FALL HAMMER - IN 2000
John Rais
Our demonstrator for Fall 2000 was John Rais. John is the current resident smith at
Peters' Valley Craft Center, Layton, NJ. Where he organizes the
Blacksmithing program, teaches forging, and has his own studio where he
produces a large variety of forged work. At the age of 17, John studied
steel sculpture, meatalsmithing and glass work, and later received his BFA
from Massachusetts College of Art. John now has a Masters degree in
meatalsmithing that he earned at Cranbrook Academy of Art, in Bloomfield
Hills, Michigan.
John works primarily in steel, titanium and copper, producing achitectural
commissions, firescreens, sculptures and vessels. The focus of John's
workshop was on titanium forging. Titanium is a versatile metal and is
ideally suited to art/metal forgings. It is about half the weight of steel,
and almost double the tensile strength, while being much easier to forge.
It is corrosion resistant and also non-allergenic, which makes it well
suited for food related items. Titanium is the ninth most abundant element
in the earth's crust. Discovered in 1790 it has only been commercially
available since the 1950's.
For his demo John compared the contrasts between titanium and steel, then
continued working with the titanium to forge items such as leaves and
a bowl, and some free-form power hammer work.
We were also lucky to have the people from Art and Metal who brought
pure iron bar stock (which works just like wrought without the splits), and
also some titanium, both of which were for sale.
John Rais starting a leaf from titanium
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John Rais starting a bowl from a titanium disc |
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