Spring 2025
April 26-27
Fall 2025
October 25-26

Forging Carving Tools: Your Very Own Bent & Straight Knives

Weekend Class, For Beginners

This weekend class is designed to introduce you to the wonderful self-sufficient world of tool forging. We’ll specifically focus on bent and straight knives used for spoon carving and many Pacific Northwest indigenous carving traditions. Each student should come away with a set of tools and a solid understanding of the techniques and theories behind tool forging. 

In this two-day course, you are learning how to make your own carving tools. Working with flat bar tool steel, you will learn how to shape, bend, and prepare knife blanks for forging. Using small benchtop forges and toaster ovens, you will then learn how to harden, polish, and temper the steel. You will also learn how to sharpen and tune curved and bent knives for effective operation. After the final sharpening, we will set the blades into a temporary handle to try out our new toys. 

Everyone will be carving with the tools they’ve made by the end of the second day, and you will now know how to make knives and a forging set up at home. You can use these bent and straight knives for spoon carving, mask carving, panel carving, and many other wood carving practices.