Welcome
Welcome to the
Australian Blacksmiths Association (Victoria) Incorporated.
About us.
It's back, Hot Metal Festival on the 5th November!
The Australian Blacksmiths Association (Victoria) Inc is a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to preserving and promoting the ancient and honourable craft of the blacksmith. If that is also your outlook then please do not hesitate in becoming a member. You will find enough equipment and assistance to get you going and, while we do offer some courses to members, we are definitely not a teaching institution. You will learn by doing and from your mistakes but you will also learn by just being involved. The more you you do so the more things will become clearer.
In return for such facilities and assistance we ask only that you endeavour to become an active and contributing member of the Group.
This site will give you a quick overview of who we are and what we do, however blacksmithing is not a passive art for reading about, rather something to do. So have a quick look around, then come and join us.
We publish a triannual newsletter The Drift which usually contains stuff you'd expect to find in a newsletter. If you have news, perhaps an interesting photo or two or something else you'd like to share, send it to the Editor.
Display board of Don Marshall's work.
New Course Information
The Introduction to Blacksmithing is a one day course for $150.00 where we show you how the Barn works, how to build a fire, get it started, keep it going and heat some metal. A few basic hammer techniques and we’ll send you home with a poker or a garden hook. This will start you on the road so you have confidence coming in to the Barn on Work Days, getting a fire going and getting started.
The second course is Basic Blacksmithing Techniques. This is 2 days ($300) and assumes you can get a fire going and get a bit of metal to forging temperature ready to work. Andy will introduce a number of techniques to start making useful tools and learning about steels and metals."
If you are interested please contact the secretary on: thesec@abavic.org.au
All of our courses are now a flat rate of $150 per day of course.
Work days at the Barn
Our regular work days are every second Sunday. (click here to view the upcoming workdays at The Barn). Our Women's Blacksmith group, meet on the preceding Saturdays. We will open The Barn on request at other mutually convenient times, especially for country members.
A Brief History of the AUSTRALIAN BLACKSMITHS ASSOCIATION (VIC) Inc.
1989 to 2019
A brief history of the inception and founding of the Australian Blacksmiths Association (Victoria) by one of those founders and our current patron, Keith Towe, with foreword by Rick Stadler, Secretary ABAVic (2016-2020) and recipient of the 2020 Founders award.
Click here to view more information.
The Blacksmiths Tree Project
After five years of work the Tree is in the ground. The Tree is at the Peter Avola Pavilion, 160 Chadds Creek Road Strathewen. You are very welcome to visit.
You can also visit the Tree Project page for up-to-date information and developments.
Visit The Tree Project website for a full history of the Project.