Novel Research, Father’s Day and Cool Stuff
Sunday was father’s day. My family treated me to a visit to a local black smithy — Ballard Forge. 
The smith, Steve Howell, spent two hours talking about everything from technique and tool choice, to legend and lore. It was fascinating. As part of the visit, he made us a bottle opener. That allowed him the opportunity to show us various techniques from drawing out the steel, using a metal punch, and the various uses of an anvil.
I loved that he made all his own tongs, and could tell us the history of all three of his anvils. He had quite the collection of hammers. 
His forge was considerably smaller than I’d anticipated, but it proved to be both powerful and economical. It could heat steel hot enough to shape as he saw fit.
All in all, I think this was one of the coolest gifts my family have given me, and that’s with some pretty steep competition. I especially love how they know I’ve been doing all the black smithing research the novel series, and just took it upon themselves to get me some live action knowledge. Next time, I want to mash some metal myself, but as first lessons go, this one was pretty amazing.
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