Crawling

[junker]

So I found out why the swords I kept trying to make kept breaking. It's simply this, I was trying to run before I could crawl. I decided to take a look at me skills when some1 on this forum pointed out that I was asking college level questions with a kindergadener's understanding. So I went back to the basics and decided to make a simple fire poker, outta some rebar, for me forge. Frankly it's shameful.

[Francis Trez Cole]

rebar is not the best metal to start with get some mild steel. the best learning experance I had was picking up all kinds of scrap and heating it and seeing how it worked scrap yard good place to start.

[ThomasPowers]

Experience is THE teacher in blacksmithing. I've taught a number of college students taking Metallurgy/MatSci and even though they may *know* what's going on as they heat and beat the steel they still can't get it to do what they want until their hands and eyes are trained!

I've told a number of folks over the years that the fastest way to making good swords is to make knives *FIRST* as the cycle time on your mistakes is much less and so you can learn your lessons faster!

[Rob Browne]

Starting with the basics and working up you will be surprised just how quickly you will be making knives and swords. If you had kept on going with the sword making straight up you would have finally given up in disgust.

Now work on those foundation before putting the roof on :)

[Frosty]

It is NOT shameful! It is good honest education and an excellent first step is recognizing it's a long path to your destination.

Keep your first projects, use them, learn their functions, learn balance, form and all the other subtleties that make a good tool. Incorporate what you learn into your next project and the next and the next.

Don't sweat the looks outside the functional: Is the bend where I wanted it? Is the length of each leg what I intended? Did I draw an even taper? Did I estimate the correct starting amount to get the taper I wanted? AND SO ON.

As you're teaching yourself these things, some on a cellular level, the beauty will come for itself. Beauty in a forged piece is the same as for most man made things, symmetry, smoothness of finish, grace of line, correctness of function, etc.

These speak to the human eye and heart far more eloquently than a whole book full of artspeak.

Good for you, I applaud your decision. You'll be a full fledged member of the black booger gang in no time.

Frosty

Edited June 10, 2009 by Frosty

[Mike Ameling]

Congrats on seeing what was needed and making that decision - before quitting completely in disgust. And you are not the first to have done this.

There is one knife maker here in the Upper Midwest who jumped right from that "I made an S-hook" to making Layered Damascus knives - including mosaic, moku-gamae (sp), exotic materials, etc. And he's been featured in BLADE magazine several times. But his blacksmithing skills are almost non-existent. He barely knows enough to forge weld up a damascus billet and rough forge it to shape. The rest of his work is "machining". Now he does do a very good job of that grinding/sanding/fitting. But he still has problems heading a rivet, or forging a taper and scroll. He jumped over and skipped those basics. He's basically a machinist.

And if you talk any kids through an introduction to blacksmithing, you see it happen all the time. You talk them through making a passable S-hook. And then they pick up a chunk of tractor drawbar, hold it up and say "can I make a sword out of this now?" That brief introduction has them wanting to jump over years of work/practice/learning/experience right to a high skill end. The really hard part is then trying to explain reality to them without discouraging them.

Mikey

[ThomasPowers]

I tell my students that *everything* they do to make a simple S-hook is directly applicable to making blades---hammer control, drawing out even tapers, rounding, bending, etc

So don't think that learning the basics are a waste of time; think that every skill you get down is one more step towards that *great* sword you see in your mind's eye!

[Ted T]

junker
You have the right attitude! That means you are made out of the right clay that may be molded into a good smith.
Your attitude will determine the altitude that you will be able to climb too in blacksmithing.
I only wish many other new comers would pick up on what you have said.
I wish you the best, and at what ever speed it takes so you can obtain excellence.
Ted Throckmorton

Edited June 12, 2009 by Ted T