Tag Archives: demo

Railway Days at the Museum

A yearly event around the theme of railways hosted by the Vancouver Island Garden Railway Club, The Oceanside Model Railroaders, and the E&N Division of the Canadian Railway Historical Association. Around four hundred people attended this year and enjoyed the many special… Continue reading →

Forge Visit: Shibata Family

The museum forge had a visit from a unique and talented family this summer. The Shibata family makes artisan foods on Saltspring, and the two boys, aged 10 and 12 are highly self-motivated creative students of craft who are interested in learning… Continue reading →

Making Fire with Bamboo – museum forge first lighting

The first night turned out to be quite an event as there were three forges and six blacksmiths/strikers operating in the museum workshop. Thanks to Tim of Reforged Ironworks, and Josh for their energy and charcoal chopping to get the forge up and running, and their assistance swinging the big sledges to finish drifting and shaping the smaller hand hammers as the first preparatory projects in the charcoal forge. Read more about the museum forge project or watch a more detailed demonstration of lighting fire with bamboo.

Sounds of the Workshop: Tanto Overview

The tools are simple and few, but the work is long and hard. A collection of clips documenting the steps and sounds involved at many stages of the process of crafting charcoal forged classical tanto and mountings from reclaimed materials. Footage from several recent projects is included, some extended and some previously unreleased, some from Japan and some from Canada, photos of the finished aikuchi tanto appears at the end of the video.

Sounds of the Workshop: Aikuchi Tanto Urushi Lacquer

…a.k.a.: the *even* quieter edition. The final stages of finishing the aikuchi tanto. This is a collection of clips documenting the steps and sounds involved at most every stage of the process of hand lacquering a traditional aikuchi tanto mount made from reclaimed driftwood. Several of the layers have been omitted from the video when they were exact repeats of the previous ones. The process spanned a month and a half including curing and drying time in between each step. Each layer is allowed to cure in a warm, humid box for two to three days and then polished with charcoal and water before the next is applied.

Urushi is traditional Japanese lacquer made from the sap of a specific tree. The natural colour is a milky brown that oxidizes to deep chocolate and the black colour is created through a reaction with red iron oxide. The lighting was not optimal for several of the steps here, but at least the general process is demonstrated.

Read more about the process of making this work on the photo essay page and watch the blade edition of sounds of the workshop here.