Thomas Latané

http://latanepepin.com

Fascinated by the blacksmiths at Colonial Williamsburg and inspired by artifacts unearthed with a high school archaeology club, Thomas Latané constructed a forge in his parents’ suburban Baltimore backyard in 1972.  After graduating high school in 1973 he spent his time producing forged iron and hewn wood products for art fairs and consignment shops. Thomas attended three semesters of metalsmithing and jewelry classes at Towson State University in the late 1970s. Since 1983 Thomas and his wife, Catherine, have operated a shop in Pepin, WI repairing antiques and producing their own work incorporating historic design motifs from various traditions.  

Thomas has demonstrated at numerous blacksmith events including nine ABANA conferences as a founding member of the Patient Order of Meticulous Metalsmiths. He has taught at six different craft schools, and enjoys the way that holding a class gathers a group of smiths that are interested in the same thing he is. From the beginning Thomas has been more fascinated by the marvels that smiths were able to produce with hand tools centuries ago than the potential of modern power equipment.

Mark Green

Mark Green lives in central North Carolina. He is a retired Army paratrooper and landscape pro. He is a Society of Creative Anachronism Knight and Laurel blacksmith. He is now a sword maker in both bloom and modern steels.

Mark has been smelting for about 20 years. He learned most of his smelting techniques from the Lee Sauder’s school of thought. He has lost count of how many iron smelts he has done, well over 200. He is an expert in the shallow hearth refining of bloom iron into steel.

He is the creator of the Facebook group “Iron Smelters of the world” with over 3000 members. He does not have a personal website, but recommends anyone interested to learn to smelt iron in an old school way to visit Lee Sauser’s page. https://leesauder.com

Mark will be assisted by Daniel Cauble

Richard Furrer

https://doorcountyforgeworks.com

Through the interaction of fire, metal and flesh Richard feels a connection to a past that many have abandoned. He feels more at peace tapping on the anvil and not the keyboard.

He does all his work by hand and uses tools that multiply his force without limiting his creativity or interaction with the material. The trap, of course, is when you give over your creativity to the machine tool. It is a simple matter to allow the tool to dictate the style of the work rather that the other way around. He tends to think of them as extensions of his body, applying force where flesh cannot. What may take him 100 blows by hand, can be accomplished in one by a large swaging machine. This is the antithesis of his goal and to that end all his work shows evidence of the two hands that made it.

Richard struggles on a daily bases with an ancient material and is intrigued at the path his life has taken. Through his research and practical experience, He has rediscovered several ancient metalworking processes and utilizes them in his work