I would like to put up a notice for the Blade Smith Seminar held at Ashokan, September 16th-18th 2011.
Every fifth year the Ashokan seminar is on the theme of the craft of the sword.

For anyone interested in the contemporary craft of the sword, it is a rare opportunity to see demonstrations and hear talks by many accomplished makers from both the new and the old world.

From the site:
"The New England Bladesmiths Guild's seminar at Ashokan is one of the oldest and most prestigious hammer-ins in America. While inspiring many other groups and individual artist it has still maintained a unique and different style with quality information that is second to none. This year is no exception, as we have spent the last eight months assembling a lineup of demonstrators to live up to this tradition.

This year at the 2011 Sword Ashokan seminar we have some of the best demonstrators in the world here to share there knowledge with us! "

For detailed info, please go to:
http://www.ashokanknifeseminar.com/events.html

Demonstrators/Lecturers include:
Dan Maragni
Kevin Cashen
Tim Zowada
Harlan Hastings
Myself: Peter Johnsson

There will be smelting of steel, blade forging, grinding and heat treating demonstrations, but also lectures on various topics.

Martial arts demonstrations will also be held covering rapier, long sword, sword and buckler, tamishigiri, south east asian sword techniques.
Martial Arts Demonstrators:
Stewart Feil, Brian Hunt, Tom Walter and Mike Polluck.

Attending will be many outstanding craftsmen now active in the field. The place will be buzzing with the exchange of ideas and information. It will be an opportunity to meet fellow enthusiasts eye to eye.

For my presentations I shall show the documentation of original swords, going through details that are important to make note of. This will be illustrated with photos and drawings of many well known original swords from museums around europe. A kind of guided portrait gallery of classic swords, where some of their personal quirks shall be revealed. :-)

My second lecture will be on design theory of European medieval swords, outlining some basic principles and how these are expressed in different types of swords. I will have a number of bare blades at hand to show effects of different pommel weights and grip lengths: how dynamic properties can be expected to vary in different types of blades.
I shall bring along a hand forged reconstruction of an original sword found in the Fyris river in Uppsala, my home town. It is an interesting sword that can illustrate how functional properties were made to work together.
For a year now, I have been working on a hypothesis on a design method for swords may have been used back in medieval times. I will present some aspects of this theory for the first time at the Ashokan Seminar, since it is used to develop the reconstruction of the sword from the Fyris River.

I hope to meet fellow Forumites at the Ashokan Seminar!

I would like to mention that I will be there with a few pieces to show, and it will be a fantastic collection of talent. Also worth mentioning is there are single day tickets for Sundays knife/sword show and display so if you are free Sunday Sept. 18 and near by you should come check it out and say hi.

I'm going to be there also, demoing something, though I don't know what yet. I'm a last minute addition. :)

If only it wasn't for the whole "enrolled in fall semester classes" thing, I'd be there for sure to see everything offered.

For anyone that is going, please take a lot of photos to share with us!

Just signed up - thanks so much to Mr. Johnsson for posting this as otherwise I would have missed this wonderful opportunity!

Looking forward to meeting some fellow myArmour-ers ( :lol: ) in person!

I just signed up too! Thanks so much for the announcement Peter. What an exciting opportunity.

Well I'm waiting and hoping for some comments by the participants about the seminar, the swords and any " printable gossip " about the event. ;) :D

Things discussed, things learned and nice pics. ;)

There was a thread shared from Bladeforums.

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread....11-Photos?

A nice vicarious view of what looks like it was a great weekend.

Cheers

GC

Another on the Don Fogg board.

http://forums.dfoggknives.com/index.php?showtopic=21030&st=0

There are usually other blogs and news posted around the net.