Since my last post, I’ve spent a ton more time at the forge, although I had Thursday off to rest my wrists, since they were sore enough on Tuesday night that I needed to ice them. This week I learned to make several new shapes, and I also got to observe a variety of other projects. I took some videos this week which are linked throughout, and just like last week there are some links to pictures and pages from the web for the sake of explanation.

Photo gallery: 

So far I've only spent two days at the forge, since my mentor Arnon was sick on Monday, but both days have been awesome. I also have today off while Arnon works from home on parts of the business that don't require the shop, so I'll try to write a lot. I'll also put in some links to pictures I find online of tools that are difficult to describe in text so you can get an idea of what I'm talking about without me wasting space trying to explain them.

Photo gallery: 

For my senior project, I will be working with Arnon Kartmazov at Bridgetown Forge. I will learn the basics of blacksmithing, and by the end of my project I hope to craft a knife from start to finish.

As of right now, it is near the end of my second to last full day with my host family. I wanted to write a blog entry sooner, but pretty much every evening has been so full that I haven't had time to write. The Catlin website has also been undergoing maintainance at times that are convenient for Portlanders, but inconvenient for us, which has blocked my few attempts to write.