bruce wilcock

in the uk we use a rolled section ,concave shoing steel, thats for the men that still make there own shoes,some of the bar can be very steely and will harden ,i have some that is a problem in that i cant sleck out or it will snap if you try to alter them cold , i have to let them cool of and cold shoe, if you can make a knife out of it is another thing ,,but i will be shoe making towards the end of the week ,will give it a try ,

i think Glenn has it in one, the safety line is the key to his yard,the key to his heart proberly is somthing made out of his own scrap yard that is a pocket size, alittle rams head keyring bottle opener, .Ben my son and myself were in the scrap yard this morning ,both got out truck on with hard hats and pulling dayglow vests on as we walked towards the office to sign the visitor book, Ben bought 2 ton of chain to lay a mooring ,and i came out with sledge hammers to re shaft and a bucket of chisels to sharpen for the scrap yard,and we looked at a shear that olso needed welding for the yard a job for Ben to pay for the chain ,. when we signed in i saw a snake , a cobra i made out of a shoing rasp years ago on the desk that i made for the boss ,call it creeping if you want but a little plesantness towards each other is allways rememberd

yes sorry but couldnt resist,you are right ,they are realy nice and a credit to a fine craftsman,nice to se the skill put into usefull tools with a day to day use,

keep it up this is the way to teech us to spel korect,i niver got the reson wy words woz tuff to lern, so i went into blacksmithing ,to geton a forum so yus lads cud teech me ,,,thanks it all starts to make sense now

when ever we banded a maul ,the bands where bend on edge first so they made a slight cone shape, and the maul was turned with the band beds tapered ,the band was driven on just warm enough to mark the wood, then three spikes tapped in ,then the maul face was gone over with a hammer to bruise the wood to stop the rings moving,some times we drove wedges into the face about 1 ins in from the edge into the face to swell it out, the bands were about 1-2 ins from the end depending on the size of the maul.

all the nail stubs in the shoing box tipped into a pice if light wall box section, hoof pairings and all, and it worked!!!

i make stamps up using a set of reverse letter stamps, the result leaves the letters in relief if you cut the stamp down after you have put your marks on it makes it easier ,keep triying it out on a peice of leather till you get it as you want then harden it of ,to use get the job to a full red wire brush and i use a fly press to push it in ,

my father used a large flint fist size knapped at one end ,to skin lambs and sheep, not that he was into caveman stuff, he felt it was the right shape , he just washed it and put it into a hole in the sheep pen wall till he needed it again.

making needles on a snowball defenitly is the sort of problem we should pooling our gray matter on, somthing of use to all of us :)

WD40 works to clean and sharpen ,it might not be the answer but it works for me .

i think you should steer well clear of friends that get them selves into jobs like that, your entire life will be bashing your brains, get a friend that wants to ,say make needles out of rail iron using a candle to get it hot and a snowball for a anvil, then we will all be able to help you . but as to the sq hole you are on your own. :)

we never seem to get around to lighting the fire and doing some work ,so the mead might get us into the mood to get started on the

knock some sense into us and we will get around to getting some work done and make a

just a poker and when doing heavy work with big fires a heavy bar to pry out clinkers

about as helpfull as a broken leg

Thomas is on the money ,we forge wood splitting wedges and only use 20 carbon ,for stone wedges we use 40 or en8 this will harden but we sell the wedges ,as forged, no heat treat,

hi ,all the advice given is along the path you should follow, but also remember you can get alot of hammer control without a fire, i always start apprentices of in the first week ,on a short cast lead bar,short so the tongs have to be used ,right from the start, forge it out ,make tong halfs and so on, then re cast it and of again, remembr clean the anvil and hammers of after lead has been on them , the hammer control with no distractions from the fire improves by the day not weeks ,it was the usual way to start a lad and i carry on the same way,

hi tinker for the last two years lads from west yorks have come to my smithy when we have forged a anchor, one of the lads told me it was the hardest weeks work he had ever done ,but can i come back next year, the work at presant is all wrought iron welding up and forging down old iron to make ,dogs and cramps to lead into masonry,for the restoration of a historic dock and boat yard, and mooring rings all to make out of wrought iron and fitted in place ,i have set up a forge on site as some of the cramps have to be welded on site ,real blacksmithing, a Swiss journeyman has been working with me for 6 weeks and we spent the evnings making up a toolbox and tools for him,so its not all work

leave well alone apart from getting it in the yard and with a flat pice of sand stone and water work over the face and pike, thats all you should do ,,if you want a flat anvil, get some work out on the one you have and get it to bye a new one,, i saw a Sheffield made wrought anvil ,totaly unused ,covered in tar and wraped in sacking,in a ironmongers store that was being pulled down, we scraped off the tar and the face was not flat it was level but was around 1/4 ins roached ,also the only sharp edge was along the heel ,the flat anvil is a modern idea ,and made by men that have never worked on a anvil, and proberly easier to make

no change this side of the pond, we have blacksmiths into the early 1700 with gaps during the wars inbetween, and likewise we have worked as quarry blacksmiths nearly throughout keeping stonemasons in tools so we have over the years made a lot of hammers. on my marrage papers i put my ocupation as blacksmith, and the clerk asked me if i wanted i could put engineer . and i soon shot him down in flames, as it was a little village he saw me often, and gave me plenty if room on the street,and i used to say engineer be dammed, as i passed him

the anvil signals about got it right the ringing up strikers is more of a rattle on the anvil rather than 5 or so rings, during the anchor forging this spring we got 4 strikers going ,in fair time , the gang improved over the job and at the end of 3 days ,if a anchor making competition was set up the gang we got together this year would take some bettering ,the difrence striking on a bigger job is the heat holds up and the men get tired whilst the job is still at a good forging heat and fresh men get on so there is plenty time to get the striking timing sorted out

the one thing that makes life easier around the smithy for me is simple. just get a skip deliverd out side the smithy once a year and ,be ruthless dump all the junk that you will have to live to be 200 to use up ,tell the scrap yard , you dont need paying for it ,just swaping it for more up to date scrap over the coming year ,nice shop to work in ,and scrap on tap

if the knife will not harden case harden it ,use casenit ,its the easiest to use

over the years i have use the lot including peat ,but for the type of work we do involving bigish fires and a lot of welding up iron coke has it for me throw it on blow some air through it and your away ,clinkers are no trouble so long as you leave them alone keep the air blowing through and dont keep digging holes in the fire trying to clear the fire of clinkers for each weld ,just look at some old photos of a chainmakers yard and the piles of chain at each anvil , the fire was not cleared at each weld ,to clear the clinkers three times a day was usual on small chain

quenching oil costs no more than regular motor oil, make up a long narrow deep tank with heavy hinged lid that has a lip around the edge to keep it tight and make a fine mesh lift out tray ,and you will find it will pay of in little time