Jump to content
I Forge Iron

Certification


Recommended Posts

Question I have about this issue is this. Is there any certifying organization for the trade?

Artists and Hobbyists for obvious reasons need not be concerned with such things, the stuff I refer to is places like Railroads, Shipyards and such. Places like that which still employ working Blacksmiths.

 

Horseshoers have certification from their respective organizations. Welders have certification for various equipment, techniques etc which is pretty essential to obtaining employment in that trade.

 

Do Blacksmiths have anything similar to make one more attractive to a potential employer?

 

Also, if there are any Boilermakers Union members on this board......

Is there a test to obtain a Journeyman's card? If so, what does it consist of?

 

Thanks in advance to anybody who can answer any of these questions.

George

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Do you mean The International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Iron Ship Builders, Blacksmiths, Forgers, and Helpers, AFL-CIO/CLC

 

 

From the BABA site

Do I need to get a qualification to be a professional blacksmith?

In the US there is no formal regulation of blacksmithing. This means that anyone can set up in business and call themselves a blacksmith. The vast majority of customers will not be the least bit interested in the fact that you have passed a BTEC or Diploma, they want to see what you can make. To make saleable objects you need to learn skills and techniques. Going on a full time college or university course may be the fastest and most practical way for you to learn these but it is not the only way. If you are considering a full time course then you are likely to find a good mix of students male and female and of all ages and levels of experience who have come from all over the country to learn.

 

There is a blacksmithing program for certification in UK, Germany and other countries I believe. I will let others address those.

 

There is also a discussion on IForgeIron about what is a Master Blacksmith. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Yes,
At last count they had a Blacksmiths division with members numbering several hundred.
In addition to Industrial Smiths, Shipsmiths and Railroad Smiths, New York City Sanitation Dept. and Dept of Transportation employ smiths to fabricate specialty parts for their trucks and equipment. Those guys are also members of the Boilermakers.

I'm thinking if there is nothing in this country as there is elsewhere perhaps an organization should be formed with the express purpose of working towards that goal.
George

Kicking this one in the butt to try to get it moving.

What is needed for British Smiths to gain entrance to the Worshipful Company of Blacksmiths? Any other guys living outside the USA that have some kind of formal or legal recognition could you tell what was necessary to obtain? Can you guys describe in detail the testing you may have taken?

Thanks in advance
George
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

So I am probably going to ruffle a few feathers here. Please, folks, don't take this a personal attack, it is not meant as such. I am not pushing for a government mandated anything, nor am I trying to form a Union.

 

Two totally different models of craft/trade skills recognition that I am familiar with. The first is based on large groups where the individuals are constantly on the move, the second on the individuals themselves.

 

(1) Many large construction companies support the NCCER training modules for worker training, and many trade colleges and Unions organize courses and testing to those standards. Everyone starts with the core curriculum, and then moves into a specialty skill set. Your pocket card ID allows searchable access to a database with your training records, showing all the modules that you have passed. (This does not guarantee that the worker is any dang good, just that the individual is trainable, stuck around until the end, and has passed a minimum competency test. Much like a college degree. :rolleyes: ) The AWS is moving towards this sort of portable, stackable model, including adding Master Welder on top of the current Certified Welder.

 

(2) The American Bladesmith Society (ABS) has a minimum time limit as an Apprentice before you can test as a Journeyman, and then again as a Master. Courses are not required, but they are encouraged. The test criteria, both of performance and product specifications, are published. This does not stop anyone else from making and selling knives, but they own the copyright to the JS and MS logos. There is a certain cachet that increases traffic and sales if you have their designation.

 

 

Any foreign blacksmiths, or farriers anywhere that deal with state or national organizations or licensing, please feel free to chime in. I am here to learn.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Certification programs are like unions, when they work, everyone benifits, when they don't a few benifit greatly and everyone else suffers.
Politics usually has more to do with what skills, practices and experience is required than best practice. Farriers in the is are no different. We have two orginizations in the US, one seems more interested in compititions than working farriers, and neither really strives for "best practice" over "tradition"
Both orginizations have a bunch of shoes you need to master forging, of which 1/2 of them have been superseded by newer tech, or were "invented" after shoing horses was already a lost art. Much of what one needs to know is in manuals a hundred years old or so, and much of what we are taught is flat unhealthy for the horse. Nevecular desease, ring bone, contracted heals and road founder are all caused by things the farriers schools and associations teach us to do.
Ok, I'll climb down if my soap box.


Personally if all farriers in the is were required to be certified, that would be fine, we would be able to double our rates.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Having had a PhD I was supposed to be training (and was being paid double what I was) and still was getting middle of the night calls on things I had gone over multiple times and even given him a cookbook on I am a bit leary of "certs".  I also well remember a lot of "bad blood" that occurred over setting up the ABS.

 

Many lists of things a smith ought to know don't intersect much with what kind of smithing I do too.

 

My wife has been teaching spinning for over 40 years and looked into a program to get a "Master" cert; turned out to be run by a group that was focused on weaving and so all the spinning was slanted toward that and not for the myriad other things one can do with spun fibers.  A lot of time and effort to become a Master  of a  subset of the craft.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I hesitated to even respond to this thread, but I give out homemade certificates for completion of my 6 day and 3 week classes. Most student "grads" hang on to them and some even frame them for the wall. With one of my certificates and a couple bucks, you could get a cup of Starbucks house blend. A certificate does not need to guarantee professionalism; it needs only to say what a person has successfully completed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There's usually a correlation between certification and demand.  That is, if companies are seeking qualified help of a particular type, they'll generally incite local certification in one form or another.  Lots of community colleges tailor coursework to local industrial concerns.  I haven't seen a "now hiring blacksmith"  advertisement in my life - I sincerely doubt certification would change that.  

 

However I've read of some recent cases where employers are testing applicants versus using certification as an indicator of quality workers.  Evidently the programs were a mis-match to the skillsets the employers were looking for despite all indications to the contrary.

 

Personally I'd love to see the decline of the Human Resources resume screener who spends mere seconds scanning the life's work of an individual looking for easily digestible acronyms to indicate worthiness.  Recently I read an article about what constitutes a "good hire" at the interview level.  Across the board, related experience was the single greatest predictor of success - the rest was basically random chance. 

 

I suspect that most people find that their credentials count for the first job.  The second job is usually based on how you did at the first one.  It seems the further you get down the line, the less anybody cares where you went to school (or if you went at all). The notion that certification drives earnings is dependent on those giving the jobs being willing to pay more.  It's been my experience that such situations have been on the decline for the last ten years or so here in the U.S.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was ASE tested and certified every three years for most subjects, did it mean I was a super mechanic?  No I wasn't but I employed others who were and they talked to me on a different level than if I hadn't been, they could not pull the wool over my eyes.  It proved I could read a book and take a test and pass it, you would not want me working on your truck. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have been certified as a journeyman blacksmith by the American Railway Association along with the 20 plus blacksmiths in the shop I used to work at, that said some of them were excellent blacksmiths and others not so much. I suppose if the testing had been more rigorous not as many would have become journeyman but really it mostly just certified that you had done your time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Was hoping some of the overseas guys would have chimed in by now.

Problem is how does one define a trade consisting of many specialties, often fragmented, often knowing little or nothing about the other aspects.
By this article we see the railroad uses the term for a weldor:
http://www.nscorp.com/content/dam/nscorp/bizns/archive/BizNS_Vol2_Issue4.pdf
Industrial forging shops oftentimes have a guy on a huge many ton power hammer banging out things on an assembly line. This guy will be called a blacksmith even though he'll know nothing of the trade beyond operating the machine. This gives the title to what could be argued is a semi or unskilled factory worker.

Many horseshoers know little to nothing about smithing and care even less, and likewise, majority of general smiths have no interest in horses. At least unlike Railroads and Forging factories guys in those trades know what an anvil is for.
Shipbuilders still use Blacksmiths. BAE Systems in Norfolk VA has an apprenticeship program with Tidewater Community College.


Again though, obviously this training is strongly focused on the needs of the company but I can't help but wonder what must this guy be able to accomplish before earning his Journeyman's Card? (Certainly hope proper way to wear a hard hat maybe?)
I've been thusfar unable to find out if the Boilermakers have a Blacksmith test or not.
George



I have been certified as a journeyman blacksmith by the American Railway Association along with the 20 plus blacksmiths in the shop I used to work at, that said some of them were excellent blacksmiths and others not so much. I suppose if the testing had been more rigorous not as many would have become journeyman but really it mostly just certified that you had done your time.

Ok cool, this is what I'm looking for.
Can you tell what the testing consisted of? What did you all have to do?
George
Link to comment
Share on other sites

George, 

 

I would guess that the majority of professional blacksmiths working in the USA right now are in the architectural or related field.  And most are either self-employed or working in very small (less than 10 employees) shops.

 

The problem is that it is a very wide skill set.  Architectural, industrial, historic replicas, locksmithing, artist, knives, gunsmithing, craft show circuit, which professional aspect should be tested?  There are pros making a living in all.  I'm sure I missed a specialty, and in each aspect mentioned above are sub-specialties each with their own (debatable) best practices...  Employers looking for a person with a journeyman card will likely be in heavy industry as you stated in your original post but they had better be darn specific in what they expect in journeyman testing in this field. For example an open die power hammer operator will have different (better)skills than someone who just moves parts in and out of a drop hammer.  

 

ABANA has wrestled with this for decades now, with no consensus.  Closest they have come is the National Teaching Curriculum spearheaded by Mark Asprey.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The apprenticeship itself was good you had to work with every machine and different operation in the shop but  but the testing was only open book tests on booklets sent by the ARA Educational Bureau so you could either look up answers to specific questions or study the material and know the answers, either way you passed or rewrote it until you did.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The apprenticeship itself was good you had to work with every machine and different operation in the shop but  but the testing was only open book tests on booklets sent by the ARA Educational Bureau so you could either look up answers to specific questions or study the material and know the answers, either way you passed or rewrote it until you did.

I'd agree that the appreticeship sounds ok but if that's all there is to the Railroad Blacksmith test I think is safe to say maybe the old Boy Scout Blacksmith Merit Badge test might have been a better measurement of training and ability.

George

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ok I was going to stay out of this, but I'll chime in anyway.
Every term at TAFE we would have an exam, it always included Formula test, until we could all recite it by rote. It would include questions such as the following, and it ran to 4 pages
Length of material for a common link, length of material for a standard link, length of material for a pear shaped link, Hook size for a given chain size, formula for calculating the safe lift of a chain, Length of stock to forge rectangle or square to round, length of stock to forge round to rectangle or square, formula to calculate the amount of angle material to make an internal flanged angle ring, formula for calculating a sphere, the formula for calculating the weight of a solid ring, how do you calculate length of stock needed for a forging from a given weight, formula to calculate the amount of square material to forge a solid ring, the formula for calculating the weight of a hexagonal forging.
Other exam questions may be describe how to forge a flatter, provide dimensions of your flatter use illustrations, give a list of tools needed, method or the procedure you would use to forge your flatter, choice of steel used, heat treatment, calculation of stock needed.
Then after our written exam we would have a practical test, something such as we would each have to forge 2 off 3 ball stanchions, marks were deducted for the 2 not being a matching pair, lack of straightness, folds, galls, non adherance to dimensions on the drawing, excess scale marks, taking too long to finish the job etc,
We were also required for part of our TAFE day to attend a class of oxy welding, (in 1st year) and electric arc welding (2nd year) and we also had part of the day taken up with a class on Drawing (technical) involving 3rd angle projection, sketching, isometric projection, dimensioning, etc.
I'll scan one of the old test papers I have and post it up.

Phil

We had to attend TAFE one day a week for the 1st 3 years of our apprenticeship, we were paid for this day at TAFE,


When we finished our apprenticeship and providing we had passed the TAFE course as well we would be awarded one of these and sent on our merry way, to either stay working where we were now as a full trademan, or to go off into the wider world, to there create mayhem.

post-5537-0-98081600-1397635440_thumb.jp

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Forgemaster - I'd love to know what TAFE stands for.

 

Union Electrical apprenticeship programs in the states are similar in terms of rigor, class time, testing, and duration.  I think they were a good example of motivated instruction geared towards practical results and strong return on the memberships investment.

 

I suspect if many modern certifications were based on those ideals - the certifications would carry more weight.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

From wiki of course

 

In Australia, technical and further education or TAFE /ˈtf/ institutions provide a wide range of predominantly vocational tertiary education courses, mostly qualifying courses under the National Training System/Australian Qualifications Framework/Australian Quality Training Framework. Fields covered include business, finance, hospitality, tourism, construction, engineering, visual arts, information technology and community work.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sorry guys I thought that TAFE was a term that was used at least by us and the poms, it stands for Technical and Further Education, used to be The college of Technology, or to us Tech.  Our apprentices currently attend TAFE at UTS (University of Technology Sydney).  UTS is far as I know the only college running a blacksmiths trade course in the southern hemisphere, but it may not have long to run, as the authorities want to move the college out of the center of Sydney as the land is worth more than the perceived benefit of the college.  We are unsure of them re instating blacksmithing as a course in any new college that would be built.

 

Phil

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Basically all the text books we had were sourced from the Dept of New South Wales Government Railways Technical Institute.  There was at least 3 volumes for each stage of your apprenticeship, covering, practical work, theory/metalurgy/heat treatment procedures, and calculations.

 

Not sure if they are available commercially anywhere, I managed to get a full set from my old tech teacher, and had them copied and bound.

 

Phil

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Just found this one from the City of Chicago. Might be a pretty good job for any guys living out there:

http://chicago-il.geebo.com/jobs-online/view/directory/118/listing/62/id/203669666-blacksmith/?account=premium7

This job requires having served a US Dept of Labor approved apprenticeship. I'll look into it in that area and see what I can find out.

George

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This job requires having served a US Dept of Labor approved apprenticeship. I'll look into it in that area and see what I can find out.

George

According to their website it appears to be just a time based deal

http://www.doleta.gov/OA/occupations.cfm

 

However, it appears that they do accept the ABANA curriculum.

http://www.abana.org/resources/journeyman/index.shtml

They have a 26 point list of what they require to define a Journeyman. I like it. Looks real good to me :)

George

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In my view, I'm not convinced there is a point in having a certification for an artist blacksmith, because there really isn't much in the way of requirements to fulfill. For bladesmiths, I'll buy the argument, you can define standards for what a knife should reasonably be expected to do that aren't something a layperson could be expected to detect.  Similar, for a farrier, there are standards of care that a layperson could not detect.  But what standards would you expect for a sculpture, or a window grille, or a hat stand, or scrollwork on a gate?  Short of structural requirements, which is really the domain of engineers, everything else is something that the customer can detect for themselves.  For the same reason, you wouldn't expect to see the certification of the person painting your portrait.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...