October 2017, I spent a week at Dragonfly Forge [dragonfly] in Coquille, OR, taking the introductory sword-making course. It was an excellent and educational experience, and I ended up with a pretty nice wakizashi (Japanese short sword) that I made!

The 5 day course runs from assembling a bar of wire rope damascus, to forging and then grinding and shaping the resulting blade. It’s a lot of material, presented as a mix of demonstration, hands on, and “hands on with help standing by” – a very effective way to learn. If you’re at all interested in the topic, I heartily recommend the class!

Postings:

• Bandon, OR – Musings about where I stayed in Bandon, and tsunamis
• Dragonfly Forge – 1 – welding the wire rope, bar shaping, flattening the bar
• Dragonfly Forge – 2 – more bar shaping, rough grinding
• Dragonfly Forge – 3 – closer grinding, filing, application of clay for quenching
• Dragonfly Forge – 4 – quenching the blade, more grinding
• Dragonfly Forge – 5 – fine grinding and wet stones
• Sparks – discussion of the behavior of high carbon steel sparks
• Video of my wakizashi blade being quenched

• Kajioshi class at Dragonfly forge – day 1
• Kajioshi class at Dragonfly forge – day 2
• Kajioshi class at Dragonfly forge – day 3
• Kajioshi class at Dragonfly forge – home