Dan Smith, one of the blacksmithing professors at ACC who I haven’t had a class with yet, taught a one day class on how to forge a skull. It was a lot of fun. Most of what I’ve learned so far in Power Hammer has been utilitarian: tapers, tenons, tool forms. Obviously, we’ve worked on aesthetics. The taper should be smooth and even, the tenon shouldn’t be crooked, etc. This was the first time I’ve worked on a purely aesthetic object.

We started with a rectangular block, which we isolated part of to form the jaw, and then upset to get the rough shape. This was all done on the power hammer.

After the rough form was made, we started adding details with hand tools. Forming eye sockets with fullers and drifts. Marking with hot chisels. Imprinting features with dies.

The end result was pretty satisfying. I cleaned it up with a wire cup wheel to remove the flash rust and fire scale, and then clear coated it to keep it shiny.