SOFA tailgating

Southern Ohio Forge and Anvil held their quadstate round-up this past week. One of the main features of the conference is the tailgating.



You could see rows of vises.





Wet rows with plenty of rusty metal. Rusty especially since it rained Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

There were trailer loads of tools. This trailer even included some old traps for my son to drool over.

This trailer contained many rivets of all different sizes. They were sold by the pound and got cheaper on the last day of the conference.







Miniature anvils. The owner said he still had 1500 at home.











Here are a couple of the many hats of Jeff from Persimmon Tree Forge.

Oh wait! Here's a brief dry moment.

Have forge, will travel.

And last the "big" tongs.

SOFA 2009

SOFA 2009


Do blacksmiths eat fried bologna?

Blacksmith's have flat tires. That includes Bob, who had a trailer load of Tom Clark's products.

What a truck. Some blacksmiths are real serious. Even a personalized license plate!












Anvil resurfacing



Photos of items in the gallery.

Stay tuned for tailgating photos.

A Blacksmith shop and a Timberframe

One thing close to my heart is our timber frame home. This
majestic frame stood tall before the stress skin panels were added.

Every morning I love waking up and see the golden oak beams 18 feet above my head.






One thing close to my husband's heart is his blacksmith shop. He can spend hours in here. He hammers out some wonderful items.



This video will show you a timber frame blacksmith shop being built at John C. Campbell folk school. Trust me when I tell you, both of us would be happy living and working in this magnificent building! The craftsmanship going into it is awesome.

Hope you enjoy it.

BAM Meeting September 2009

BAM held it's September meeting at the shop of Matthew Burnett in Cameron, Missouri.

This picture shows some of the items Riley Rice used when demonstrating how to build a wooden wheel.







Here Riley, builds a fire around the completed rim using a bale of straw.








He added straw to it several times. The rim was then removed and quickly installed over the wooden wheel. He cooled the metal down with water as to not set the wheel on fire.








This shows the finished wheel.











Here President Ken Jansen starts the drawing for the iron in the hat session. This month items included, a shop swivel chair, garage door springs, 2 steel bars, back issues of Anvil Ring, gun magazines, a miniature Tom Clark anvil, a rake tooth and more.









One of the highlights of the day is the trade items. Here members are picking up the items they received in trade.










Here are the trade items before the drawing.










The oak leaf BT made. This was made from one piece of bar stock 1 1/2 inches wide by 5/16 inch thick by six inches long.







The leaf he won was made by Thomas Ratliff.


Thanks to Matthew and his Dad for hosting a great meeting. The chili and german chocolate cake was delicious.