Report by Larry Brown
Mike Hirsh and I left for Kentucky on Tuesday morning the 6th and drove down to Dunbar, West Virginia that night, had dinner and spent in a hotel. Moving out early the next morning we arrived at the conference before lunch, checked in and started looking things over.

The demonstration areas were ready and some of the tailgaters and vendors were arriving and setting up. Uri Hoffi and his helper were in a tent set up to demonstrate the “Big Blue Power Hammer”. On Wednesday afternoon the only forging going on was Uri who did two demonstrations making leaves and other free form parts to demonstrate the dies and capabilities of the power hammer. Demonstrations by Uri and his helper went on throughout the conference. Wednesday evening was the opening ceremony followed by a lecture and slide show given by Albert Paley on the history of his work (Some really big work).

Thursday morning the demonstrations began. I started out by watching Mindy Gardner of Illinois demonstrate leaf repousse with a treadle hammer and after a short while I moved on to watch Willem Yonkers of the Netherlands demonstrate the forging of a “Viking Firedog”. Yonkers started the demonstration by shaking hands with most of the audience which at he was getting a late start wasn’t too large. He then showed a picture of the firedog which had a dragon head and wings. He first formed the wings out of clay to determine the forging

To stretch my legs and see what else was going on I would occasionally move from the Fire dog demo to watch other nearby demonstrations. A team of Czech smiths led by Daniel Cerny forged an “ABANA Conference Grill” His assistants were Jan Stanek and Gert Bruyninx. As the smiths spoke little English this site was almost all forging and very little talk. It was a pleasure to watch this team work together.

The Czech smiths constructed a grill in the shape of an anvil with the letters ABANA on the top side and Kentucky 2004 on the bottom. They continued on this grill Thursday night and Friday morning.

On Thursday afternoon Albert Paley presented a slide show of pictures of historical ironwork. These were slides he has taken while traveling, mostly in Europe, over the years. He had arranged the slides in what might be chronological order and they were very good quality. I found the slide show very informative.

The “Patient Order of Meticulous Metalsmiths” were composed of Tina Chisena, Carl Close, Tom Latane, Michael McCarthy and Paul Spaulding. They were led by Peter Renzetti. This group of smiths completed a chest with repousse panels. The site was a continuous bustle of activity the whole length of the conference.

Peter Ross was at the teaching station Thursday. I watched part of his talk and demonstration on layout, hammer control and how to check the accuracy of your work.

Friday afternoon Juko Nieminen of Finland fabricated a wall hanging of a traditional Finnish design. He punched 3 holes in one bar and one hole in another. On the bar with the single hole he formed a tight square scroll and then tapered it down forming a pyramid shape. The three hole bar was then bent into a “U” shape, with the holes towards each other The bar with the single hole went through the center hole so that the hole lined up with the side holes and then a piece of stock was cut to go through the three holes now in the top. Afterwards he discussed variations on what could be don to the piece to finish it from there. I never got to se the finished piece as I was off again to another demonstration. The next day he formed a free form piece from 4” channel iron under the power hammer.

Tom Clark from the Ozark School of Blacksmithing had a station set up that had a project building a gate and other demonstrations, was selling tools and the Say-Mak Turkish power hammer he is the dealer for. There was some excellent blacksmithing being done under the tent. Behind tom Clark was Christine Habermann of Austria who was demonstrating copper repousse on a large, about 36” piece of sheet copper. The pattern looked to be a “Central American” design and she worked on the piece quite intently the whole time.

Peter Parkinson and Terry Clark of England started with an indoor workshop on design which moved out side to the forging area the next day. They then worked to fabricate the gate that was designed in the workshop.

A group of Irish smiths had come to the conference and they gave an impromptu demonstration on forging horseshoes. I had a great time and look forward to another conference that I can attend. Larry Brown