1st Annual Bowie's Memorial Hammer-In save the date

[Alan Longmire]

We'll miss you, but you can come down here any time, and there will be next year.  If you can deal with the utterly dehumanizing experience that is commercial air travel these days, Italy with your family will be great.

[Fox Creek]

Wow, I was just thinking about Bowie and wondering how that story closed.  It

 is wonderful that this is happening. 

[Alan Longmire]

Come on down!  It's a bit more of a haul for you than Knoxville was, but I think it'll be worth it.  

[Dan Kaschner]

Sad post today.  Vicky and I were looking forward to visiting with all our friends in October but we have to cancel.  4 weeks ago my youngest son Mike, was diagnosed to brain cancer, an astrocytoma.  He had surgery and now we start treatment, chemo and radiation.  The hammer-in will be at the end of phase one of the treatment.

 

Mike is our total focus now.  We need to be here for him.

 

Sorry to miss everyone. God willing, Mike will be coming to next year's hammer-in with us (he loves to forge with me).

 

Please keep Mike in your prayers.

 

Go Bless...

[Alan Longmire]

Sorry to hear it, Dan, for many, many reasons.  Y'all didn't need that. . We'll be thinking about you.

[Warren Thacker]

Looking forward to this.

[Matt Walker]

On 8/31/2022 at 10:46 AM, Warren Thacker said:

Looking forward to this.

Warren, Hope to meet you at our guild meeting tomorrow at Rocky Mount.

 

About a month away. Time to start cleaning those cluttered shops for tailgate sale items!

[Alan Longmire]

And we've confirmed a couple more demonstrators!  One is a jeweler by training who now does engraving as well as knife making.  We think we can hook his microscope to a projection screen so everyone can see what's happening. 

 

This is gonna be good.  Mildly chaotic, but good!

[Bill Armstrong]

2 hours ago, Alan Longmire said:

And we've confirmed a couple more demonstrators!  One is a jeweler by training who now does engraving as well as knife making.  We think we can hook his microscope to a projection screen so everyone can see what's happening. 

 

This is gonna be good.  Mildly chaotic, but good!

I was discusing the event with SWEETIE over a few cocktails this evening and she had a couple of good suggestions that I thought I would share.

1. How about a schedule of demonstrators that could be handed out as folks were checking in.

2. PPE , ear and eye protection for people attending green coal or participating in demonstrations

[Alan Longmire]

PPE is a good idea.  No schedule, though, that violates the first principle of Bowie's.  (although my wife asked the same thing...) All we can say for sure is that it starts at 10 Friday, lunch is noon-ish to 1-ish all three days, and Saturday after lunch is the knife show, Iron in the Hat, and the cutting competition/demonstration. 

 

I do think I know who I want to open, but if he doesn't show on time someone else will get to.  My own demo will be either Friday afternoon or Sunday morning, depending on several factors. 

 

The whole idea is to be relaxed and informal. Except for lunch, stuff happens when it happens.  Thus the mildly chaotic atmosphere mentioned above.   There will be no gaps between demos, though.  

 

I'll have a better idea of the order of things on the day of, once I have talked to all the demonstrators at the same time.

[Bill Armstrong]

I can supply some eye and ear protection if that will help.

[Alan Longmire]

It all helps!  We have some safety glasses in the shop toolbox.   We can get more. Ear protection for spectators shouldn't be that big an issue with no power hammers, but it would be polite of us to have a box of plugs for those who want it.  

 

In the 15 or so years I went to Bowie's original, there were only two injuries.  One was a guy in the front row who didn't listen when I told him he was in range of the hot flux spray, he got a blister on the top of his bald head from a big blob of hot flux.  The other was a guy in the kitchen cutting competition (which we are not doing for this very reason) who sliced the side off his finger trying to fillet a lemon thinner than anyone else.  

 

We have been told there will be EMTs on-site, if anyone is worried.  

[Jaron Martindale]

This is all making me very sad I'll be missing it

I hope it comes back next year so I can join in!

[Alan Longmire]

Addressing the schedule or lack thereof, guild president Kurt came up with a good analogy:  rather than thinking of the event as a series of classes taught by teachers, think of it as a jam session among musicians of various talents. Yes, there's a few professionals, and the rest are serious amateurs, but whoever has the solo or the lead is going to contribute to the flow of the session in a positive way.  Demos are as short or as long as the demonstrator wants. Everyone chips in as they like.  So yeah. That comes closer to capturing the vibe we're trying to recreate better than anything else I've tried regarding the Bowie's experience. 

[Matt Walker]

On 9/12/2022 at 6:36 PM, Jaron Martindale said:

I hope it comes back next year so I can join in!

Jaron, We all expect this thing to be an annual event. Our guild is a pretty solid group having meet continuously for the past 32 years except for a covid break. However expect it to evolve. Alan and I have convinced the more entrepreneurial members to keep it as much as we can like Bowie's at least this first year. In fact there is no local promotion. This forum and leaks are it.

 

Long term goal is for our group to own our own meeting place. So it may need to change a little to help meet that goal. There will be photos for those who can't make it this time and one member just bought a video camera.

[Jaron Martindale]

Thank You Matt, that is very reassuring, and I'll be sure to plan on it for next year!

[Alan Longmire]

Things continue to shape up!  The schedule (such as it is) for Friday and Sunday remain loose,  but Saturday has coalesced into the following:

 

9:30 AM - ABS mastersmith Burt Foster, shaping handles on the grinder

10:30 AM - ABS journeyman Bill Wiggins, grinding blades

 

               LUNCH

 

1:00 PM - Curt Haaland of Free Hill Blades, HT for hamon.

 

               Knife Show (bring stuff to show!)

               Cutting Competition (see rules posted previously)

                Iron in the Hat

 

Note that besides Burt starting at 9:30, everything is subject to change without notice.

 

And about that Iron in the Hat...  You've seen the hawk I'm putting in.  You've seen the folder Brian is offering.  Now check out the tool box full of smithing tools* being donated by the State of Franklin Blacksmith's Guild:

 

 

 

 

 

 

*cat not included

 

Friday's schedule is looking like I'll lead off with a discussion and demonstration of effective normalizing, with digressions on metallurgy, followed by a tong-making demo by noted smith Mike Rose, longtime lead blacksmith and retired Director of Crafts for Dollywood.  Then I may do the hawk demo. The afternoon will likely close with the antique Bowie knives of Mark Zelasky, editor of Knife! magazine and Knife World Books.

 

Sunday will feature engraving in the pavilion, and blade forging outdoors with our special guest who shall not be named until the last minute.  

 

There will be lots of other stuff going on around the periphery, there is food available on site for breakfast and lunch, and providing the weather cooperates this is looking to be one heck of an event.

 

If you're coming, be sure to bring something for Iron in the Hat and cash to buy tickets!  Remember, anything there can be yours for a $1 ticket.  The more tickets you buy, the better your chances of winning!  And we have something like 8,300 tickets available.

 

 

 

 

 

[Gerald Boggs]

3 hours ago, Alan Longmire said:

*cat not included

Too bad, I thought you were going to go with a Schrödinger cat trick.

[Gerald Boggs]

Not germane to the event, except I can bring them for pickup.

Used beer kegs. $75 each or $100 if I cut the top off. These make great water tanks

[Alan Longmire]

Update:

 

Was at the venue this morning moving equipment, and got a couple of pics.

 

Here's the outdoor portion in front of the main pavilion, taken from the parking area. The demo tent will be right in front of the building with the demonstrator's spot to the left by the tree at the corner of the building.

 

 

For the indoor demos (engraving, show-and-tell, Bowie lecture) here's inside the main pavilion:

 

 

And the view off the back porch of said pavilion:

 

 

Robin says not to get too excited, a family of otters moved in last year and ate all the fish. 

 

Oh, and we've added another great demonstrator Saturday: None other than Jason Knight, ABS Mastersmith and sometimes judge on a little-known TV show called Forged in Fire, or something like that...

[Brian Dougherty]

Looks like a nice place to spend a weekend

 

[Alan Longmire]

3 hours ago, Brian Dougherty said:

Looks like a nice place to spend a weekend

 

 

It is!  Absolutely gorgeous property.  

 

I also realize we haven't really talked about what to expect if you've never been to this type of event.

 

Anything you've made is fine to bring for show-and-tell, or nothing, if you don't feel like showing and telling.  If we keep the vibe true to the original Bowie's, it'll be a laid-back bunch of folks watching laid-back demonstrations, with the occasional side conversation off in the distance.  There's plenty of space to spread out.

 

If you want to play in the fire, there will be three or four open forges across the field from the demo area.  Some will be used for green coal classes, but when those aren't going they're there for folks to play in.  So bring tongs, hammers, whatever. 

 

We will have a tool vendor on-site, so if you need tongs, hammers, whatever, you can buy them.  The AACB demo trailer we were planning on having, which has four complete forge stations with tools, is not coming due to a seized axle bearing. So public tooling is not going to happen.  

 

If you want to do tailgate sales, we'll have an area of the parking lot for you.  Just tell the parking attendant (who may be me from time to time) and we'll get you where you need to be.  

 

There will be a few grinders. The guy who's selling them will have one available to play with, the others are personal property and not to be messed with without owner permission.  My HT oven will be there, but that's for Curtis Haaland's demo only and is not for general consumption.  

 

We'll all have nametags.  The general public who wander in will not, unless they decide to see what's up with us and come register.  Casual observers will be able to go watch the free forges, since there will be more hammering over there, as opposed to grinders and lectures.  Except for the forging demos, of course!  

 

There will be a limited number (around 50) of metal folding chairs on location. If you have a favorite camp chair, bring it.

 

Otherwise, don't block the driveway, park where you're told, buy lots of food from the Lynches' Kitchen, and have fun!  This is about camaraderie,  old friends and new, and learning a few tips and tricks along the way.  Oh, and don't feed the buffalo tarps or plastic bags, no matter how much they beg for them.  There will be hay and such to feed them if you want. They're a bunch of big mooches.  So are the peafowl, you've been warned!

 

 

[Alan Longmire]

On 9/12/2022 at 11:12 AM, Bill Armstrong said:

I can supply some eye and ear protection if that will help.

 

If you want to bring some earplugs, go for it.  We've got a case of 50 pairs of safety glasses on the way.  On the photography, are you doing still only, or video too?

[Bill Armstrong]

I will be doing stills , but I can shoot videos on the same camera if you think there is a need for it.

I am planning to come to the "work day"  tomorrow.  We can talk about your expected needs then.

What time you plan on being on the farm?

[Matt Walker]

2 hours ago, Bill Armstrong said:

What time you plan on being on the farm?

Hey Bill,  Event at the venue plus the rain has canceled the workday tomorrow.