Erin Simmons

Erin Simmons has been Blacksmithing for 25 years and he says "My goal is to help the blacksmith develop a clearer mental picture of his/her project and select the forging techniques which will bring a current idea to life. I want to help the smith develop a potential arsenal of approaches for blacksmithing, using the right tools."

Erin will look at ways of discovering many of the benefits (and few shortcomings) of forging, and forging to utilize the elastic properties of hot steel. He will endeavor to explain what can and cannot be done by the blacksmith with a hand hammer and anvil, and when it's time to go to the power hammer. We'll also review how to select a reasonable volume of steel appropriate for a project. We will discover ways in which hand-hammer force vs. depth of impact can be rated. Is the hammer too big or too small? Must the point of impact be smaller or larger? Is all else well, but the angle of billet approach skewed? We can then revisit some of the old and tried-and-tested methods and help the smith understand why they work consistently. We'll visualize which tools will perform what task and building them proportionately.

Every movement and word has a meaning and a reason with Erin. We feel that you will enjoy this sought after blacksmith.

Erin career as a Blacksmith started with his grandmother, who raised him during the first part of his life in New Jersey. She would often tell him stories of riding her horse through the sugar cane fields in Costa Rica, where she was born and raised.

While attending Rutgers University he transferred to California and attending a local college in Santa Maria, eventually transferring to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo to pursue majors in crop and animal sciences, along with horse training classes. At the time Cal Poly offered a farrier course, which he decided to take so that he could shoe his own horses that were in the training class. That led to shoeing for other people and therefore started his farrier business.

A few years had past and ABANA came to Cal Poly for their annual conference, and Erin was in awe of this event. Shortly after seeing ABANA, he started making his own tools, for his farrier business. Soon, other farriers saw his tools and started asking for them. This is what started his tool making and blacksmithing business.

As always, Erin's wife Dusty will be attending with him. This year she has cross stitched "The Village Blacksmith" poem by Longfellow that will be donated to the auction to benefit the California Blacksmith Association.

Don't forget to stop by their booth to see if there is something you just can't live without!