Blacksmithing Basics: Halloween Snakes

Blacksmithing Basics: Halloween Snakes is happening at Carrie Blast Furnaces on Wednesday, October 21, as part of Rivers of Steel's Halloween programming. It's a three-hour introductory workshop where you get to hammer hot metal and walk away with something you forged yourself.

If you've never touched a forge, this is where you start. The whole point is to get you working with heat and steel, so you'll spend the afternoon shaping metal while you learn the basics of the craft. It's a hands-on session, not a demonstration, and the Halloween theme is woven in—the "snakes" in the title give you a good idea of the kind of things you'll be making. By the time the three hours are up, you'll have a piece of work you actually made with your own hands to take home.

The setting is a big part of the experience. Carrie Blast Furnaces are the massive ruins of a former steel mill, now a museum and heritage site run by Rivers of Steel. There's something about doing blacksmithing in a place that was once a center of industrial steel production that makes the whole thing feel right. You're working with metal in a space that was built for it, surrounded by the scale of the old furnaces.

It's a three-hour session, and the cost is $90. If you've ever wanted to try blacksmithing without having to set up your own shop, this is a straightforward way to do it.