Do These People Live in the Real World?
I don’t think so. I was reading an “instructional” page (which BTW hasn’t been updated since 2003) on which the gent was discussing the good ol’ brake drum forge. I’ve never used one and frankly he makes some good points against them. My problem is his attitude toward the beginning smith.
“Enroll in a blacksmithing class near you. The blacksmithing class must be taught by an experienced blacksmith. Avoid learning from other beginners (the blind leading the blind). In a good class environment the beginner will have the best opportunity to learn fire maintenance, heating the iron, and get to try out a good forge for themselves. The class experience will give the beginner an opportunity to learn if they would like to continue the craft of blacksmithing and find out what it is like to work with good equipment.
If the beginner wants to start by jumping directly into smithing on his own then I recommend he/she buys good equipment. The best tools are the cheapest by far in the long run. So you say you don’t have a lot of money? Then start saving money. Get a job. This craft is very expensive.
Use a good forge first to learn how it is used before building your own forge. Buy a good firepot or tuyere from a blacksmith supplier such as Centaur Forge or Baker House Group. Check out your local scrap yard for scrap steel but be ready to buy new steel when they don’t have some of the things you need. Buy a new anvil- they are cheaper than overpriced worn out used anvils. Buy new Peddinghaus brand hammers. Buy some 5/8ths round, 3/4ths round steel new and learn to make your own light tongs. Buy the book The Blacksmith’s Craft by CoSIRA or RDC and modify their method for tongs making using your lighter materials. Buy a 5 inch leg vise- make sure the jaws are in good shape, not misaligned or worn out. Buy good blacksmith’s coal, not the cheap stoker coal. Stoker coal is full of clinkers. Buy a large forge blower. Not the tiny blowers. Don’t buy the tiny portable forges. Attend some seminars and see other smiths working and get some ideas for your own work. Attend a horseshoeing school that specializes in forging hand made horseshoes. Make your own rake, shovel, and poker, and make a nicer set of fire tools a year later. ”
Holy Christ. Where to start?!
“Enroll in a blacksmithing class near you” I’ve tried. My experience in the Seattle area is that there are no blacksmithing classes and only a few bladesmithing classes and they’ll require nearly $500 just to make one knife. Even the legendary “Black Dog Forge”, many students claim to have some learned lineage from them, will deny that they’ve ever held classes there. The closest I’ve come is some fine metal art at an art school and a community college. But that doesn’t help the aspiring blacksmith worth a damn. Also, you’ll get recommendations such as “take a welding course at a local community college or tech school” Bullshit. There, I said it. Maybe the guys who give this advice live in a place where the average Joe can walk into a school with no training or experience, throw down a couple hundred bucks and BAM! you’re welding. First, I believe only South Seattle CC teaches industrial skills like those and you’re sure as hell not going to enroll in welding as your only class and the same is true of the dedicated tech schools. Which welding do you want to do anyway? OxyAcetylene? MIG? TIG? It doesn’t matter because all of these classes have prerequisites that will keep you in the school for at least a full quarter before you’re able to put two pieces of metal together. My stepdaughter applied to a summer tech program through her highschool, one of the courses was in fact welding. They had 80 spots and over 500 kids applied to just that program. Promising if you’re a highschooler but the kid I know who enrolled wasn’t accepted and they simply said it was because they couldn’t take every kid
“This craft is very expensive” followed by “go to the local scrapyard”. Alright if you’re going to the scrapyard you might as well get a chunk of metal that will work as an anvil. There is no rule that states ‘ones anvil must conform to these specifications: have a square hole, a round hole, a pointy end and a square end’. Primitive smiths use granite as an anvil. Seriously. Many bladesmiths use a 4×4″ chunk of tooling steel that’s planted in a bucket of concrete or into the dirt floor of their workspace. Japanese smiths STILL use a chunk of steel that’s planted in the ground. And the crap about old anvils- give me a break. Yes, there are a lot of old anvils out there that are useless for a variety of reasons- chips, cracks, delaminated faces, deep pits, bowed faces, etc. But an anvil ought to outlast at least one owner and old anvils that are perfectly serviceable ARE out there. My Peter Wright was found in an old barn in Minnesota and was probably sitting for 40 years before it got shipped to Seattle to be with the smith I bought it from. He didn’t need it because he found ANOTHER older anvil that weighed more and was just as serviceable. I’ve been using it for almost a year and a half, quite happily I’ll add. Would I like a new one with the hardie hole nearer the horn, a horn that’s a perfect 6″ cone and the overall weight os closer to 300#- sure would but I don’t have that kind of money for something that wouldn’t really fulfill a need right now. It won’t make me a better smith, nor will it make me get out in the shop more often but it would be something to brag over… who cares. The Harbor Freight anvil will do the job but it’s relatively soft and only weighs 110# That said, you can get them on sale for $70 and they will get the job done. My first “anvil” was a face of a 3# sledge and my first hammer was a 16oz claw hammer. I still use the lifting hook I made with basically no equipment. That first forge was a coffee can, lined with refractory blanket that was sealed with a high temp refractory clay (ITC-100) and the burner was a propane plumbers torch from the home store. Not fancy, not a lot of room to work with but it was a start. The materials were pricey but I didn’t know about “Forge-B-Qs” and “washtub forges” whose price would be very low.
“Buy buy buy buy buy”…. please. Check my links section, I’ll update it with a notation that there’s good info for the beginner or the smith who’s tired of being pulled by the ancient craft while tethered to an electrical outlet.
Do I have “fancy” tools? Sure. We all get fancy stuff as time goes on. Some of it you “need” and some of it just makes everything else easier. Where would I be without my MIG welder? I love my oxyacetylene torch, too. My harbor freight bandsaw, 4-1/2″ angle grinder, die grinder and files (yes! files) are indispensible. I found my post vice on eBay and paid more to have it shipped than I did for the item itself. Did I buy all of this stuff at the same time? Shit no. My second anvil was some railroad track that was given to me by a gent who had several scraps because he knew a guy who knew a guy. If I teach nothing else through my site and this blog it’s this: No one is going to teach you how to do this. They can’t. I can’t. You’re going to have to want to learn it. You’re going to have to read the books (library, amazon, borrow them (but you damn well better return them in a timely fashion- got it?!)) you’re going to have to ferret out the people who know this stuff and make shit up if you cna’t find the answer. Yes, I do advocate finding the group that’s nearest you- and they may not advertise that they’re doing it, you may have to talk to people and tell them that you’re looking to get together with people and watch what they do or help out. My first foray into learning with others was at a “hammer in” and I had to drive over 100 miles to get there. Once you’ve seen it done or figured it out, then you find a billion other ways to do the same goddamned thing you spent a month figuring out and the worst of it is that the answer was right in front of you, but you skipped that page or didn’t click that one link. That’s part of the balance. You can’t learn to do this by reading about it. You have to do it. I hate to say it, but if you want to learn to work metal you need to figure out how you can get metal hot, safely, how you can shape it and how you can cool it, safely. The rest- the fancy tongs, hammers, anvils, forges, torches, welders, grinders, etc - are all superfluous. You got to start somewhere and there’s lots of time to get where you want to go.
Sure, having a bunch of money would make this easier- custom shop, custom worktables, big belt grinders, milling machines, benders, industrial welders, hydraulic presses, power hammers- but I’ve seen several guys go out and buy every piece of equipment they could get their hands on, try it out and then decide that they didn’t want to do it anymore “complete shop, all tools, u haul- $12,000″. I’ll stick with what I’ve got for now and I’ll replace/upgrade as I need to, pass me that bastard file.
My end-goal here is to find a job that allows me some measure of creativity, independence and pays really well. I’m finding it difficult to do my day-to-day job. All I’ll say about it is that I push papers aound and I have to wait for other people to tell me where to push them. As you can imagine, it’s a difficult position to be in for someone who would prefer to spend time next to a fire using a hammer to direct the movements of steel. 
I haven’t had time to read every word of their course offerings so I haven’t seen any wood carving (which would be the next step in the evolution of my handle-makling efforts.
Yes, it IS enough that I know how to heat, bend and form metal with a hammer and tongs. That I can do the very basics and that I intend to share that with as many people as will listen ensures that this craft will survive. But I’ve been thinking that I want to do more than just share it with people, I kind of want to inspire them. I know, it sounds like ego, and it is. But let’s be honest, I spent my entire adolescence being told by one preson or another that whatever it was I was doing wasn’t good enough. Couple that with being inherently lazy and you have a combination that results in someone who just doesn’t give a damn very often. Well, now I feel like giving a damn.
