He was a big help! He practiced making leaves for several hours and kept the fire going (sometimes a bit over-enthusiastically).

Score for the day: 0 "Do you make horse shoes?", 8 more "My grandfather was a blacksmith", 5 "Blacksmithing is a lost art", and 4 "How do you temper iron?" Another four probable students. 5 explanations for why there hasn't been a blacksmith at the Fair for several years. John's latches, Don's fish, my swords and oak leaf dishes continued to be the most-noticed items in our display.

It's interesting how many retired metal workers come by and spend an hour or so chatting about their careers, while gazing wistfully at the forge and anvils.

I love the efficiency of the coke forge. We've gone through just $40 worth of coke in five days of continuous operation, 10 to 12 hours a day. I dislike the fact that its fumes always seek me out, regardless of where the wind is blowing from.

Didn't have a chance to get any photos today, but I think Don got some that he's promised to give me tomorrow, so I'll catch up tomorrow evening. As a place-holder, here's a photo of two of my pieces that are on display in our smithing exhibit:

Attachment 970

Not exactly looking forward to getting up at 4:00 a.m. to set up for the KXLY TV interview scheduled for 6 a.m.!


Monday, September 13
Don, Ben and I were here all day. John Huffstutter is down for the count because he's getting set to go to White Salmon for one of Tim Middaugh's terrific classes. Along with my stuff, we displayed John's door latches, hinges, sea horse bottle openers and corkscrews which attracted a lot of attention. Don's salmon serving dish got the most attention though.

Attachment 969

Note: the handle on the lid is a lamprey eel. Lampreys hitch rides on salmon swimming up rivers to spawn.

I thought yesterday was intense. At 9:00 this morning while I was still getting set up, a thundering hoard of school kids burst through the gates and poured into the fairgrounds. At one point there were 18 kids at once, clamoring to have their wooden disks branded with smiley faces.

The scariest part was when two exhausted-looking parents pushing a baby carriage and vainly trying to keep track of their wild-eyed six and seven year old kids entered our space. The two ambulatory kids cleverly took off in two directions, one heading straight for my display of knives and the other heading for the blazing coke forge. I deflected the one who seemed set on self-immolation and he dived for the peanut butter cookies my wife had brought me. When they all left after an eternity of two or three minutes, I was just about ready to call it a day. But it was only five thirty in the afternoon.

I'm happy to say that the rest of the evening was quiet and very pleasant. One group of people asked for a demonstration, so Don made a fork and I made a leaf.

Score for the day: one (yes, only one) "Can you make horse shoes?", five "Do you make swords?", and seven "My {grandfather/father} was a blacksmith". Branded and handed out about a hundred smiley faces. Don made a BBQ fork and made a new handle for one of the smiley branding irons. Ben made a fireplace poker. I made a couple of hooks and leaves. Sure wouldn't be possible to do any production at the Fair!

And:
We lined up yet another handful of new students, met a couple more widely unknown blacksmiths, agreed to teach three metal shop teachers how to do ornamental blacksmithing, and agreed in principle to have three groups of home-schooled students come to the shop for field trips. A group of high school kids asked if we would be willing to do an afternoon workshop at their school, in collaboration with their shop teacher.

This is very exciting stuff. I had no idea how much interest could be generated (or tapped into, as the case may be) in blacksmithing by doing this exhibit at the Fair. My dream has been to create a blacksmithing community in Eastern Washington, and it looks like the dream could be realized far sooner than I imagined.

We've been asked to be available for a TV interview at 6 a.m. Wednesday. WHAT, 6 A.M?? Hmm. Well okay--

Sunday, September 12
Whew! Another intense day. Nonstop visitors to our smithy at the fair. Scout masters who'd like their troops to work on metalworking merit badges; six year olds and sixty year olds full of questions; a family pulling their kid in a wagon with a squeeky wheel that needed some oil, a fellow who needed help un-clogging a valve, and lots of kids eager to get their own log slice branded with a smiley face.

We all slathered on sunscreen to prevent burning yet another layer of skin off our arms, necks and noses. Larry brought a case of bottled water that we pretty much obliterated by mid-afternoon.

John made another smiley face branding iron to keep up with demand.

Attachment 965
Branding Smileys

Attachment 964
Smiley boys

350,000 people in all are expected to go through the fair in 10 days, 9,000 school students are expected to go through our section tomorrow. It will be up to Don and me to keep the forge going while chatting with everyone who comes along. Better bring my lunch; there won't be time to buy food!

I'll try to post photos of the stuff we make each day

Saturday, September 11
What a great day! There were four of us doing demos all day, using just the hand-cranked forge. Beautiful weather, light breeze, very friendly crowds.

It turns out that there are a bunch of blacksmiths in Eastern Washington who who don't bother to join the NWBA. I'm gathering a contact list of those who visit our smithing exhibit at the the Fair, and will try to find ways to get them to share their skills and stories with others who love the craft.

Today Don finished his log-rolling campfire fork, John made a pair of tongs, a mini-crowbar, experimented with ways to make bracelets, and made a "smiley face" branding iron we used to brand smileys onto coaster-sized sections of logs to give the little kids who stopped by. I spent almost the whole day talking with visitors, but did manage to make a BBQ fork in the evening. Larry Schultz joined us and entertained visitors with his knowledge of Japanese swords in between sessions of turning the crank on the blower.

Attachment 941
Don and John demo-ing 9-11-10.

Attachment 942
Don finishing his log fork 9-11-10

Score for the day:
"Can you make horse shoes?" -- 6
"Do you make swords?" -- 7
Prospective new students -- 6
Cards and brochures handed out -- a lot!

Friday, September 10
Friday morning Don and Ben arrived about 10:00. We fired up the gas forge and started making noise and iron objects: corkscrews, bottle openers, campfire forks, and other miscellany. Although we're in the far back regions of the fairground, people started drifting over to find out what the commotion was about.

At noon John arrived and the noise and activity level rose. A steady stream of people came by throughout the rest of the afternoon to look and talk. It's truly amazing how many people had a grandfather or uncle who was a blacksmith. I just want to know where all those anvils, hammers, forges and vises ended up!

Mid-afternoon my sweet wife Sharon came by with a still-warm, fresh-baked loaf of zucchini bread.

John and I stayed until 9:30 pm, when the rodeo crowd left the stands. They all headed for the parking lot; and John and I packed up all the small, movable stuff for the night. This makes me very glad to have my 10-foot closed trailer!

Our score for the day: three "Can you make horse shoes?", six "Can you make swords?", several contacts with very interesting folks with their own shops who are (but don't call themselves) blacksmiths, two possible new students, and about a dozen cards handed out.

I wish we could let occasional members of the public swing a hammer-- but it's forbidden due to insurance concerns. Oh, well. We're close enough to the crowd that they can easily see what we're doing.

Looking forward to Saturday!

Thursday, September 9
We got set up Thursday afternoon right after the rain stopped.

Don Lightfoot and I spent a couple of hours setting up a canopy and tables, and making stakes to hold our gear steady on the grass. John Huffstutter arrived about 5:30 with another folding table, another canopy, and more smithing gear.

We departed at about 5:30, quite satisfied with our setup: a hand-cranked coke forge and a small propane forge, two Papa Rhino anvils, two leg vises, and all the hammers and tongs a hot-iron junkie could dream of.

Turns out we aren't allowed to sell anything at the fair, but we can hand out business cards and take orders for custom projects.