| About this Abstract |
| Meeting |
2025 TMS Annual Meeting & Exhibition
|
| Symposium
|
Bladesmithing 2025
|
| Presentation Title |
Hammering Together a Bladesmithing Team from Basics |
| Author(s) |
Brock Nowak, Nathan Jones, Bradley J. Diak |
| On-Site Speaker (Planned) |
Brock Nowak |
| Abstract Scope |
2023-24 was the inaugural year of QBlade, Queen’s University’s bladesmithing team. The team started in September 2023 with little infrastructure and no blacksmithing experience but significant student interest and a goal to compete at the TMS Spring Meeting. This talk will describe how focusing on smithing basics helped us realize our first blade. With limited resources we engaged a professional blacksmithing shop to: (1) teach students hands-on safety and the basics of blacksmithing, and (2) through friendly competition have students self-identify their most-skilled peers with a hammer to further work under the guidance of a professional knife-maker to fabricate our first blade for competition – a Japanese-styled Nakiri cleaver. Learning early from blacksmithing experts instilled both knowledge and confidence in students to learn the fundamental skill of hammering, which is shareable with new members. The talk will end with a list of goals for further development of the team. |
| Proceedings Inclusion? |
Definite: None Selected |
| Keywords |
Iron and Steel, Phase Transformations, Shaping and Forming |