Starting the handle on a fireplace poker |
Eating a little smoke as I add new coal to the fire. |
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Before and After - start with a piece of flat bar stock, apply a little heat and a few careful hammer blows, and you get a delicate boutonnière rose. Try it in your barbeque fire at home. |
Striking a forge weld with my double-faced 8 lb sledge hammer. It took 9 attempts to get a good shot of the spark spray. My photographer entered the picture in a photo contest and won! I'm certain that it was the freeze-frame capture of the flying sparks that won... not my image! |
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At the Grandfather Mountain Highland Games in Linville, North Carolina it's... Braveheart? Absolutely NOT! But with a spiked targe and an ancient-form dirk made by my good friend, Alex Cameron, I think I could pass for an "extra" in the film. I really think I need a bit more sun on my legs, though! |
That's Alex Cameron, himself, beside me... the original Wild Highlander. Find a link to his web site on my LINKS page. Can you tell that I don't get much sun on my knees? I'm still trying to find a way to work at my forge while wearing a kilt! Perhaps I'll have one made of heavy canvas. |
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The Grandfather Mountain Highland Games in Linville, North Carolina, is held in early July. After a week on site I had a much better tan than when I started. Whenever I wasn't forging I was in my kilt. Our common cry was "Down with trousers, UP with Kilts!" I'm sure the double meaning was not lost on those non-kilt wearers who heard it! |
These are most of the Wild Highlanders. They are the only officially sanctioned and recognized (by the Scottish Lord Lyon) Scottish Clan that is not based on family lineages or marriages. All members are Scottish artisans who sell only what they, themselves make - true craftsmen (and women) one and all. |
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This one was a real treat! A collector asked me to restore a hand-forged "slick pan" bear trap that had been made in the 1860s. He acquired the trap from a man who'd had it wired open and displayed for the last 40 years and it was in pretty bad shape. Since the trap would be insured as part of his collection, and a true valuation had to be made, all repairs had to be accomplished by hand, using only tools, materials, and techniques available at the time of its manufacture. After the repairs, the trap was fully functional again, and the final value was calculated at something over $700. |
Here's that same bear trap after all repairs were completed, sitting on the tailgate of my truck. It lacked only a few inches on each end from spanning the entire tailgate! I've been told by the collector that the company that manufactured this one made traps in a variety of sizes, including one even LARGER than this one. It was used successfully in Africa for trapping elephants near the end of the 19th century. Although the elephant's foot wouldn't fit into the trap's jaws, trappers had notable success in catching the elephants by their trunks! Please note that I DO NOT support or condone such activities. This information is only provided here as a matter of historical interest. |
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This one was taken many years ago and is intended to answer the question I am asked so often... how did I get started in all of this. In the early 1970s I joined a group of historical re-enactors who recreated the armored combat of bygone ages - full force, full contact, unchoreographed combat between men at arms on foot. I had to learn to make my own MEDIEVAL ARMOR since none was available for purchase at the time... and I subsequently fell in love with the art of blacksmithing. That hobby has now gotten well out of hand, and my business and this site are the results! |
These are the double doors on the west side of my shop. In creating the mural scene, I attempted to incorporate the same curves in the metal being worked on the anvil as are evidenced in the door's hinges. This is the side that visitors see when they walk down the shop's entrance drive in the woods behind my house. I've been planning this mural for several years... since long before the shop building itself was ever planned or constructed. Originally I had intended to put the mural into the center of a gate... and I may still do that eventually. |
