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I Forge Iron

Anvilfolk

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    http://www.ferroforjado.org/forum/

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    Lisboa, Portugal

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  • Location
    Portugal
  • Occupation
    CS student
  1. A quick question - have you thought about nailing down your anvil a bit harder? That made my anvil lose its ring almost entirely. It now does a relatively dull thud. The piece is, of course, marvellous :) Amazingly clean finish, I can't spot a single hammer mark. Top notch!
  2. Amazing experience, for sure. Thanks for sharing it with us! Back when I was learning blacksmithing at HCT's Rural Crafts Center with Holme Lacy a fellow student had a final project that involved making part of a tree trunk. They set this thick slab of plate on the ground, then heated a very large bit of metal on the forge (that sure took a while). Finally, they had 3 or 4 people striking it on the floor... hammerhead way up, then all the way down. Absolutely amazing to watch! It sure takes a pounding to move that much metal. The wonderful nail you guys did greatly reminded me of that :)
  3. Sorry about the double posting, but I just found something similar, at around 8:00. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGB7YR2l-KY
  4. I had to see it to believe it.... absolutely ... well, there are no words.
  5. You might've taken a misstep there, Stewart. Click the link and check the picture at the top! :)
  6. Wonderful video. My wife and I just "awwww"'ed our way through it! Lovely :) I either blow on the anvil or use my hand, after tending to the fire. Never gotten burned, but it doesn't mean it can't happen!
  7. Now that is a curious way to handle a sledgehammer! (I hope I'm not opening another can of worms here! :))
  8. Hi 01tundra, I liked your post very much, and I really identify with the duality you mentioned. However, I don't think I completely understood your stand on the following: As a perfectionist, you will strive for perfect work. As an artist, you'll strive for something that shouts out that it's been hand forged (therefore, not perfect). Do you feel that 1) a blacksmith should have the technical ability to forge to perfection and then decide his pieces should look otherwise, or rather that 2) a blacksmith's skill does not need to go that far if he does not wish to make perfect-looking pieces at the current time?
  9. Hi! I really like the left leaf. It's nice and smooth, and has a really nice finish! The bits coming off the leaf are really interesting, I don't think I'd ever seen anything quite like it before, so I must've missed that post! Thanks for sharing!
  10. Great to see other young smiths around! I especially like that you are putting out videos. I sometimes go on youtube and search for blacksmithing, ordering results by date. Most of it is games, but sometimes I'll find the occasional actual blacksmithing video. I think I found one of yours before you put this one here. Either way, the quality of the video is really nice, and I think it makes a great case for why blacksmithing is as wonderful as it is! Congratulations, and I hope you keep doing these! :)
  11. The difference in the search might be that sometimes the search will look in the current forum subsection, and sometimes it will look in the entire forum! Just go the main site and search from there. That should give you a global search. These options are customisable in the search options. Hope this helps!
  12. Thank you for all the comments! I am very glad to See Lourenço's work appreciated outside Portugal as well. One of the most interesting things in reading his memoirs is that not only did he have an absolutely wonderful mastery of the technical part of blacksmithing, but he was also trained as an artist. It makes me feel that we have not only lost the technical part of blacksmithing, but also part of its cultural and artistic heritage. If my memory serves, Lourenço travelled to France and other countries to learn more about this artistic side. I mean, Roman lectus, in Pompeian style? That makes me wonder what other styles there were. It makes me wonder whether these are wrought iron aesthetics, or whether they were more generic artistic styles. I'd love it if an artist by training, who happens to have an interest in blacksmithing, could provide some input on these issues. How much are we, the blacksmithing community, missing of the artist part of "artist blacksmith"?
  13. What a find! Thanks go to Frank Turley for mentioning it and jaimiechimie for finding it! Been going through it and found a nice tip: placing a bit of green coal inside a larger hole one is punching to avoid the punch getting stuck! Sounds real nice! -- edit -- And another tidbit: Bending should be done at a red heat, before the metal starts to scale, so as to keep a smooth surface! Makes a lot of sense, unless you explicitly want the texture of scaled off metal (which I generally like).
  14. Lourenço Chaves de Almeida was a Portuguese Master Blacksmith, born in 1876 and deceased in 1952. He wrote some notes called Memórias de Um Ferreiro, or "Memories of a Blacksmith". These notes were published in 2007 in a book containing some pictures of his work. I have scanned some of them and would like to share them with you all. From what I recall, he never had any apprentices that stuck with the art. The Second World War making iron scarce did not help. As a consequence, his skill was lost, as was that of many other master blacksmiths. This post is meant to remind us all of the amazing skill that once was. These are going from my least preferred to most preferred... Coffer and Key of the City of Coimbra. Main Chandelier of Coimbra's City Council, drawing by A. Augusto Gonçalves. Chandelier from Dr. Bissaia Barreto's house. Pompeian-style chandelier, commissioned by D. Genoveva de Lima Mayer. And my personal favourite... Roman Lectus in Pompeian style, for D. Genoveva de Lima. I need to track these pieces down and try to photograph them, but I don't think you're allowed photographing inside of where these are kept. Hope you all enjoy it! Best, João
  15. The hammerwork definitely needs a little bit of improvement so as to reduce grinding times, but it looks like it should fit a hand pretty well! Show us pictures of the final product! I am personally also more of a fan of pointed tips instead of a round tips on the leaves, but this is really just a matter of personal aesthetic preferences! :) Like Francis Cole said, keep at it! :)
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