Mark Emig

Boy-I'd love to get to that one. Good work guys!

Hey there, can someone clarify the "active smiths know what is what" statement-I am not sure what it refers to. I am an active smith (a decade of doing this for a living), and I agree with Ciladog-I can't do it, and I have a friend who is a ABS certified Master who said he couldn't/wouldn't do it either. Thanks.

Speaking of loving to see photos, maybe Daniel can post some pics (and how to) of his stuff, dude's got some mad skills :)

Saw the project in person-very interesting-Tim does some pretty difficult things to increase his skill (and just for fun also ,I think). Seeing people do stuff like this and post pics inspires me to do more difficult projects. After all, what's the worst that can happen-it might not work or I ruin it? Then I learn from my failure and do better next time.

Just happy to help in some small way-tools make the job a bit easier.

45 cents a pound?? That is a cheap price. Most steel suppliers are around 90 cents a pound.

Do the ABANA grille project.

If you are looking, it might be helpful to post where you are and what you're looking for.

Maybe you can post some pics for help identifying, or you can come to my shop and I can help.

Nice.

Had-they've been "adopted" and have new homes.

Ther is a good amount of how to in the Blueprints section. Another good resource is this http://www.abana.org/resources/education/chf.shtml The ABANA Controlled Hand Forging lessons are great-and FREE. They are all well written, by very accomplished Blacksmiths. Go through them, in order, and you will get a lot of knowledge and experience. If you have problems with something you are doing, post some pics and ask questions-there is a bunch of people willing to help-myself included. Good luck and enjoy your forging.

Well Todd, I think you have quite the tool collection going-more than a lot of guys have. Lots of good energy put into the tools also-give you something to smile about hile learning. Enjoy, Mark

Forgot to add, found an easy way to get the scale and flux debris from the tight areas. Just take the rosebud and just pass it over the area that needs cleaning and the scale and debris come off quite easily.

Barefoot while they're still hot. That'll teach me to do better :)

Here's my first go at grapes. Made from 5/8" wrought iron-in a die under the air hammer. Fire welded all together. They kind of took a beating in shipping, but all in all they're OK. Next time will be better.

No worries-I've found that terminology varies from place to place-just trying to show where I learned it from :)

Nice place Larry.

Just a side note-anthracite has been historically used by smiths. A while back the Anvils Ring had an article on it, with references of smiths in the 1800's writing about it-enthusiastically. A friend of mine-Fletcher Coddington of Arrowsmith Forge-uses it exclusively. If you are in an area where smoke or bituminous supply and cost is a problem, you can use anthracite with no issues-and fire weld with it (I've done it).

This is a solid snub end scroll. A half penny (or penny) snub end is the one with the thin end-thereby the correlation to a half-penny (or penny). The book Wrought Ironwork in the Cosira series (it can be downloaded free) has some great pics and how to about them. Check page 24. Thanks for trying to spread some knowledge though. Thanks for the compliment-it's a big change from where I started many years ago, where I made mostly mistakes and uglies :)-it's appreciated.

I really like the idea of the National Curriculum as it provides a standard set of skills for a smith to learn-and a standard for them to be TAUGHT. I am a fairly skilled smith-no Master by any means. I have seen many Smiths (and I use the term loosely), who say they are a Smith of a certain level, but there skills don't match their words. If, let's say, I work my way through the National curriculum and make the grill, and assorted tooling, I know that I am a Smith of a certain level and can prove it. I can also use it in selling my work. It's kind of like the shade tree mechanic, versus the ASE certified mechanic. Who would I bring my $35,000 car with a problem to? The guy with the certificate. I am just speaking for my own view on the subject.

I have recently gotten a breath of fresh air, so to speak, and have been doing stuff just for the fun of it. Today I made a snub end scroll from 5/8"x 1-1/2", made some stakes, a drifting block from 3/4"x2", a leafing hammer from 1" square(still needs clean up and heat treat), and knocked some 2-1/8" 4140 down to 1"square. Nice to just play for the fun of it-I've missed it.

I'm finally taking some time in the shop to makle some stuff for me. I made the stakes from Mark Aspery's book today. Made them from S7-mainly cause it's what I have. Next is good news/bad news thing. 2 of them failed-mostly because I mistreated the material. I forged it like plain steel-when drawing the tapers, I had the problem an uneven taper-one side a bit thicker than the other-due to the dies being worn in my hammer. So, I did what I do with mild steel (duh-not the thing to do)-stood it a bit on the diamond to knock one side down. If you look at the resulting crack you can see exactly what happened. Step one-plug in brain-then work. Remade 2-was careful in forging-results were very nice.

Sweet! Like the double hardy holes, they could come in handy.

Authentic smithing in a movie?? Good luck to that-mostly they just use it as window dressing.