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Apparently it’s not a good idea to take out your blacksmithing project on public transport. I learned that the tough way.

A few months ago, I went to a party that had a silent auction fundraiser. With lots of art and vouchers up for grabs, I saw a blacksmithing course that I thought would be an awesome date, or at least a fun hobby to try out.

That’s right, blacksmithing.

Pioneer village-style, grab your anvil and hammer and get to hitting some hot metal type of fun. Sign me up!

Putting an additional $5 on the last bid, I quickly forgot about the voucher, and went about the rest of my night. A few days later, I was pleasantly surprised to get a text that said “Congratulations, you won the day of blacksmithing!”. Excited, I started looking up what you can make in a day at the forge.

Traditionally, the best project an apprentice blacksmith can take on is to forge their own tools.

As one of the only hobbies where you can make most of the equipment you need, creating the chisels, tongs, pokers, hammers, etc. gives you the skills you need to move on to more sophisticated projects. This was what was recommended to me by Alex, my instructor, and by almost every blacksmithing forum out there.

However, I had other ideas.

I thought it’d be an awesome project to make an axe. Having read Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet, being a bearded Canadian, and being filled with giddy thoughts of having an accessory to my flannel shirts, owning an axe seemed like the logical next step for my destiny in becoming a lumberjack.

I posed the idea to Alex. Hesitant at first, he eventually OK’d the project, and we booked in our lesson for late August.

The forge was at this large compound/clubhouse called Hackerspace, a 40 minute ferry ride down the river from where I was living. An awesome place for big projects, Hackerspace has it all. Fitted out with an industrial level wood and metalworking shops, a garage to build electric cars, and a 3D printing lab alongside the forge, you feel the need to build something walking around here.

Everyone at Hackerspace were either classic ‘why call a plumber when I have a wrench’ dads, or massive DIY nerds (in the best way possible), all with awesome projects going on. Even better, they were more than happy to explain their projects in depth. While the multiple physics and chemistry explanations went way over my head, my curiosity kept me asking questions and I was happy to see people so passionate about their various hobbies. Moreover, it was awesome to feel the sense of community emanating from passionate club members.

It makes sense that you could feel a general love of building things in the compound. Hackerspace is basically a playground for mini Elon Musk’s.

Now, onto the blacksmithing.

The forge we were using was made up of a ceramic oven (that Alex made) that we blasted propane into, a few anvils, and various tools that people had made throughout the years. It was very cool to see something I thought had died out in medieval times alive and well. I was excited to get to work!

While it took some serious hours and much more than the one day we thought it’d be (21 hours to be precise), over the next 3 weeks Alex and I made our axes. Going from a rectangle of steel, to an axe head, to a functioning tool, was more work than I anticipated, but a hell of a learning experience!

Hitting hot metal as hard as hard as you can is a tough, but rewarding activity. In my head, I couldn’t stop thinking how cool this was, not to mention the awesome nature of making an axe.

Primal. Studly. Beards.

With some good hammer hits and a lot of help from Alex, eventually we got our axes and handles to a level we were happy with. All that was left to do was one last sanding and some finishing touches.

Here’s where I had a small run in with what I can only assume is the Australian SWAT team.

After work, I got on the ferry to head upriver to Hackerspace. As Brisbane is cut up by the river, the ferry’s a common mode of public transport here. There were maybe 100 other people on the ferry, but there was lots of space, so I had a seat in a row with only one other person in it.

After parking my bike and sitting down, I pulled out my book. After reading a couple of paragraphs, I thought that I should have a look at my axe to see what work still needed to be done that evening. You know, to get an idea of where I’d need to focus the sanding, the sharpening, etc. I pulled out the axe for maybe 12 seconds, briefly going over the wood and metal, and put it back on my bag.

Nonchalant, not a big deal. Or so I thought.

I spent the next 40 minutes quietly reading my book, Angela’s Ashes, keeping to myself. As we got to the second last stop, I noticed that there were only 3 other passengers on the boat, and we’d been stationary for a few minutes.

All of a sudden, 4 massive police office officers came on board, walking right towards me. Two on either side of my row of seats.

Uh oh.

The first thing out of their mouth was for me to leave the bag and move into a different seat.

Immediately I put my hands up and assured them it was all a misunderstanding. As I thought it was an important detail, I mentioned that there was an axe in the bag.

To which they said “We know.”

Duh.

While initially it was a bit scary, I knew I hadn’t really don’t anything wrong, though, I was worried they might take away the project I’d been working on over the past month.

Asking me a few questions, they were interested in where I lived, what I was doing in Australia and they took some details from my ID. As well, the officers looked me up on an iPad registry, looking for my name in what I can only assume is a criminal database. To their surprise, they thankfully couldn’t find me in it.

Graceful and polite, the officers were extremely courteous during the whole ordeal. Especially after telling them it was a blacksmithing project, they were pleasant to interact with and not looking to get me in trouble or cause further delays.

Pulling the axe out of the bag, one of policemen even joked around, saying it wasn’t particularly sharp. Yeah, thanks officer. I kept my mouth shut, but I was literally on my way to sharpen it.

After they’d figured out that I wasn’t a threat, merely a random Canadian guy with a nerdy art project, they recommended me to not pull out sharp objects on public transportation. They explained that they had to come and have a look when they got the call, given the recent terrorism scares around the world. With that, they gave me my bag back, said sorry for the interruption, and headed off, wishing me to have a great rest of my day. Appreciate it fellas.

After apologizing to the other passengers for holding them up and feeling a little shook up, I eventually made it to my ferry stop. Speaking with one of the operators, I’d figured out what had happened.

Someone (obviously) saw me pull the axe out and reported it to the captain. Given a duty of care, they had to call the police to report it and have them come and check out the situation. While I had a bit of a scare, I’m glad that people are looking out for these things and the police are doing their jobs! Kudos to them, although I hope I’m not on some watch list now.

I like to think I don’t look like a terrorist. However, I suppose that the beard doesn’t exactly help. I mean sure, even if I was wearing a flannel shirt, it’s completely reasonable to think who the hell walks around with an axe these days. Even a not very sharp one.

So I can’t exactly blame anyone but me for what happened.

That night, after regaling my tale of stupidity to Alex and having a laugh, we finally completed our projects. Beautifully crafted, and finally sharp, I now had the little hatchet I’d dreamed of making over the past month.

I’m not sure if I’ll ever actually chop wood with it, but it’ll serve as a nice piece of art to hang on my wall as a great talking piece that comes with a story.

As an added bonus, it’ll serve as a reminder to not be an idiot, and most definitely to not be a terrorist.

Even if it’s only for 30 minutes.