I feel terrible that two years have flown by since many of the administration duties of this forum were entrusted to me, and I really have not done much. But as you can see there are some changes occurring to the ABS forum. To begin with we are combining some subforums that were very similar and thus split much of the same traffic between them. This will hopefully make topics easier to find the right subforum for and pick up the pace a bit.

But one of the biggest changes you will see, if you are a member of the American Bladesmith Society, is the new section of the forum exclusively for our members known as ABS University. This is a result of conversations with the ABS leadership about what we can do to offer more benefits to our ABS membership. I have always seen the ABS forum and unique among knifemaking forums, due to its professional decorum and the educational mission of the ABS. Where other site can be a bit of a free for all in style, with no real assurances of the credibility of the advice givers, the ABS forum has always seemed more like a place of higher learning. In other words, a college or university of bladesmithing, where information is shared among scholars of the forged blade with actual credentials to back it up.

All forum participants are encouraged to help in this effort by simply sharing as you always have. If we feel we have something to share that could help the general public better understand the fundamentals of our craft it would be most welcome in the public section of our forum. But now, if we have more advanced information, or resources, that could contribute to the advancement of the forged blade in the hands of our skilled membership, it can be added to the ABS University section of the forum.

To this end I would encourage all ABS Mastersmiths to consider helping by participating, and sharing information in any way they can, that is not to say that Apprentice and Journeyman are not equally welcome to contribute in their area of expertise. I have started on my part by adding several posts to the Heat Treatment and Metallurgy forum and will do my best to continue to add whatever I can.

The plan is to let this be the foundation of many other resources to offer to our membership as we move forward with our educational mission.