I am pleased to announce a 5-day Wootz Making Course with Ric Furrer at Bush Fire Forge (on the border of Kent and London).
Dates 13th to 17th April.
The course will take you through the process of manufacturing wootz steel - making a crucible steel ingot using coke and gas furnaces and then going on to forging out the steel into a usable billet.
Ric is one of the world's leading wootz makers and has been making this crucible steel for 15 years. He is one of the very few people to make wootz by modern and ancient methods and his knowledge of ancient wootz is second to none. In 2007 Ric undertook a research tour of India with curators from the British Museum and Wallace Collection studying original Indian wootz. He will be flying over from the States especially to lead this course. As far as I am aware this is the first 'Wootz class' that has ever been run (in the world!) and is an amazing opportunity to learn this ancient technique from one of the world's steel-making masters.
Wootz is an enigmatic ultra high carbon cast steel. There has been a lot of interest in it in the press recently, from Ulfbert Viking blades being made of it, to nano tubes in steel. It is one of those materials that has inspired legends and quite a lot of exaggerated claims (not to mention modern pseudo wootz rip-offs). It is the original Damascus steel.
The class will take place at Bush Fire Forge school of Smithing (www.owenbush.co.uk) and will cater to a maximum of 8 students.
The cost of this class will be £600, to include all materials. Safety gear is provided.
Wootz is a difficult material to make and easy to get wrong so no guarantee can be given that everybody attending the class will successfully make there own wootz, it will however be a learning experience bar none and hopefully everybody will go home with some wootz.
Any questions please email owen@owenbush.co.uk
I will add more details as they become available.

If you are interested please email me or give me a ring .
_

Owen is probably not that well known over in the States, but he is here and is a very talented man - and nice to boot.

This promises to be a great event and it looks like David Edge will be attending and probably other notables.

After the weeks course, the weekend will feature a hammerin with various other talks, demos etc and, so I have been told, a scabbard making demo by me.

If wootz or ancient steel making techniques are your thing this really is an event for you.

Tod

Thanks Tod,
I am looking forward to it ,as tod said there will be a forge in the following weekend I will post details as soon as I have finalised the demonstrator list .

as an aside It has come to my notice that This course is not the first of its kind and that wootz courses have been run by Achim Wirtz before .
anyhow nothing like this has been done in the Uk (pretty sure of that!) and I am looking forward to the course and forge in .