Dennis Tingle's Hammer-In
I went to my first hammer-in recently (April, 2006) and had a really good time. I didn't know what to expect, but knowing knifemakers and blacksmith's, wasn't too worried about it either. This is a fairly informal gathering that Dennis puts on every two months at his shop at home in the gold country foothills of California.
We kicked off with a meet and greet, getting to know each other and showing a few knives. I brought my wife along, met with the two Mike's and Dennis. Didn't take long to get started in the Smithy and Dennis started us off by making a hawk drift to make the hole for a handle in a hawk head.
Here's me forging the start of a sword blade, and then me explaining why forging sword blades is crazy.
...and Dennis showing one of the Mike's the hawk drift action on a ball pein hammer head. Good stuff.