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I Forge Iron

Everything Mac

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    They didn't have angle grinders in 1875...

    in Blacksmithing, General Discussion

    Posted

    2 hours ago, brother terry said:

    Wow! One would never believe you all are of the brotherhood of blacksmiths. If some one wants to chew Juicy Fruit gum let him. If another wants to chew Double mint, that's his prerogative. Some people like straight bows and some compound. What's the big deal. I think you all beat this dead dog long enough. I'm new to blacksmithing and join this group because I thought I could learn how to work my fire so i could make a weld with my home made forge. And I want to do that because I thought it would be fun. No other reason. I want to make my own tools because I want to. You guys have a lot of talent as I've viewed from your pictures. I want to learn how to do that. To me it's an art form. I've been creating things with modern tools for a long time. And I did because I want too. I already know how to bicker. If that's all you guys can do then I'm afraid I wasted my time. How about spending your time and talent teaching us new comers how to get started. And lets all work together to make this forum a place where people can learn from your experience. If a man learns how to do a trade better than anyone else and doesn't share his wisdom before he dies his knowledge was wasted. But if he teaches others what he knows, he changes the world.

    Welcome aboard Brother Terry, 

     

    Please don't tar the entire forum as a result of this one thread. It does everyone good to have a decent discussion on a topic we have different views on from time to time. It broadens everyone's horizons in one way or another. 

    Spend a little more time here and you will realise that most, if not all of the people that have replied to this thread have made hundreds if not thousands of helpful posts to hundreds if not thousands of questions asked by new comers such as yourself. - Many of those to simple questions I myself have asked. It's very nice to see someone has taken what is often a considerable amount of time out of their day to write out a thoughtful and easily understood reply. 

     

    If you search the forums you should easily find answers to some of the questions you have posted above. 

     

    All the best 

    Andy

    They didn't have angle grinders in 1875...

    in Blacksmithing, General Discussion

    Posted

    Sorry mods - try as I might I can't get a reply through to my other thread or any thread for that matter just now. :(

    So this is the video that sparked the whole debate. 

     

     

    As for the thread - thanks for replying. 

     

    I think there is too much romanticism in blacksmithing. The idea of the lone smith working in a dark shack in the middle of no where with no electricity and black magic aplenty. If that's what the client wants to think then that's fine by me but anyone who practices the craft really should know better. 

    I really don't think that using modern equipment takes anything away from a finished piece and to compare something that has been hand made to factory made tat is just wrong. I guess that depends on your definition of hand made but to me every tool I can think of requires a certain amount of competence to use correctly. 

     

    For example I made a love heart from a horse shoe this week as a gift for a friend's wedding. My misses came home and took one look before reporting that I'd stamped one of the names the wrong way round. - After a lot of curses I was faced with two options: Completely reforge the piece from scratch or run a weld over the stamped name, grind it flush and then re-stamp it. 

     

    - I chose the latter option. I ran a bead over the area, ground it flush with the angle grinder, got it hot and gave it a good wire brush before stamping the name in again. The recipient will never know. My misses thought I'd made an entirely new replacement and I dare say even many smiths would be hard pressed to notice anything, and why should they; it was flush, there was no colour difference, no scratches from the flap wheel... 

    Is that wrong of me? Have I some how cheated the client, robbed them of something? No of course not. I saved myself 30 minutes of forging by spending 10 minutes with modern tools and the knowledge of how to use them. 

     

    Cheers 

    Andy

     

     

     

     

     

    They didn't have angle grinders in 1875...

    in Blacksmithing, General Discussion

    Posted

    Hi all, 

     

    I'm an avid social media user when I'm away from the workshop which is sadly all too often. I often post pictures of things I've made and peruse the things other people out there are making. 

     

    More recently I've started making youtube videos. I'll post a link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGwTpm0WpWA

     

    The aim is to help beginner blacksmiths with a few projects etc etc. 

     

    Anyway I posted this video on a facebook group and got a rather interesting reply. "They didn't have angle grinders in 1875" 

     

     Quite an obvious comment if you take it at face value. But to me it has worrying undertones. It seems to me there are often two kinds of amateur blacksmiths. - The "modern" smiths and the "Old school" smiths. - I hope these are suitably self explanatory. 

     

    Personally I can't understand the reasoning behind people who are rooted to this idea that blacksmithing is an ancient craft and everything has to be done "The old way" or it's not worth doing at all... 

     

    Why on earth would I do this hobby in a way that's true to the way a blacksmith in 1875 would do it? for filing things by hand, using a hand operated drill, forge welding any joins? - no angle grinder, drill press or arc welder in sight? 

     

    Is it just me or is this absolutely daft? I'm only a hobby smith, but even so my time is precious. I have a dog that needs walking twice a day, a fiancé that needs feeding when she gets in from work, not to mention a job of my own. I don't have time to even consider doing everything the way it was done hundreds of years ago. I can only imagine how important time savers are for the professional smiths out there. Power hammers, induction forges and so on and so on...

     

    Some might say that doing things the old fashioned way adds to their value to the customer (if indeed you are selling your work) - but my question to that would be "How can your customer tell, other than you telling them that's how you did it?" 

     

    To me it seems to be a way to charge unnecessarily inflated prices, when surely you can tailor the price to the budget of the client. I'm more than happy to arc weld things together if the budget demands it - To paraphrase Frosty - Likewise I'm happy to smelt the steel from scratch as long as their budget allows for it. 

     

    Are there any "Old school" smiths on here? If so can you share your reasoning with me? 

     

    I assume there are a few "modern" smiths here that have the same feelings on the matter. One thing that is interesting though, another facebook user commented that "They didn't have angle grinders, but they would have used them if they did..." 

     

     

    All the best 

     

    Andy

    SCRAP METAL PRICES - what gives ?

    in Blacksmithing, General Discussion

    Posted

    Yup, same here for sure. My local scrappy has been hit hard by the Chinese. As a matter of fact I'm going to visit the scrappy today. 

    I tend not to bother weighing in my scrap. I don't have space to store much so I clear it out regularly, theres an van that drives round from time to time picking up scrap metal and they often leave my place with a few bits. It's just not worth weighing it in for me. 

     

    All the best 

    Andy

    Setting up shop!

    in Anvils, Swage Blocks, and Mandrels

    Posted

    Hi Corksmith - I gather Ireland is a bit of an anvil desert. I see a few pop up on ebay from time to time. But to be honest you might be better saving the pennies up and getting one shipped over from England. - I have a buddy that has a few for sale, he's not the cheapest in the world but he'll certainly sort you out easy enough. 

    Give me a shout via PM and I'll give you his contact details. 

     

    That particular anvil is a cast iron one. Not utterly useless as it would get you going but personally I wouldn't bother. 

     

    Other options are: A length of Rail Road track, a large sledge hammer head or even just a large block of steel. 

     

    All the best 

    Andy

    striking anvil

    in Anvils, Swage Blocks, and Mandrels

    Posted

    Nicely done Ethan. It looks great. How did you get the square hole in there? 

     

    I've toyed with the idea of making a striking anvil a few times but simply haven't got round to it. With my limited space it's a project that was just put on a back burner.  - What would you say are it's benefits over say, an actual anvil mounted low? 

     

    Andy

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