A couple of weeks ago, we had a Minecraft themed camp with our cub scout group. 26 kids aged 8 thru 11 participated. The week previous, they built cardboard lifesize mobs (the creatures you fight in the video game) to use for indoor archery with recurve bows and LARP arrows.
Since we couldn't do actual forging, I decided to bring my rod bender to do some cold forging with #9 fence wire. I came up with a bushcraft tripod loop (that's the name I made up anyway LOL). I did the first bend for each kid and they did all the rest. After they were done, I showed them how to strip the galvanizing using vinegar and I rust blued them with sumac and hickory nut hull tea (which worked surprisingly well).
At night, I read them the first chapter of "Call of the Wild" and scared them half to death LOL.

Slick idea...

That is a great idea !!!!!

Cool

WELL, Ain't that clever!

Pretty cool.

I was hoping I had a picture of one of them after rust bluing but I can't seem to find it. I do have a photo of the solution I used. I bought a fine mesh laundry bag from the dollar store and jammed it full of old sumac berry clusters, hickory nut hulls, walnut hulls and oak leaves... basically a giant tea bag. Then I added the parts and boiled for about an hour.