Am I a Blacksmith?

[manolito]

I have retired and started visiting sites like this because I have a little background in metal and its uses. I know the difference between tempering to purple or straw and so on. I own an anvil and assorted tools along with a propane forge. Yet I am not a blacksmith.

Having never made a rams head or a bottle opener nor a leaf I have decided I am a mechanic not a smith. The work I have done over the last 50 years has been to improve function or repair broken pieces of equipment. So I have decided I am a mechanic not a smith.

Not having been born with a rounding hammer as a pacifier nor learning the trade while in the womb I have a great deal of respect and understanding for those that ask questions and never think less of them because they are trying to learn. The one thing a mechanic learns is if you treat people good they return the treatment if you treat them poorly you will have a life of misery.

To quote a fine man that has passed "There is no excuse for rude"

So for me at 68 years old I have settled on being a mechanic while trying to learn how to make something pretty.

To the engineers who have brought about change thank you cars today travel 100K on the same spark plugs. I remember dong valve jobs on cars with 20K miles and they thought they were fortunate. Yes todays engineers have improved the life I iive by many fold.

To all the blacksmiths now and in the future this Nimrod will try to learn something new so if my questions seem dumb please be patient.

Mechanic Bill

[Glenn]

Welcome to the site. Start by reading the stickies, then read what interests you. This will answer a lot of your questions. If you have additional questions or need details explained, tell us what you have tried, how it worked out, and where you want to go from there. This will save us from starting the explanation at the beginning (dirt before the dinosaurs) and allow us to jump in at your lever of knowledge to explain things.

Blacksmithing is not a bolt on craft, it is a hands on, a make it as you go, a make what you need, and a make it work craft. Think of metal as modeling clay. Anything you can do with modeling clay, you can do with metal.

[ThomasPowers]

My great Grandfather was the smith in a small Ozark hill town; he could do things in smithing I will never learn.  On the other hand I can do things at the forge he never learned! Blacksmithing is a wide ocean of skills and only narrow minds try to say others are not blacksmiths if they don't do exactly what they do.

[Charlotte]

Blacksmith these days is kind of a hyphenated vocation.   You may be  Mechanic-blacksmith aspiring to be an artist smith as in Artist-Blacksmiths of North America. 

I don't think of my self as a Blacksmith.   I'm more of a metal mangler with aspirations to be something better.  

There are people on this site that are willing to share their insights on process and materials with great generosity.  I'm not sure, but I think that many of the most expert smiths on this sight still have day jobs. It seems that 21st century offers few opportunities for a life as a Classic Blacksmith making all the things possible with hammer and hand.   However, even in my working career as an analytical chemist if found that there were occasions in which I could forge or weld something for my job which was better or unobtainable other wise. 

Blacksmith?  How do we define the occupation in 2015?  A person that makes all or the majority of their income through the manufacture of ferrous metal goods that are forged whole or for the most part in not automated processes?  

 I think not.  I don't have an answer but I will attempt to try to master the skills that Historic and Modern Blacksmiths have passed on to us.

[Jim Coke]

Greetings Maniloto,

Welcome and learn, The evolution of a blacksmith in this country and others was the village smith was called upon to repair many things and make parts. Through the years he became the go to guy to get your horseless carriage repaired. As time when on and his business changed he too evolved into an auto mechanic.. Point being the skills of a mechanic apply to black smithing and you will do well. I retired from Teacher/ shop owner/ mechanic after 32 years and opened a blacksmith shop for another 17 and did quite well. Black smithing is a never ending learning process and a background in mechanics is a plus. I now have 3 complete shops and only teach and try to pass on some of what I have learned through the years to others. Good luck on your journey. 

Forge on and make beautiful things

Jim

[SpankySmith]

Mano, I cringe at using the term "blacksmith" of myself, too, for MANY of the same reasons you cited, including an abiding respect for people who are TRUE, vocational blacksmiths.  But I still use the term sometimes, and absolutely when selling something I've made, only because it is at least somewhat recognized by folks.  They GENERALLY know what you mean (though if one more person asks me about putting shoes on a horse...   ).   I stick "hobby" in front of the term, so it's Hobby Blacksmith, to differentiate between me and the guys who REALLY know what they're doing.  But as others noted, there's so much ocean in that term!  Look at Scarpartz' work on this site  - is he a blacksmith, a sculpture, a metalworker, an artist?  He's all that and more.  The blacksmith umbrella, from best I can tell in my very limited experience thus far, is wide enough to encompass all those variations and more.  Even the mechanics!

[JimsShip]

This also was another thread back in the day, but I'm with Spanky, I say "I Blacksmith as a hobby", even though what I do  technically is Blacksmitthing. (amateurish as it may be)

 

[JHCC]

Another hobby/amateur blacksmith here. Never done it professionally, probably never will, had a twenty-some year hiatus between when I did it a lot in my teens and twenties and when I restarted a few months ago. Am I a blacksmith? Yes. Am I as good a blacksmith as some/all/most of the folks on this site? Not even close.

Do I enjoy it? Yes. Is it a fun hobby? Yes. Is it a cool thing that I can do with my autistic son? Yup. Will I ever be the next Samuel Yellin/Bob Kramer/Brian Brazeal/Uri Hofi/Steve Sells/Frosty the Lucky/ThomasPowers? Nope. Does that bother me particularly? Less and less with each passing day.

I know what I am, and I know the limits of my knowledge and skill. I am trying to expand those limits and get better at, as Jim Coke says, forging on and making beautiful things. And that makes me a blacksmith.

[Rashelle]

When one asks themselves that, it becomes a loaded question. Publicly asking oneself that becomes even more loaded. As long as one is not claiming ranking or titles not bestowed on oneself then to me at least practicing to learn something is becoming the thing. So when I personally think about it, I think of myself as a blacksmith. (It is my occupation, to the point of going weeks without a day off.) When I compare myself with Brian Brazeal, Darryl Nelson, Mark Aspery, etc. Even though I know them, I can not in conscious compare myself to them in the same boat. I'm a beginner in comparison. I suspect there will always be someone, who one can look up to and say "Wow, wish I was that good." I will compare myself with everyone who is better then me. I will then compete with myself to meet their standards, and thus always fall short, pushing myself to get better. I do not though allow myself to look down on one less experienced, as we all start as a beginner no matter what we do.

But on the other hand I got scolded a few months ago (and rightly so), in real life, for praising one persons work, yet being down on my own work, which was markedly better then theirs. In effect, in arrogance I was saying, this for me is not acceptable, yet for you this is good work. That though not worded or meant that way is wrong. You will always be able to find fault with your own work, which again is a good thing as it shows you know you can improve. But don't fall into the trap of humility, where it becomes wrong. (Not false but wrong, you can be humble about your skills and accomplishments but don't let it thus belittle others.) Hope that made sense.

[Frozenthunderbolt]

Mano, I cringe at using the term "blacksmith" of myself, too, for MANY of the same reasons you cited, including an abiding respect for people who are TRUE, vocational blacksmiths.  But I still use the term sometimes, and absolutely when selling something I've made, only because it is at least somewhat recognized by folks.  They GENERALLY know what you mean (though if one more person asks me about putting shoes on a horse...   ).   I stick "hobby" in front of the term, so it's Hobby Blacksmith, to differentiate between me and the guys who REALLY know what they're doing.  But as others noted, there's so much ocean in that term!  Look at Scarpartz' work on this site  - is he a blacksmith, a sculpture, a metalworker, an artist?  He's all that and more.  The blacksmith umbrella, from best I can tell in my very limited experience thus far, is wide enough to encompass all those variations and more.  Even the mechanics!

I think you nailed this perfectly S.S.; this is precisely the way i see it for me at the moment too! Especially the horseshoe question lol

[Frosty]

Well said Spanky, I add a Ditto.

Frosty The Lucky.

[John McPherson]

Blacksmiths are not the only crafters who struggle with this need to put labels on ourselves and others.

http://craftcouncil.org/magazine/article/whos-afraid-amateurs

 

 

[SpankySmith]

I suspect there will always be someone, who one can look up to and say "Wow, wish I was that good." I will compare myself with everyone who is better then me.

I had a "moment" sort of like this when I was showing a co-worker's nephew some basic blacksmithing techniques over his summer vacation... at one point he was struggling with something so I stepped in to demonstrate it and he said, "Oh..sure..make it look easy!"  Which I had to smile about, because I recall thinking the EXACT same thing when someone first showed me how to do it.  Does that make me a big grown up blacksmith now?  HARDLY!  It just means maybe I'm on step #4 and he's on step #1 - as opposed to Smith's I know who are on step # 6718.  I tell people all the time that best I can tell so far the learning curve on Blacksmithing is at least 50 years long...then I think you really start to get the hang of it. 

[Rashelle]

Ok grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, I can only write in italics now.

Whew you caught what I was trying to say Spanky. I think I could better get to the point I was making by saying don't belittle your own work too much cause not only can a person look up to another and say "wow, wish I was that good." But that others can look up to you and say the same.

[ausfire]

Interesting discussion. I see myself as more of an artist who uses some blacksmith techniques to make what I want. I will never reach the level of the Frostys and TPs of the world, but I work within my limitations and make things that people like ...  and I get enjoyment out of it. Happy to call myself an artist blacksmith, despite my very ordinary forge welds and absolute frustration with wrought iron!

To some extent, if you pound metal on an anvil and make things, you are a blacksmith. Perhaps the words beginner, hobby, amateur, professional may clarify the perception.

[Phil H]

To me blacksmithing is a trade. I respect a qualified tradesman. A tradesman must serve an apprenticeship for some years, and at the end of this he (or she) will have a fair knowledge of, and some experience at, his (or her) trade. They then deepen their knowledge as they work at their trade.

I know blacksmiths. My Uncle George was a blacksmith by trade. Their knowledge and skill are impressive. If anyone suggests that I am a blacksmith I am deeply embarrassed, as there is no way that I could qualify for that category. I play with hot metal.

When I see a proper smith at work, I am reminded of a line from a Louis L'Amour novel ("Sackett") : "By god, today I seen a man."

 

 

[gote]

 

 

I consider myself a hobby blacksmith and have never given it a second thought and I am not going to let the question bother me much.

To me a professional blacksmith is someone who makes his/her living from it.

Regardless of the degree of skill.

Skill is so relative. I am 100% better than my neighbour who has never pounded on hot iron but I am far far below the people who have been mentioned in earlier posts. My present project is some 120 10mm "tent pins" intended to hold down the bottom wire of the deer/boar fence I have erected. Is it easy for me? Yes I can make them in two heats; one for each end but I am lazy so I take two/three for the hook end. Am I skilful?  Yes I am skilful enough for this project. My neighbour could not make them (unless I coached him). Could I compete with Brian Brazeal. No way. In such company I am not skilful.  

Since I make things that are necessary or at least useful in the garden, in the house or on the premises generally, I might be an "emergency blacksmith."

I think the question should not be "am I a Blacksmith?" but rather: "What kind of blacksmith am I ?"

 Göte