In presenting the second edition of this work to, the craft, it has been my aim to give my readers thorough and complete instructions in the art of working steel. Books of a theoretical and technical character are of little value to a practical man. For the benefit of my brother craftsmen and all those who wish to gain a thorough knowledge of modern practical and scientific steel working, I will endeavor to give the best methods of Forging, Annealing, Hardening, Tempering, Case Hardening, and Welding the King of Metals (Steel), and to point out the chief causes of bad results and how to avoid them, and to do so in a plain, concise manner, eliminating all technical terms, superflous words, egotistical anecdotes; and hope my efforts will meet with the approval of the world's best Steel Workers arid Steel Makers, and be of value to every blacksmith and steel worker, machinist and boiler maker.

The writer is a practical blacksmith and an expert steel worker of seventeen years' experience at the anvil and hardening furnace, has worked in several up-to-date shops and with several of the best steel workers in America. I do not claim to know it all or to be the only man who knows how to work steel properly (there are others). All I claim to be is one of the world's best Steel Workers. The first edition of this

INTRODUCTION.
In offering this book to my fellow craftsmen, I do not wish it to be inferred that I consider myself the only one who knows how to do the work described in its pages. In 27 years' experience at blacksmithing, however, working in nearly all kinds of shops, including horseshoeing, marine, railroad, printing press, sawmill machinery and automobile shops, I have had opportunities seldom obtained by the average smith. I therefore hope that the book will not only help the young men in the trade, but some of the older blacksmiths as well; and since much attention has been given to the subjects of hardening, tempering, casehardening, coloring, etc., I believe it will also prove useful to machinists and toolmakers. Part of the matter upon these latter subjects was contributed, in somewhat different form, to the columns of Machinery, but most of the material is here used for the first time.

Everything in these pages is from actual experience and I am ready at all times to answer any question on any subject that is not fully understood by the reader; but I have, tried to make everything so plain that the average blacksmith can readily understand the methods explained.

The man who gives the best satisfaction is the one to get the highest wages and I am confident that one who follows the directions in this book will give satisfaction. The methods described show how to become a rapid and an independent workman, which is the kind employers are looking for, although this kind seems hard to find at the present time, especially among the younger blacksmiths.

Fourteen years of my blacksmithing experience have been spent as foreman and during this time I have observed that blacksmiths in general have but a small chance to learn anything more than they can dig up in their own daily toil. A young man from the farm can go into a machine shop, start in by running a drill press, then a lathe, and by reading and strict attention to business he will soon become a fairly good machinist. It is not so with a blacksmith, and especially a machine blacksmith, who usually has difficulty in acquiring full knowledge of his trade. Something should be done to assist the young men who are willing to learn the trade most difficult to learn—that of blacksmithing.

"For since the birth of time, throughout all ages and nations, Has the craft of the smith been held in repute by the people."
[Longfellow.]
J. F. Sallows. Lansing, Mich., July, 1907.

The author of this book has been prompted by two reasons in the undertaking: First, the phenomenal sale of his first book, "Modern Blacksmithing"; second, by the many letters asking for information on such work as was not treated in that book.
People in general are not aware of the fact that, in our time of manufacture, blacksmithing is almost a lost art, for nearly everything formerly made by the smith is now turned out by machinery. I have never been in a community yet where I did not hear this remark about the smith: "Oh, he is a good smith;" while the fact is, in many instances, that there was not a real smith within hundreds of miles, and they might very appropriately have joined in the lamentation of old, "There is no smith found in all the land of Israel."
I think I am safe in contending that not one out of a thousand smiths can make horse nails, which are the simplest articles formerly made by the smith. It takes the author only about three minutes in a shop to tell if the smith who stands behind the anvil is a real smith or a botch. It takes an educated graduate from a medical college just that long to discover a fake doctor who has no education, but has crept into a profession he knows nothing about. Just so, the average smith has opened up his shop after a three-months apprenticeship, and in some cases not even having served that long; but if the people but knew the difference, they would insist on an apprentice law. As it is, we shall only modestly ask every prospective shop opener to study and learn, partly by heart, the teachings given in "Standard Blacksmithing, Horseshoeing and Wagonmaking," and we shall have a better class of smiths in the future.