Loud, synchronized banging filled a junkyard Saturday morning.
Three men took turns hammering a thick piece of heated metal at The Repurpose Project, a nonprofit that lends space to community members, located at 1920 NE 23rd Ave.
They were learning the art of axe-making from Jordan Borstelmann, a 36-year-old blacksmith living in Gainesville.
Each class costs $100, is limited to six students and lasts about five hours. He said the workshops are so popular they get booked one to two months in advance.
John Carter heats his ball pein hammer to 2,100 degrees Fahrenheit — the temperature necessary for the metal to mold like clay.
Borstelmann also teaches a knife-making class. So far, no one has been hurt in any of his classes.
“As long as you wear safety goggles, and you know that the metal is hot, there is not much that is dangerous,” he said.
Martin Kipp, who enjoys pottery and is a recent UF landscape architecture graduate, attended the workshop for the first time.
The 26-year-old said he always liked blacksmithing and heard about the class through a friend.
“When the metal is cold, it’s such a solid material,” he said, “but once it heats up it’s like a putty. It’s such a different material when it’s hot, almost like the clay I use in pottery.”
A collection of the crafts blacksmith Jordan Borstelmann teaches. Apart from an axe workshop, he also teaches a knife-making class.
Although Kipp recently got a job in Atlanta, he said he enjoyed the class so much he is willing to make his way back for one more. He said he hopes to use his axe when he goes camping.
Thirty-one-year-old John Carter (left) and 26-year-old Martin Kipp team up to mold their mall pein hammer into an axe using a technique called forging.
