Frank Turley

Jonathan Nedbor of Canal Forge, High Falls, NY, sells Black Magic which I think, has boric acid and some secret other stuff. It's good flux.

I use Johnson's old fashioned paste, floor wax, applied with a rag. It saves me mixing up a formula of some kind. I open the doors and windows when I use it, or I do it outside. The wax is getting a little hard to find, as is 20 Mule Team borax, so my last few cans I got from eBay. Boiled linseed oil is OK except that if applied too hot, you sometimes get a kind of olive drab color. A soaked rag can catch on fire and if it does, you'll drop it right away, guaranteed. Have something handy to smother the flames. http://www.turleyforge.com

Monte Vista Fuel & Feed 3155 Agua Fria 505-474-6717 Coal comes from out of state, probably Colorado. It is in large chunks mostly, but it will turn to coke. We break up some of it with a tamper, but by surrounding the fire with the large pieces, the pieces will get hot and fractionize. With your fire rake, you can chip small pieces of coke into the fire. Presently, $100 + tax for a front end loader full. They will bag it; I'm unsure of the bag price. There are a few rocks mixed in. "Please send the coal and rocks separately; I'll mix 'em when they get here." Post card sent to coal company byTom Bredlow

I really wonder whether the surface of the metal is molten when forge welding. I don't think it is. There is molten material on the surface which is mostly scale and flux melted together. This is often shaken off before reaching the anvil. Recent texts call forge welding "solid state" or "solid phase" welding; no mention of "molten." The old time smiths said that the metal was "pasty." Perhaps a metallurgist could comment. http://www.turleyforge.com

Yes, check out the Pennsylvania Artist Blacksmiths Association (PABA). You're in a great area for visiting Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site, the recently built Moravian Smithy in Bethlehem, and The Mercer Museum in Doylestown. And that's just for starters. Turley Forge and Blacksmithing School

A couple of thoughts. If you stack two separate pieces together at a right angle corner, say one of 15" and the other 10.5", you'll get your stock length of 25.5". If you measure the neutral axis, you'll get the same measurement. Staying on the neutral axis for the center punch mark, drop back 10.75" from the short leg end leaving 14.75" for the long leg. It's easier to visualize if laid out on graph paper. We're doing simple arithmetic, but it is nevertheless ballpark, because everyone works differently and at different heats. Test pieces are in order. Another thing I often consider, because I've made lots of turned heels (calks) on horseshoes. I try to think about where the inside of the bend will be when I start. On an upset corner, you'll finally gain length, about the thickness, on the fixed piece you're holding. You'll gain it measuring from the inside corner because of the stock material in the bend itself. I assume this is an "upset corner." If it is, one way is to bend, and to keep the bend at about 100 -105 degrees while using friction/drawing blows to draw metal to the outside corner. You'll gain a little thickness which you can correct as you go. Toward the end of the forging, little by little, close the angle to 90 degrees trying to keep a shut from occuring on the inside corner. Buena Suerte Turley Forge and Blacksmithing School

I was traveling with two friends through Scotland not too many years ago, and stopped to see an elder smith in Closeburn, Scotland. The man was Edward Martin, now deceased, who had probably shod more Clydesdales that anyone on two hind legs. He was also a fine artist blacksmith, and he drove us to some surrounding villages to show us some of his work, most of it in and around churches. Visiting in his living room, he brought forth a gold medal, perhaps 3.5 inches in diameter. He said that he had been called to London in the year 2000 by the Worshipful Company of Blacksmiths. He was presented with the medal, reportedly only the fourth such award to be given in the history of the Company. Edward said it was the third given in the last 100 years. On the medal was written, "Awarded to Edward Martin, SUPREME MASTER BLACKSMITH." 'Nuff said! http://www.turleyforge.com

If you strike the most used European way, the haft should be between 20" and 25" depending on a person's height and build. Also, remove the varnish, or whatever it is, from a newly purchased haft. Take it to bare wood. I use 1/2 turpentine and 1/2 boiled linseed oil mixed and rubbed in well for a finish. By European method, I mean lifting the hammer up and swinging it down in it's own arc, not too unlike the way a hand hammer is used...except you're doing it two handed. No sideways swinging and no sliding the hand on the haft. There is such a thing as a full around swing where both hands are near the end of the haft and the swing is circular by the side of the body. In that case, the haft can be longer than 24". Turley Forge and Blacksmithing School

Save up some money and buy a firepot.

Re "beating the crap out of it," that notion comes probably from Longfellow's, "The smith a mighty man is he with arms like steel bands." As a teacher of smithery, I continually encourage the macho oriented, muscle bound student to use finesse, finesse, finesse. http://www.turleyforge.com

Use them for sheet metal stakes. Turley Forge and Blacksmithing School : The Granddaddy of Blacksmithing Schools

I don't have a good name for the weld, but is is similar to a T-weld, but done on the diagonal. I asked Francis Whitaker to do the weld years ago, because I really didn't know how. I will call the attached part "the branch." The branch was cropped on the end at a 90

Our old farrier instructor told us that if you quit shoeing, it's for one of two reasons: you didn't get along with the horses or you didn't get along with the work.

I began as a farrier in the early 1960's, and charging ha ha $11.00 per head for hot shaping, fitting, and nailing on keg (manufactured) shoes. Yeah, really!...and that was good money at the time! I really don't know what the deal is today, maybe between $80 and $125? I never did more than five a day, because my body told me to quit while I was ahead. Shoeing is strenous work. I've met shoers who said they did 30 a day. Then later I found out that the shoer had a helper and both of them only trimmed 18 that day; none were shod. In any event, most shoers have a new shoe keg price, and they charge a little less for resets. A reset means pulling the slightly worn shoes after 8 weeks or so, trimming the growth, and nailing the same shoes back on again. A guy'll charge much less for a trim, because you just use your knife, nippers, and rasp; there are no shoes to nail on. Shoes are not always hand turned, unless a person is working on a special class of horse. Many harness race shoes used to be hand made, but even they are manufactured now. Some show horses are shod with weighted shoes to give them heightened action. I formerly shod some Morgan show horses, and in the Park Horse class, I forged front shoes that had to weigh 16 ounces each with most of the weight in the toe of the shoes ('toe weights'). I used 3/8" x 1" x 10

My step daughter and my good smithing friend Winslow are "lysdexik." They both tell me that the condition DOES NOT affect their design sense. They say that while the printed page bothers them to a degree, they have an easy time seeing an overall design in their mind's eye. Of course, it takes practice to execute, whether you're dyslexic or non.

Schwarzkopf* shows a simple hand held chasing tool which has a slight curve on the business end. You run it along either side of what will eventually be the vein. It is often done cold, and you rock it along like an old fashioned can opener. You are setting down material, thus leaving the raised vein. * "Plain and Ornamental Forging" reprinted in 2000 by Astragal Press Turley Forge and Blacksmithing School : The Granddaddy of Blacksmithing Schools

If you're worried about semantics, just call it a tuyere valve.

Mircea Eliade wrote the book, "The Forge and the Crucible," and it was first published in French in 1956. We later got the English translation. Eliade was born in Romania and became a student of the renowned psychologist, Carl Jung. Eliade came to the U.S. eventually to teach Religious Studies at the University of Chicago. The book does not tell you how to make a dang thing. It is psychology in the broad sense, and includes the disciplines of religion and ethnology. For me, it was a somewhat difficult read, but worthy. Eliade discusses Chinese, Indian, and European alchemy. He includes some African tribal ideas on alchemy, and gets into initiation cermonies. Turley Forge and Blacksmithing School : The Granddaddy of Blacksmithing Schools

Gerald, Thanks for the safety sheet information. I didn't mention the force of hammer blows in my above post. It's been my experience to use relatively light hammer blows to start the weld, perhaps a half dozen or so. The key word here is "relative." A light blow on 3/4" square has more force than a light blow on 3/8" square. Speaking as a smith and not a metallurgist, I think the reason for the lighter blows is to obtain initial cohesion. Once the pieces cohere, you can hit harder. If you hit too hard right out of the fire, there is a chance for the scarf faces to "shear" (slide apart) rather than cohere. Some of us have experienced this in a lap weld where the piece on the other side of the anvil goes squirting across the room when hit. Sometimes it results from hitting the steel too hard. There are other reasons, of course; for example, scale and dirt may remain on the scarf, even though you have fluxed. There is another flux on the market that I like: Black Magic. A story. In 1982, I was domonstrating for the Quad State at the Studebaker Homestead in Tipp City, Ohio. I met the then-owner of the Anti-Borax Company, the guy who made Climax, Cherry Heat, and E-Z Weld. What was on their minds when they came up with those names? Do they have sexual connotations, or is it just me? Anyway, he said that all three brand names were just a ruse. They all came out of the same barrel. When he told me that, he laughed like hell. He said that some SWORE by Cherry Heat, saying that it was better that E-Z. Yet they were the same! The owner said that when he purchased the company that the special slag they used was in a huge vat. The seller gave him a little slip of paper with the formula, just in case he might run out of his supply. There did come the day a number of years ago when he ran out. He tried to duplicate the slag to no avail. The formula on the paper was bogus! He was frantic. He contacted chemists and smiths who might be able to help him. For a few months, there was no supply coming to the retailers. Eventually, they figured out a workable formula for the flux, and somewhere along the line, the company was named Superior. It is true that the newer version of E-Z is not quite the same as the old, but I personally find that it works just as well. Buena Suerte, Frank Turley Turley Forge and Blacksmithing School : The Granddaddy of Blacksmithing Schools

The reprinted book by Dover, "Decorative Antique Ironwork," has some utensils from your period, most of them shown on Plates 380-390. The book is by Henry Ren

I've been forge welding for forty-five years. I don't know what a beehive is. Is that covering the hot coals with green coal? We used to call it a cave fire. Wetting the fines has been mentioned. That helps. The fire should be deep (high), clean, and compact. The fire can be open, but you need at least 4" of coke under the work and 2" of coke on top. You will not be able to see the piece, unless you make a peephole with your fire rake. Making a peephole is permissable. The work can contact the coke directly. When the workpiece(s) disappear from view by turning the same color as the surrounding coke, a dazzling, bright yellowish white, you have just entered the welding heat. Depending of the size of the pieces, give them 5 to 10 more seconds of blast and bring them out. To get rid of the surface soup which is a mixture of moltenflux, molten scale, and dirt, hit the pieces against the anvil or shake them in mid air. The soup will fall on the floor. Working by yourself? Lap the pieces on the anvil. The far piece is usually lighter, so the the heavier one can lever down on it thereby holding it while you reach for your hammer. Use the near edge of the anvil as a fulcrum/rest. Have your left thumb on top of the heavy piece, if you are right handed. Apply pressure and lever down. Francis Whitaker made a neat support for the far piece. He necked down and forged about a 2.5" length of round M.S. to fit snugly into the pritchel hole. With a forging heat and the round end in the pritchel hole, he bent the long end, about 1.5', down to about 90

I've had the B1 swage block for quite a few years. The large circular depression is nice for jumping a bar when upsetting. I also have the C2 mandrel with the slot. Some people call it a tong slot, but it is often used when two rings are attached or when a ring and link are together.

This is just my idea on 21st Century alchemy. You would do the entire process, mine the ore, build the bloomery, get a piece of iron from it, and make something worthy.

About 30 years ago, My bro-in-law, a geophysicist in Seattle, chemically analyzed some California mined borax and found miniscule traces of arsenic.

Sometimes, the Hay-Buddens have a 4" waist measurement, side to side.