recomend a book?

[ironsmith]

hey guys, can anyone recomend a good first book on blacksmithing , there's so many that i cant decide, i have a few project books but they dont contain much information on actual smithing, any suggestions would be great , thanks... :mrgreen:

[Archie Zietman]

The Complete Modern Blacksmith by Alexander Weygers (spelling?) lots o' good simple forges etc. also, if you want: http://www.countryside.gov.uk/search...ity/search.jsp there you can download several blacksmithing techniques manuals free

[ironsmith]

thanks archie, i'll check out the link :0)

[Rick Barter]

Ironsmith,

I highly recommend _The Blacksmith's Craft_ by the Countryside Agency.

It's a great beginning book and it's FREE. I downloaded mine, printed it out, and brought it to Kinko's to be spiral-bound. It is great.

http://www.countryside.gov.uk/NewEnt...blications.asp

Another book I recommend is _The Art of Blacksmithing_ by Alex Bealer. It has tons and tons of information and sketches.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...52931?v=glance

I would also recommend _The Artist Blacksmith: Design and Techniques_ by Peter Parkinson. It is very well-written and inspiring with fantastic color photos.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...385121-4590838

I hope this helps. I'm a beginner too, but I bought a lot of books. These are the ones that are good and worth the money. There are more, of course, but if I could only buy a couple, these three would be my choices.

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[Ed Thomas]

Ironsmith & Rick Barter:

I highly endorse the recommendation for the book by Peter Parkinson, but disagree with the Bealer book for a beginner. At one time, it was one of a very few books available so is on a lot of bookshelve. The problem with the Bealer book is that almost everything in it is incomplete and there are even errors. As interesting reading, fine. But it is nearly impossible to use it as a textbook, or a how-to manual. At $9.95 (or whatever it is now), it is very tempting to buy it instead of the pricey Parkinson book, which I do understand. But I think the Parkinson addresses your question MUCH, MUCH better.

Other good choices, off the top of my head are "The New Edge of The Anvil", by Jack Andrews and "A Blacksmith Primer" By Randy McDaniel (in this order of preference for me).

Somewhat cheaper is "Plain and Ornamental Forging" by Ernst Schwarzkopf. It is very good; written 100 years ago, so its writing is a bit stylized. He wrote it as a text for his students at a trade school.

You could buy one or two for now, trusting that we won't steer you too far wrong, and then attend a good-sized blacksmith convention. The bigger the event, the more book vendors to choose from. That way you can leaf through the books and see what it is that you want.

Also, check with the blacksmithing group nearest you. We have our own library in our guild, as does most every other club. Check the county library. I'm always pleasantly surprised to find what they have or can get for me. Both these options will save you from buying something you don't like. Bealer's book is in most libraries so you can see if I'm all wet for free.

[ironsmith]

wow, great idea , lol never would have thought to go to the library,
I am attending my first blacksmith meeting this weekend,
turns out theres an active smith 5 miles from my house LMAO and ive been lookin everywhere for help HA! just goes to show you dont know whats out there till you look.
the books u guys suggested sound great , gonnna have a look and pick one or two... definately the free one hehe. thanks a bunch for the advice!!

[M. Stout]

Right now I'm reading The Blacksmith -Iron Worker and Farrier by Aldren A. Watson. It is a great book that is extremely well written and has beautiful illustrations. I'm impressed.

[Strine]

There's bound to be a heap of valuable information in the references mentioned thus far and I bet there are a lot of good pictures in the ones I haven't seen. As we all know 'a picture is worth a thousand words' but surely a bit of hands on experience would be worth a lot more. Good luck with your new mate down the road IS.

[Ed Thomas]

I just got a book from our library system that looks fairly decent for beginners:

"The Practical Handbook of Blacksmithing & Metalworking"

Copy and paste that in Google to get a source to buy it used if you want.

It was published in 1980 by TAB books, written by Percy Blandford. Never heard of him, but TAB books have been around awhile. Normally, I don't care for their books, but this looks good.

I didn't even ask for a blacksmithing book. Our library is a room in the old elementary school building. We don't have any school here now... the kids all bus out to the nearest town. But the old building serves as a community center. I mention this to point out the size -- one elementary classroom, and at least 1/2 of that is kid's books. Of the other half, much is donated pulp paperbacks and so on. But the key is that we can get anything the county has. The population of the county is about 100,000 strong now and the library in the county seat tries pretty hard.

What I told our librarian was, when she went downtown next, to keep an eye out for drawing books. I told her I wanted volumes I could use to learn how to sketch better so I won't feel so clumsy when I try to draw what I'm going to forge, or to describe for a customer.

The next time I saw her, she had a big stack of book on drawing, two on blacksmithing, and three on woodworking(??? -- not sure how those fit in my request ) So don't just search on your own, ask the librarian. You might be surprised what is in the system.

And don't rule out the online used book sellers. I've done very well using them, too. For instance, almost all my machining books came from:

www.abebooks.com

They are a clearinghouse for vendors all over the world, and you can shop for the best price of all that is up for sale.

Of course I checked what I could out of the library first to see which ones I liked most. :mrgreen:

[Bwilloughby]

Hey Ed Thats the first book I got ("The Practical Handbook of Blacksmithing & Metalworking" ) good book.

I also have "The new edge of the anvil" and "The complete and modern Blacksmith".

Lots of good readin.