Had quite the day at the conference -- lots of learning.
The bending class (he covered twisting as well) was really cool -- there are some basic blacksmithing decorative techniques and the instructor busted through that wall and brought out some very simple to fabricate but very gorgeous treatments of square and round stock. Good stuff for door handles, cabinet pulls, etc... The teacher (Ries Niemi) is a hoot -- anyone who can quote Frank Zappa, Ludvig Wittgenstein, Karl Mark and Edgard Varese in the context of ironworking has a brain on him... The Marx quote was fun in that he was using a piece of German equipment to automate the bending and twisting process (a Hebo) and the Germans are very top-down fussy about what can and cannot be done with their machinery. Ries is very much a hacker and has that Hebo doing all sorts of things that the manufacturer never thought of. The quote was: "The Worker controls the Means of Production". Heh.
Nothing too much happened in the afternoon. The Blacksmith wars wasn't as exciting as I thought it might be. I did sign up for a class in repousse but did not win the lottery for the six seats at the class. Went out to a local restaurant supply looking for some replacement spatulas and dough scrapers for the bakery. There was a crew making steel from iron ore and that was a lot of fun to watch.
Tonight was the final evening with a dinner and annual meeting and auction. I had already bought about $150 of tools so didn't bid at auction although there was some gorgeous work there. Stuffed.
Back at the motel, more stuff tomorrow and the conference closes at noon. I'll stay for a couple hours to help pack and load and then back to my bucolic little mountain village...
