The Boy Scouts, it appears, have a badge for nearly everything. (Everything except for “Boy Scout cookies”. In this they are clearly lacking.) One of these badges, we’ve discovered, is for metalworking. And this isn’t your kind of “watch and learn but don’t touch” kind of metalworking. This is down and dirty.
Troop 89 learns metalworking from the prosBy Staff reports
Tue Mar 03, 2009, 10:53 AM ESTMedfield – When it comes to being prepared, everyone knows that the Boy Scouts of America have cornered the market. It only seemed natural, then, that when the metal working badge was due, the local troops came prepared to learn from some of the area masters ~ Neil Mansfield and the Assabet Valley metal fabrication students. Bright and early on a Saturday morning, Troop 89 Scouts from Medfield, with leaders Richard Sauro, Jeff Bennotti, and Mike McGowan, traveled to Marlborough to spend the day in the shop at Assabet Valley Regional Technical High School, making various projects that would lead to their metal working badge. Three members from the Worcester Troop 9 also joined in, as one of their own, Nick Day, is currently an Assabet Metal Fab student.
The day’s agenda included learning the safety rules for metal working, watching a safety film, sketching a three dimensional box, making that box out of sheet metal, making a copper feather, and forging at 2,000 degrees to temper and anneal a steel tool. “We really just wanted the kids to learn how to work and get along with fellow scouts and Assabet students, and to learn how to have fun while working with hot metal,” commented Mansfield, the lead instructor in the program at Assabet.
To read the expansive list of requirements to earn this merit badge (which include being either a Tinsmith, Silversmith, Founder, or Blacksmith for a day) click on the Metalwork badge to the right.
As a fabricator, what would YOU add to the list?
