This is a catch up post on an on-going adventure that started back in March. Neil caught an idea about forging stuff at home. The idea niggled just long enough for him to go to the internet. [side note: how did we learn how to do new stuff before the internet?] The internet told him that it turns out, building a home forge is surprisingly simple. So away we went…it took about 2.7 seconds to get the kids on board (Garyn and Naomi especially love playing with fire), some tutorial videos were watched and then they started some projects. The first set up was a blow dryer, duct tape, and fire bricks. It was…ok…But since Neil had caught the bug he upgraded to a real forge. Currently Garyn is turning a rusty car piston into a mini war hammer, Naomi is making a foot-long dagger out of bent rebar, Corra is just happy to shape random bits of metal, and Layna is happy to stay in our cool house and read her books thank-you-very-much. The other major endeavor is melting down cans to reclaim the aluminum and turn it into ingots. That means we needed a melting furnace. So now we have a melting furnace. What will we do with the ingots you ask? No idea. But we have quite a few piling up for some future, undecided casting project.
Forging and black smithing. Pretty sure those are some of those vital life skills that every kid should learn. Check.

And just so we are clear…yes. We work with red hot metal in flip flops and bare feet.