EDMONTON - Master Japanese swordsmith David Goldberg worked in an Edmonton blacksmithing shop Friday to put the final touch on the tanto sword he has been working on for about a month.

The close-combat sword worth about $3,500 was forged from pure iron and has a copper collar at its base that steadies the blade in its wooden handle. The sword’s handle is covered in stingray skin, wrapped in hand-woven goat leather with a criss-cross pattern to give it grip, and is decorated with a hand-carved sterling silver fitting.

Goldberg worked at Front Step Forge in east Edmonton, where he secured the final rounded piece of water buffalo horn to the end of the lacquered wood case that covers the sword’s razor-sharp blade.

“Making the sword is a pursuit of love,” Goldberg said. “The idea of making swords in modern times is an art form.”

Goldberg is in Edmonton for the first time this weekend to demonstrate the ancient art of forging a Japanese sword blade to about 50 students.

The former jeweller produces high-quality collector and martial-arts competition swords as well as custom-designed artworks out of his Gold Mountain Forge shop in Pennsylvania.

He can spend months working on a sword. His collector-grade tanto swords are worth between $8,000 and $10,000. Goldberg even canoes to “a secret spot” to gather up the black sand iron he uses to make the blades, which are flexible yet strong and sharp.

“You’re taking raw material and you’re creating something that’s functional as well as beautiful,” he said.

“I will not make a piece of art that I am not willing to keep myself.”

In the late 1970s, Goldberg majored in three-dimensional design at college and planned to become a sculptor. Then he studied aikido self-defence, martial arts based on ancient Samurai ju-jitsu, or grappling, and kenjitsu, or sword work. Aikido inspired him to learn about Japanese swordsmanship.

Goldberg worked as a master jeweller and designer who ran his own jewelry manufacturing company. He then studied blade forging and eventually began studying in Japan, where he still visits regularly to hone his specialized skills.

Goldberg will demonstrate his techniques this weekend during a class offered through NAIT’s continuing education program, said program assistant Tasha Spychka. The class runs Friday evening and all day Saturday at NAIT’s Souch Campus and cost each student between $165 and $195.

Mostly men registered for the class, although some women are attending, Spychka said.

“The class filled up right away and we had to even increase the enrolment up to 50 students,” she said. “We have maybe 20 people on the wait list and people calling, saying, ‘I want to get into the class,’ but it’s full, so it’s definitely really popular.”

The owner of Precimax Manufacturing Ltd., a custom machine shop in Edmonton, will be one of Goldberg’s students this weekend. Pete Kool took up blacksmithing as a hobby a few years ago and makes custom blades that he gives away.

“It’s always interesting to learn from a master swordmaker,” said Kool, whose grandfather was a blacksmith. “To really just take a piece of steel and fold it and craft something from nothing, it’s beautiful actually.”

A computer-programmed machine can make a blade, Kool said.

“But the real craftsmanship comes in when you take a piece of material, you heat it up and, with a hammer, forge it to the shape you want, controlling it that way. There’s something pretty special about it,” he said. “It’s a lot like a sculptor seeing a piece of stone and visualizing what’s in that stone and making it come out.”

The blade-forging class this weekend came out of an idea from blacksmithing instructor Shawn Cunningham, who established a blacksmithing course three years ago with NAIT’s continuing education program.

“I’ve always been fascinated with swordsmithing, and bladesmithing in general,” Cunningham said. “We had the opportunity to meet David and look at his work, and we knew we had to get him here.”

Cunningham studies martial arts at the Abundant Peace Aikido and Tai Chi School in St. Albert. A friend in his dojo met Goldberg about two years ago at a workshop in Florida. Goldberg, an aikido master, is also teaching at the Abundant Peace dojo Saturday night, Sunday and Monday.

asands@edmontonjournal.com