[TheForge] Boy scout badge

[xlch58]

I always start scouts out forging a pair of skewers.  I start with 1/4 or 3/16 square stock.  Teaches them drawing, twisting and bending for the scroll.  Two skewers can be set up as a mini rotisserie and are popular around the fire for marsh mellows hot dogs etc.  Next for the ones still engaged I do a horseshoe knife with a very small one-inch arched blade.   I make up sanding sticks from hardware store paint stirrers with 100 grit sandpaper contact cemented on one side and 400 grit on the other.  I have a dozen hand cranked grinders several with buffing wheels on them loaded with Emory and jewelers rouge to make them shine like chrome.  I supervise the buffing, but never had a kid even close to being seriously hurt with a hand cranked grinder in twenty years.  One in five boys have the patience to get the blade to a high polish.  They spend the weekend around the fire sanding away.  More advanced projects are steak turners, Dutch oven lid lifters and eventually a line rack and fire tools for the troop.

I have been teaching blacksmithing and firearms to scouts/kids for over twenty years and have always found it rewarding.

Charles