Metalworkers from the Bowling Green area taught attendees their trade at the 10th annual Hammer-In event on Saturday. 

Hammer-In, hosted at the Kentucky Museum on Saturday, aimed to celebrate the metalworking trade and showcase it to the Bowling Green community, according to the Kentucky Museum website. Blacksmiths representing the Bowling Green-based Kentucky Forge Council (KFC) showcased their skills, as well as tinsmiths, gunsmiths and metal sculptors.

KFC meetings give aspiring blacksmiths a chance to practice and learn with their peers.

 “If any member wants to heat some steel and make what they want, or practice something, they can do that,” Stephen Beam, who has been involved with KFC for seven years, said. “We want people to show what they’re capable of doing or teach somebody else something.” 

Beam said the council holds meetings at the WKU Agriculture Research and Education Center on the first Saturday of every month.

Some KFC members spent their time on Saturday teaching attendees how to make coat hooks and keychains using provided materials.

Randy Hulsey, a tinsmith, showed onlookers how to make a cup out of tin. Hulsey owns Jennings Creek Tin Shoppe in Bowling Green and crafts his pieces using tools that date back to the 18th century.

Gunsmith Jim Pounds attended Hammer-In. Pounds said he took up gunsmithing in the 1980s after attending a gunsmithing seminar at WKU.  

Pounds said he makes his own tools and that the guns he builds are functional. 

“I still go out and shoot them sometimes,” Pounds said.