Things I Have Learned as a Beginning Smith....

[Drako11]

Ok so here is a few things with the few smithing sessions I have done, just thought I might pass on a little bit of it so others don't make the same mistakes.

1. Keep your fuel supply, especially Charcoal, far away from the forge where no sparks can get to it and preferably in a metal container! (Ya I had all my charcoal in a plastic box a ways behind me while I was working. I look back and the whole box is an inferno )

2. Wear gloves when you first start working with stuff or at least work with long objects. (I've decided to wear gloves all the time)

3. When your fuel starts getting low turn your air down if possible or else sparks and ash will be everywhere. (At least with my forge its like that...)

4. When cutting a piece of metal either have someone hold either side with tongs or cut it only 3/4 of a way through and twist it off. (If you cut all the way through it without holding on to the piece your cutting off it will go flying!)

5. Keep all hands, fingers, and toes in the ride at all times.... (A hammer to the thumb hurts!!)

6. Just because a piece isn't glowing orange doesn't mean it isn't hot, please let it sit for a good while before touching it.... (Looks at burn mark on hanb..)

7. Working with two people is sometimes alot easier then one.

8. As your piece gets smaller and smaller it will take less time to heat, set your piece off to the side if your going to get a drink or adjust your work area. Your piece will melt....trust me...

9. Although metal going off like a sparkler looks really cool its not a good thing, you got the metal to hot.

10. If you get a piece to hot when you take it out, don't hit it right away, molten metal will go flying.

11. Try to make a nest for your piece to sit in where you can keep an eye on it while its heating, especially smaller pieces. It is really easy to lose a small piece down in the coals, and its no fun digging around trying to find it.

12. Hot tempers and hot forges don't mix, I don't recommend starting arguments around a forge.

13. People love to watch smithing in progress, for the same reason blacksmiths love to smith. Glowing hot metal, pounding hammers, and flying sparks are just fascinating. However it is dangerous having people standing around your work area, especially when you are a beginner nad you never know when something might go flying. Try to keep everyone at a safe distance.

Learned a few more things today....

14. Accelerants.....where to start.....use in small amounts or, JUST SAY NO! (Fire wouldn't cooperate today so thought I would pop a little kerosene on the fire to help it along....ya umm took me awhile to get that inferno under control!)

15. Blacksmithing it addicting!!! AHHH!!! I can't stop thinking about A. New project I want to try B. What went wrong with the last project C. How I can obtain more metal, tools, or better anvil D. This durned forum! There should be a warning label on the main page WARNING: Smithing may cause loss of hair, hearing, normal thought patterns, and any life you had before!

16. Failure is the first step to success, that club you try to tell people is a knife will get better and better every time.

17. Smithing makes a great conversation starter!

18. Although smithing is a great convo starter no nomal person (Ya you smiths don't count!) wants to hear how you think you can make your next piece better then the last and what went wrong that you should fix. Oh and when you mention what type of anvil you own with pride, they won't know what you are talking about.

19. When talking to ladies every hammer you own doesn't weigh under twenty lbs. and that 250 pound anvil is as light as a feather. ; )

20. Don't try to work through the pain in your shoulder from hammering, just set it down....just set it down and walk away...NO STOP I MEAN IT SET IT DOWN!!

Edited June 3, 2009 by Drako11

[Bill in Oregon]

Drako: Good stuff!

[fisher_norris]

white hot is a bit too hot for hi carbon steel. i think the crubling is called hot shortness. and you can quench the cut and snap it off ( i saw this on tim liveley's website). i use a galvinized garbage can for holding my coal and i have a wood pile that is about 10yards away from the forge that i go too for new fuel. (my coal does not burn hot enough with a hand crank blower).

[Thomas Dean]

Good to hear from a noobie's perspective. Well worded Drako11, me thinks you will go far in this endeavor.

[Mike Ameling]

The OLD rule about a blacksmith shop is

EVERYTHING needs to be considered HOT - until you verify otherwise!


That also goes for your anvil face and vice jaws! Leaning with a bare hand on something that just had HOT iron on/in it does get hot and will burn you!

Tongs tend to hold heat longer than the piece they were holding (that extra mass).

All leading back to that old blacksmith rule - consider everything HOT until you know otherwise!

Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

[Steve Sells]

my coal does not burn hot enough with a hand crank blower.

you may want to check the blower to see it its blocked, Also we coke up the coal burning off the volatiles, and use the breeze aka coke before using it directly to heat the steels. I cant imagine how wood could get hotter than good coal, or even bad coal LOL

[Ted T]

Drako11,
Thank you for sharing about safety issues. We all need to be reminded from time to time while we can just read about it and not feel the results of poor or uneducated decisions.
You make me smile when I read about your learning experiences.
I

[Glenn]

2. Wear gloves when you first start working with stuff or at least work with long objects. (I've decided to wear gloves all the time)

My suggestion is to work bare handed. If you feel the steel getting hot where you hold it, turn it loose.

Use tongs, weld a piece of scrap to the end of the stock to act as a handle, build a smaller fire, cool the handle end with some water,etc.

I strongly suggest that you DO NOT wear gloves when forging. It gives you a false sense of protection from the heat. By the time you feel the heat from the fire or the steel, and take action, the heat is still working it's way through the glove and into the hand. The only way to stop the continued transfer of heat is to remove the glove. If the glove or hand is wet, a steam burn can result before you and react.

white hot is a bit too hot for hi carbon steel. i think the crubling is called hot shortness.

and you can quench the cut and snap it off

(my coal does not burn hot enough with a hand crank blower).

White hot is way too hot for carbon steel. White hot (usually) burns the steel and the only thing that can be done is to cut the burned end (area) off and start over where there is still good steel. The crumbling is where the metal was burned.

Hot shortness is a term applied to steel that has a narrow or short working temperature. This means that it can only be forged between xxA*F and xxB*F temperature, otherwise bad things happen.

When you cut or pinch steel leaving only a thin section remaining, you CAN twist and snap (shear) the steel apart after it cools a bit. After all it is only a thin section and is easily sheared. Quenching the hot steel hardens the steel. This hardness is not always a good thing.

my coal does not burn hot enough with a hand crank blower.

There are many causes for not getting hot enough, including low BTU coal, clinker in the fire pot, ash build up blocking the air flow, and poor twyere design.

[Frosty]

Well said Drako.

You put a smile on my face with your rendition of learning the craft. I've done most all those things except lighting my charcoal bunker on fire. I don't usually use charcoal except in the field so it doesn't come up.

What I really appreciate is how you lighten the mood of your painful experiences without the impression you take them lightly. It's all too easy to blame mistakes on the dog, Mom or someone, anyone or thing else instead of admitting them, analyzing them and learning from them.

You'll do well in this or any craft you choose. It'll be a real pleasure to do what I can to help you along.

Frosty

[Bentiron1946]

I liked #12. Most of my burns and injuries happen when I was PO'ed about something or someone. It is better to remain calm and cool while the iron is hot and not throw the blessed hammer through the wall.:D

[Rob Browne]

Great post says he looking at the brand mark on his hand from the weekend

I like the description "Mrs Pain" she is always there, especially when you get distracted by one of the kids.

[Drako11]

Thanks for the compliments and such everyone! Really makes me feel good to get praise from some experienced smiths. So I may just keep milking this for awhile haha! ;P So ya, added a few more to the list enjoy!

[GobblerForge]

Dracko11. Nice post. It sounds to me like you all ready have some of the basic blacksmithing skills understood. It would be interesting if you were to read the list in another year or three. Your view may change on a number of your listings. You would do well to listen to what Glenn had to say about the glove issue. You will get burned worse with rather than without a glove. There are times to wear gloves but not for general forging.
Gobbler

[chrisfrick]

Well said. All of your points should be taken very seriously by all who attempt to do what we do. (Especially the fact that we all wield 20 lb hammers and move 200+ lb anvils with ease!).

On the glove note--I agree with Glenn. I have never used gloves in my just over a year experience smithing. I feel that there is much, much more control to be had with bare hands, and if you need gloves, you're either doing it wrong, or need to figure out a better hold for the piece. (I do use welding gloves on occaision when quenching in oil, so maybe I need longer tongs?!)

Your positive attitude will take you far. Keep it up!

[Oak Hill Forge]

As a begining smith I sure can relate as well ! I have the whole family engaged in learning blacksmithing. It's part of my job (my real job) to write safety procedures, follow work in progress, specify personal protective equipment, so proper clothing, safety glasses, gloves etc. are natural tendencies for me. My 12 year old daughter was equipped in the whole git up while we were smithing a few weeks ago, and she had the "false sense of securitiy" (the part I failed to explain, or took for granted due to life's previous experiences) that a gloved hand was "heat proof" and she grabbed a black hot piece of steel that fell from the anvil, only to get a nice set of second degree burns. There is as Glenn said the tendency for the burn to continue until you can get the glove off, so maybe respect of the heat an no glove is better.

[fisher_norris]

well glenn and Mr. sells i had some hard/soft coal mix and i checked the twere and for clinkers before coming to my conclusion. noted the attempts with coal were before i had refurbished my blower. still i am pro-coal, if i have a good electric blower and decent coal. although charcoal (for me) seems to scale my metal less, although maybe beacause i have a bigger fire sucking up the free o2

[Glenn]

As to larger air openings, I use a 2-1/2 inch diameter pipe (bottom blast) with a single piece of 1/4 round bar as a grate, or a 3 inch diameter pipe (bottom blast) with 2 pieces of 3/8 inch material as a grate, depending on the forge I am working with. The fire ball is usually from the size of a soft ball to that of a cantaloupe or musk melon in size, but can increase to the size of a volley ball or larger if more heat is needed. Small fires require small air, big fires require bigger air. The electric blown air via a squirrel cage fan must be adjusted in volume for the correct amount of air to get to the fire. The same holds true when I use a hand crank blower.

Charcoal burns much easier than coal so reducing the air blast would be in order if used in my forge. I say this in order for you to have something to base your forge upon.

[fisher_norris]

i often just crank slower, with my blower (a hand cranked champion). but i have found from my 3 or 4 months experiance that experimentation is the best teacher. so try new things and see what works.
well as an edit to an earlier post of mine: when i said quench the piece and snap it off i meant to cut 1/2 or 3/4s of the way though and pour water only on where the cut is and lay the part to be removed over the edge of your anvil and snap it off that way. go to liveleyknives.com for a better explanation. :)

Edited June 3, 2009 by fisher_norris

[Old South Creations]

Drako11, I don't agree with everything you said but I'm sure you probably wouldn't agree with everything I say It's a learning experience in more ways than one!

I agree with Mike Ameling- "EVERYTHING needs to be considered HOT - until you verify otherwise!"

I forget this more than anything else. Especially when it comes to heat transferred to tongs, vise, jigs you may be bending metal around, etc...they may not glow but they can get VERY hot! Black heat is still ptretty darn hot!

Drako11, I really like your #16- "Failure is the first step to success, that club you try to tell people is a knife will get better and better every time."

As long as you learn from your mistakes, there's really no such thing as failure...keep it up! :)

Edited June 4, 2009 by jedsdad05

[Ecart]

Drako, I laughed pretty hard at your post because like others said, I've done everything on your list except set my fuel dump on fire. I've come close to that though. Before I started typing I took a good look at the fading 2nd degree burn on my left forearm that is shaped like the end of my RR spike tongs. Ya, Mrs. Pain let me know about that one.

Keep at it and follow up on the post. Being fairly inexperienced at blacksmithing successes, I like to see another newbie's insights.

[Drako11]

Ok learned a few more things last night trying to make a tomahawk out of a RR Spike

21. A bucket of cold water is always nice to have standing by for dipping hot tongs (in my case a crescent wrench) in, as well as burnt hands. Not to mention quenching as well.

22. When you add fresh coal and it starts flaming up really high it seems to work well to shut off your air and let it smolder for awhile and when you come back it won't flame up as much if at all. (Maybe I'm just giving it to much air I don't know....)

23. If you time your heats right two people can work on one anvil. (Although I wouldn't advice this at all, my brother and I wanted to work on seperate pieces so we got a little dangerous)

24. Working in the rain is inadvisable, everything pops and crackles often sending sparks flying.

25. (Alteration of the tip about wearing gloves) Ok so I tried working without gloves and I agree you have much better control. Unfortunately I don't have any long handled tongs yet, just using a crescent wrench. So I altered to one glove for my wrench hand and no glove on the hammering hand. This seems to work pretty well, but I do plan to go down to no gloves when I get proper tools.

26. You don't have to fill up your whole forge to work on a piece. If it is a small piece just make a small mound of coal and work with that.

27. Neighbors aren't always as excited about you getting a chance to smith for hours as you are. (That anvil ringing is somewhat hard on the nerves, a solid base should help though once I make it.....)

28. Have a good grip on your piece before you start hammering. (This should be a no brainer, but I often find in our haste to start hammering before the heat dies we often end up dropping a piece because we weren't holding it securely.)

29. If you want a small amount of metal to move use a small hammer. Its like golf, why use a driver for a putt?

30. The coal and bits left over from your last job work great to start your fire next time. I actually use a little bit of charcoal, get it glowing, then add the left over bits. Once that is going good add on new coal. The left over bits do like to smoke alot though, because there is alot of fine dust I guess, it helps to give an opening where the air and flames can escape.

Note: I'm sure I am probably mentioning alot of stuff most of you already know, and sorry is I am boring anyone. I am just putting down what I am learning as I go. : )

[fisher_norris]

it took my 4 months to learn what you did it about a week, noted i don't use coal too often. but keep your fire clean and remove clinkers is something i learned after clogging my air supply yesterday (it was a matter of time for me, but i do clean out a ton of clinkers every hour but i need to do it about every 1/2 hour.)

[fat pete]

funny but true post drako...gloves will be more of a pit than worht the trouble...one of the first things i was told about building your fire is the fire pot must be clean....then the ball of newspaper matters....and never ever use an accelerant to start the fire...as far as your blower goes i sometimes turn my blower backwards...i use a crank and i like the crank...I dont like the electric blowers , its something else to have to conciensly think about....I give it a couple good cranks right before i remove the metal and a couple of good ones before i return to the fire...fire management is a real subject....when my metal is in the fire i slowley crank slow....use a little water on your banked up coal it will make a little bees nest for a while you can stick your piece right in it...you should hear your flame roar when you add a bit of air... its fun getting beat up by something you like...keep at it buddy and good post

[Finnr]

Drako, sounds like you are off to a great start. Look at the BP section and make yourself some tongs. The first pair will not be pretty but probably will be functional.

Finnr

[Glenn]

Try a pair of vise grips instead of the crescent wrench.

When you add coal to the fire, poke a hole in the top to form a volcano. The flame will burn a lot of the smoke.

A site search on deadening the ring of the anvil will give you lots of ideas including wrapping the waist of the anvil with a couple of loose wraps of chain, putting the anvil in a bed of sand, gluing the anvil to the stump with silicone etc, and the use of magnets, bolts, and more.