Learn the art of blacksmithing in Buffalo at Arrowhead Forge School of Blacksmithing, a working artist blacksmith shop owned by accomplished craftsman David Osmundsen.

Osmundsen, who has been forging wrought ironwork and tools since the 1970s, started the school in 2004 at the request of many people wanting classes to learn the skills of hand forging hot iron. Students have been coming to the blacksmithing school from all over America, Canada and even overseas to spend from one to four weeks learning blacksmithing at Arrowhead Forge.

Courses offered at the blacksmith school cover beginning blacksmithing, toolsmithing and traditional joinery, scroll and leaf work. Special classes are available upon request as well as off site demonstrations.

Osmundsen is a graduate of the gunsmithing program at Colorado School of Trades. He then learned the blacksmithing trade with a focus on iron trade goods pertaining to the fur trade of the 18th and 19th century. He worked in industrial blacksmithing while also operating his own blacksmithing shop in Maine. He also worked as a gunsmith and gunmaker in Wisconsin before moving to Buffalo in 1994.

Osmundsen’s main focus currently is education, and he offers one- to four-week blacksmithing classes year-round. When not teaching, he designs and builds ornamental iron gates, railings, building hardware and botanical iron sculptures for clients. He is a member of the Artist Blacksmith Association of North America, the Northern Rockies Blacksmith Association, and the Wyoming Artist Blacksmith Association.

He has created items for dignitaries, including First Lady Rosalyn Carter, and has completed works for the National Park Service, National Forest Service and Wyoming State Parks historic sites. Some of his work has been displayed at several galleries across the nation including the Renwick Gallery in Washington D.C., the Museum of Contemporary Crafts in New York, The John Kohler Art Center in Wisconsin, The Craft and Folk Art Museum in California and the Western Design Conference in Cody, Wyoming.