David Einhorn

The folks here have given great advice. Glenn sums it up nicely.

Local guilds have monthly meetings where stuff is demonstrated, tools are sold and exchanged, and information is shared. One of the closest clubs to you is PABA Home. I would humbly suggest joining the PA guild and the Blacksmith Guild of Central Maryland and taking a beginners and a couple of more advanced courses at the Maryland Guild. Their courses are usually on weekends and usually for two weekends. You have also been invited down to visit TheCivilWarBlacksmith (Joseph) at the Union Mills, MD museum shop.

These are incredible opportunities to learn. Where you live you are surrounded by skilled smiths and professional shops, and several blacksmithing guilds/clubs. Grab the opportunities and soar!

I designed and wrote software as a profession for over 19 years.

Beginner classes are offered frequently by the Blacksmith Guild of Central Maryland, about 2.5 hours from Philadelphia. I highly recommend taking a beginner's class. Blacksmith Guild of Central Maryland

One method of modeling blacksmithing is through the use of modeling-clay. Iron bars when heated behave very much like modeling-clay. For example, if you stick you finger in the center of the bar it, clay will move away from your finger in all directions. If you press the side of a pencil against the top of a bar of clay, more clay will move perpendicular to the bar than parallel to the bar.

Taking a blacksmithing class is very highly recommended, and a lot easier than writing simulation software.

Your planned program would be a great programming experiment, but I would be very surprised if there was a market for computer-simulated blacksmithing.

Very nice, congratulations.

If I remember how the line shafts were set up in the Industrial Museum in Baltimore, I believe they had the idler arrangements at or near the drive wheels on the overhead shafts. That way the belts hanging down to each machine only moved when the that machine's lever was engaged. So putting the clutch wheel/mechanism near the drive wheel on a machine makes sense. Just make sure that the clutch and belt can't accidentally engage and become a hazard to life and limbs.

My insurance agent said that he could only get me a policy for decorative non-functional objects that I made that would sit on a shelf to be looked at, and not anything functional such as furniture or cooking utensils or toys, etc. as those items, he said, would be a very very expensive policy costing many thousands of dollars per year.

Be careful that the policy you purchase actually covers guest smiths, visitors, the types of items you actually make, demonstrations, and everything else that you do. Actually read the proposed policy and make sure you are covered for what you make and do.

very nice work, congratulations.

I resemble that remark ;-)

..... I resent this clown being called one. Enjoy.

My preference is to use Hofi hammers for forging whenever possible. The center of gravity is different than any other hammer. The Hofi hammer is great for those of us who have had shoulder surgery.

I bought myself another Hofi hammer.

Very nice. What diameter is the bowl of the ladle?

I agree, it is hard to pass up good straight lines. Oh well. Monkey tools are what you use to twist, adjust or bend with. Butcher tools are used to cut and make shoulders for having a thick bar shoulder down suddenly to a thinner bar.

Unless you are using a Hofi hammer, your hammer face and edges will need to be reshaped and finished. Hammers out-of-the-box tend to have sharp corners and a face that is too flat. The end result is misc. dents that keep multiplying.

I have concrete floor with 3/4" stall mats at the workstations. The mats are sold by farm stores to protect large animals from concrete floors of barns. These mats greatly reduce the wear of walking on concrete and are less money than shock-absorbing mats designed for people to stand on.

What are White's Boots and who sells them?

Some, a minority of smiths, still don't share their "secrets". One local professional smith has repeatedly told me, over the past 20 or more years, that he only demonstrates tools, techniques and products that he no longer uses for stuff that he sells.

........... On the other end of the spectrum, one smith would not show another competitor any of his secrets, fearing he might make a dime off his knowledge. LOL

All of the firepots that I have are old, one Buffalo and a couple of Champion brand. These older firepots are cast iron. Cast iron holds up better to high temperature, from what I have heard, because the lower carbon content raises their melting/burning temperature. These firepots were used, and I still use, Bituminous Coal. I guess I am out of touch with modern firepots as I thought they were still being made of cast iron for people using coal.

If you look in some of the older books emphasis was placed on adding coal to outside of the fire and gradually working the coal inwards as the center of the fire burned out. Water was sprinkled on the coal outside of the firepot area to keep the fire under control and build up coke walls. The end result is that by the time the coal reached the firepot the fire was comprised of coke, and smoke was minimal. This hot coke fire needed a cast iron pot if the firepot was to last very long.

At least that was the way things were in the stone-age when I bought my equipment, perhaps someone could enlighten me on what suppliers of blacksmithing equipment are now using for materials in making their firepots.

My various mentors have preferred to forge a blade and finish the blades on the sander and then the buffer. As the result, that has become my preference. In my humble opinion, I agree with the people who have said that the forging process tends to be both faster and safer.

The less I do on machines, the safer I feel. On that note, I have recently upgraded my goggles to better ones, and added a full face shield to use with the goggles. This is the result of my first eye injury in over 35 years of hobby smithing. The metal sliver flew up under my goggles, and had to be ground out. My conclusion; hammer good, machine bad.

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People hammering on a piece of metal and hitting the anvil at the same time they hit the piece they are working on! Or missing the piece entirely and hitting the anvil.

An S-hook, many many years ago back in the stone-age, sharing a single coal forge with a bunch of other students. I also remember that I burned my hand pretty good too. We only had vise grips to hold the iron, an old hair blower blowing air into a length of black-pipe. A slit in the cap on the pipe served as the air-source.

I suggest purchasing a decent hammer. Avoid using hammers that have round faces like ball-peen hammers as they will leave dents in everything you do, thus leading to bad habits. If you can afford a Hofi hammer, buy one. Your hammer is your most important purchase. You can always use a flat chunk of steel for an anvil, and a metal pan with black-pipe, a slit cut in a pipe cap, and an old hair blower as your forge. For other hammers, find a smith to help you finish the face and edges of the hammer.


Your number one goal is hammer control, and number two is learning to properly control a coal fire. It saddens me to see people throwing green coal on the center of a fire as a habit, not controlling the coking of the coal, and working on advanced projects rather than developing good habits.

Work near the edge of your anvil so that if you miss what you are aiming for, your hammer bounces off the anvil rather than damaging the anvil's face.

Personally I don't see much merit of a person working on advanced projects if they can't keep their hammers from damaging the anvil and other equipment they are using. Lately, I have been seeing a lot of people damaging anvils, and a lot of green smoke. My recent favorite is watching three gentlemen using sledge hammers on a project at the local guild's building... over the tail of the anvil.... on metal that was too cold.... While at another forge someone else was pouring a bucket of green coal on the center of a fire and filling the building with green smoke.... And the guild has banned using *any* water to control the coal fires in the forges. While at another forge, someone is hunched low over a long piece of metal that he is making into a sword, making little dinky dink hits to iron and anvil. .... but hey, look at all the wonderful advanced projects they are doing!

In my humble opinion it is better to use welded firepots if a teaching group is afraid of beginners breaking the cast iron firepots, rather than banning the learning of properly managing a coal fire with water, etc. But that is just my opinion.

OK, ..... My biggest fear is developing bad habits that I will have to break. I know they take longer to break than to develop. This is why I'm reading this forum and every book I can get a hold of. After this I will then know how little I know once I pick up a hammer........I thank all here for the many things that have caused me to start thinking.

I used bearings intended for use in a bicycle steering column to replace the bearings in a Champion 400 blower years ago. If you have a bearing dealer in your local you could remove one of them and take it there to match it for a replacement. Our area used to have two bearing suppliers, but I don't know if either still exists. If you put your location in your profile on this forum, then someone local to your area might be able to tell you what supplier in your area has what you are looking for.

You can purchase "plain finish" (unplated) fasteners from Fastenal.com and reforge the heads. They also sell slot-headed screws, and square headed bolts and square nuts.

I made a 2' by 2' angle iron table with a steel plate for the top and mounted two vises on it. It has a plywood shelf for stuff, two racks for hardies or handled tools, and a metal bar between two legs that can be used with a hand-truck to move it if necessary. This setup weighs over 250 pounds so I have not had any problems with it moving while in use. A piece of angle iron extends from table leg with a short piece of pipe welded to the top of the angle iron. The leg sits in the piece of pipe.

Some processes require the use of multiple jigs, or a vise and a jig. Having multiple vises reduces the number of times you may need to change the setup of your vise(s).

A piece of square tubing with nuts welded to it, seen to the left of the table, allows me to use tooling that fits in the tubing.

I personally like the layout of the shop in Williamsburg, for its vises. Every workstation has a vise, so there are vises wherever you might need one. In my humble opinion, a better option than moving a vise around.