Now in its ninth year, the Mail-In Forging Exercise offers you a highly educational opportunity to expand your forging skills and earn a wide variety of valuable farrier products while being an important part of the World Championship Blacksmiths’ Competition held each July in Calgary, Alberta. It’s a novel way to gain valuable forging experience without ever leaving home!

Over the past 8 years, more than 500 individuals from around the world have participated in this extraordinary learning experience. They’ve also shared almost $200,000 in valuable prizes donated by leading suppliers.

Forge A Capped Toe Bar Shoe

All you have to do is forge a capped-toe bar shoe and make sure it arrives in Calgary prior to the June 15, 2008, deadline. Co-sponsoring this valuable forging learning exercise are the Calgary Stampede’s World Championship Blacksmiths’ Competition and American Farriers Journal.

Just by participating, each farrier will earn $237.17 of valuable forging products while other valuable products will be distributed among the 25 top scoring farriers. Based on 50 participants, a total of $22,556.54 of hoof-care products from leading industry suppliers will be distributed.

But the real value of being part of the Mail-In Forging Exercise is not in receiving valuable products. Instead, it’s the tremendous amount of learning that comes from forging a shoe that is evaluated by the Calgary judges.

See Pages 90 to 99 in the 2008 January/February AFJ issue for step-by-step details on how to forge the capped toe bar shoe. Along with diagrams for making the…