When are you considered a blacksmith?

[beth]

wow basher - beautiful!

[beth]

wow basher - thats more like it!!! beautiful!

[Stephen Olivo]

basher that was awsome. Hope you don't mind if I save that. :D

 

Just going to throw my 2 cents into this barrel of change.

 

Its funny how much people like to run around the bush.  I am a blacksmith.  not full time don't make much money but I
am confident that when someone comes to me with something to make I can make something acceptable for them. 

 

It also helped when others started calling me a blacksmith.  :D  Specially those I looked up to.

 

 

There will always be those that can do what you can't or are better at doing something than you.  Doesn't make you any less just gives you something to shoot for.

 

"The life so short the craft so long to learn"  (guild sticker) is anyone ever done learning?  I personally will never be.  Be wary of those that call themselves master at anything.  Perfection is something to shoot for not to arive at.

[tzonoqua]

I was quite hoping DanP that you offer your perspective as I think it would be informed and interesting!! This subject can no doubt be debated til the embers die...

 

but now I I think Basher has said it in a most eloquent manner. 

 

Stephen, "The lyf so short, the craft so long to learn" is a quote from the poet Geoffrey Chaucer... it's a quote I refer to often!!!

 

poetry and blacksmithing, seems they go hand in hand.

[Pug}{maN]

Pugman, Posting what I did was not to embarrass you but to give you a knock up side the head, wake you up.

There are so many well accomplished blacksmiths, knifemakers, and artisans that are members here that deserve respect for their craft and by trying to place yourself, at your level of experience, at anywhere near theirs is an insult to them.

A lot more used to post and don't anymore because as the years went on, the website became filled with people that think that if they make something out of hot metal on an anvil makes them somehow an equal and they are not. These would-be blacksmiths offer advice and contradict the advice of those who know and don't have a clue who they are talking to.

Feel better about yourself? That's a childish thing to do . Can't come up with a better plan so just bring me down .

I think you are projecting here.

"Psychological projection or projection bias is a psychological defense mechanism where a person subconsciously denise his or her own attributes, thoughts, and emotions, which are then ascribed to the outside world, usually to other people. Thus, projection involves imagining or projecting the belief that others originate those feelings"

Now I know a lot of accomplished blacksmiths, have been tought by them and I collaborate with them on projects but I will never be or think that I am their equal. There aren't enough years left in my life to get there. It's about respect and you don't get it.

It was never about that and you know it you're just trying to backpedal .

Never once did I say I was good or better or even on the same level . Don't put words in my mouth.

All it ever was, was there was just nothing else to call me but a blacksmith .

Seems everyone else has figured it out why haven't you?

[ciladog]

It was never about that and you know it you're just trying to backpedal .

Never once did I say I was good or better or even on the same level . Don't put words in my mouth.

All it ever was, was there was just nothing else to call me but a blacksmith .

Seems everyone else has figured it out why haven't you?

You just don't don't get it. 

[Glenn]

Keep it respectful please.

[Dan P.]

I was quite hoping DanP that you offer your perspective as I think it would be informed and interesting!! This subject can no doubt be debated til the embers die...

Colleen, I was thinking of the interface between craft and "applied art", the subservience of craft and material/medium to forms that they do not necessarily or naturally fit into, the tension between art, artifice, artificial art and artful artifice, how "folk art" is the only true art because it is art that reflects the technique and medium, rather than just ephemeral concept, and how that is nonsense because I am also totally into conceptual art.
The problem with sharing these thoughts is that in my head the canon of reference is totally sound, but on an internet forum it is difficult to allow people to see what I have seen, and then of course they may not even be interested in doing so.

My thoughts on a more literal reading of the topic at hand;
I am not sure why people are being so hyperbolic about the skill of masters, how we/I/they are not fit to humble themselves, etc. etc.
Blacksmithing is just a trade. It is a set of skills, of knowledge, of tricks and tips and knacks, very few of which can't be learned or worked out with time. Given a basic aptitude, the more you do it, the better you get.
Blacksmithing is maybe a little bit magical, sometimes, more so to non-smiths perhaps, but it is just what it is, a trade, like any other, and there a plenty of crummy blacksmiths who are called blacksmiths because that is what they do for a living, and ever was it so.
I wonder if they get this kind of excitement over at the pottery/basket weaving/brewing/nose-picking forums?

PS Basher- 1 nomination for poet laureate of smiths

[Timothy Miller]

It was never about that and you know it you're just trying to backpedal .

Never once did I say I was good or better or even on the same level . Don't put words in my mouth.

All it ever was, was there was just nothing else to call me but a blacksmith .

Seems everyone else has figured it out why haven't you?

If i saw you I would say there is some guy forging over there. 

[Stephen Olivo]

Colleen. 

 

thank you I wasn't entirely sure where it was from other than the guild I am apart ofs sticker.  I haven't had a chance to read Geoffrey Chaucer's stuff. 

[Alan Evans]

 I won't give this thread another thought... go out and be a blacksmith!

 

Good advice...but a pity you're giving up on the thread it is proving fascinating!

 

I have learned from it that Francis Whitaker was a much more down to earth and humane man than `I had been led to believe, thank you Doc for that post.

 

I have learned that Basher (despite his name) can come over all poetically eloquent (even if he can't spell Blacksmith!) and DanP did put his money where his mouth was. And from Colleen where that perceptive quote came from.

 

I found too many familiar statements in Toolish's list as well.

 

Back to the OP and Pughman's concerns though...

 

Blacksmith is just a term for someone who works hot iron or steel...all of the adjectives that go in front of the word determine the quality or type of the their work, good, bad, traditional, shoeing, industrial, artist, experienced, time served, apprentice, professional, amateur.....

 

I could add that the only person I ever worked myself up to asking to leave my employ, said in defence of a totally un-saleable piece of work that he was a qualified Blacksmith with a certificate to prove it. 

 

I always think of myself as an amateur, despite blacksmithing being my only source of income for 40 odd years. Amateur in the sense of doing it for love...I have a favourite and oft spouted conceit that "nobody could pay me enough to be a blacksmith, it's a dirty sweaty dangerous job and you have to be driven to do it...not paid to!"

 

But then I always wanted to be an old hippy!

 

The drug of the forging process is sooo addictive.

 

Alan

[Daniel.85]

I make things out of metal with my hammer on an anvil and I sell them, its an LLC now and I keep track of my earnings for tax purposes. I'm definitely still new compared to others in the biz, but I own a small blacksmith shop, so call me what you will.

 

Ive been a barber for the past 6 years though, transitioning over to the smithy life, just over a year in and Im loving it!

[Alan Evans]

I make things out of metal with my hammer on an anvil and I sell them, its an LLC now and I keep track of my earnings for tax purposes. I'm definitely still new compared to others in the biz, but I own a small blacksmith shop, so call me what you will.

 

Ive been a barber for the past 6 years though, transitioning over to the smithy life, just over a year in and Im loving it!

Hey Whatyouwill what is an LLC?

[Daniel.85]

Hey Whatyouwill what is an LLC?

 

A Limited Liability Company (LLC) is a business structure allowed by state statute. Each state may use different regulations.

 

I copied that from the IRS website.

[Larry H]

has anyone noticed that the original poster hasn't posted since April 2012 ? F. Whitaker stated what every smith eventually realizes. Pughman.... only time will temper your hardness, it happens to us all. Its a good trade, with more to learn than we have time. Anyone who can suffer through the hazards and/or trauma that comes with years of smithing, is for sure a smith. The choice you must make is .....what kind of smith to you aspire to become ?, if you are satisfied with the work you produce now, your growth will be stunted. If there is always something you think you could improve...and then you do it for no other reason except to satisfy yourself, then you're onto something. By the way, I started working with smiths in '68, started shoeing in '75.....Union smith in '84 ......and 591 days left until retirement

[Alan Evans]

A Limited Liability Company (LLC) is a business structure allowed by state statute. Each state may use different regulations.

 

I copied that from the IRS website.

ah thank you, I have written a terribly witty and interesting reply three times so far and it has disappeared into the ether each time. It was something about curls to curlicues and tonsure to tongs and the transferable element of skills and experience learnt in one field informing your work in another, this is a poor substitute but you may get the drift.

 

@Larry H definite +1, you must be your own sternest critic in order to improve. If ever you're 100per cent happy with your work, stop! You have no where else to go!

[John McPherson]

A better question might be: When do you consider yourself a blacksmith, versus when do the very best at the trade consider you a blacksmith?

 

The late, great Grant Sarver, with his sense of style and whimsey, coined the phrase 'Sole Occupation Blacksmith', or SOB. A friend of mine, who is an ABS Journeyman and jeweler makes his living with his anvil and bench, described me thusly:

 

"You mean that big, bald side of beef? He knows his way around an anvil, but he's no blacksmith!" and I have to agree. I have made bowie knives, fences, and mokume gane wedding bands. But I do it a few hours a week (if I am lucky) for love, not money, so I am an amateur and a hobby metal mangler. But I will take adequate time to share whatever I do know with anyone that asks respectfully.

[Timothy Miller]

The trade is incredibly deep.  There is art in every corner of it.  Even the industrial smith forging a bolt is an artist in that moment. They are using their personal judgement and experience to form the metal correctly, to a mental template using their eyes, hands, ears and whole body to make that object.  Even if the product is not art the act of making the product is.   I have dabbled in many aspects of the trade.  For example I forge tools for silversmiths.  I have forged many hinges and latches.  I have made 100's of feet of fencing.  I have forged over 10,000 nails.  I have forged several thousand c scrolls with snub ends.  I have made sculpture, home furnishings, fire place accessories and restored antique ironwork.   You start to understand what looks good intuitively.  Your hammer is your agent of change every blow does something for ill or good it becomes an extension of your being.  You start to sort of own shapes in your head and can translate them into your work big, small, inside out upside down and broken up into parts.  Every tool is a possibility to make a new thing to make it better and more cleanly.  You body follows your mind wile you work and the forging develops as you saw it in your minds eye. The things you make look just how they should look and you know how they should look because you have studied every bit of metal that crosses your path.  You start to understand there is a over arching structure of infinite though related shapes and forms even if you can't articulate it properly. This idea is something that will consume your thoughts for as long as you have possession of your mind..   There is art in a bolt there is art in a scroll there is art in the curves of the final and the lines of a file.  Those who do not see this are uninformed technique is art.  The best art has always been a marriage of craft and intellect from the Lascaux Caves to a space shuttle launch.  If you don't think a rocket blasting off into space is art your just not thinking. 

[Judson Yaggy]

Well said Tim.  And Basher's comments are most eloquent.  

 

When your first idea for solving a problem is to squish or stretch a piece of iron...

[Larry H]

when you improve like Dave Custer, large growth....short time

[Gundog48]

To my non-blacksmith friends, I am a blacksmith, to other blacksmiths, I'm a kid who hammers metal at the weekends!

Talking to non-blacksmiths, the easiest way to explain what you do is to say that you're a blacksmith and try and represent the craft in the best possible way. I always make a point of saying I'm a beginner and that the stuff that I do is nothing compared to what is done by master blacksmiths and how I have only scratched the surface with 6 months experienced when there are blacksmiths who have been forging for 20+ years who still haven't 'mastered the craft'. I feel it is important to point this out as, while people think blacksmithing is interesting, they don't appreciate just how hard it is- you just hammer metal to shape, right? If I try to pass myself off as a 'full blacksmith' when I've only been forging for half a year, it devalues the craft and makes it appear less of an art.

And in the company of other blacksmiths, I wouldn't presume to put myself on their level! I may do blacksmithing, but I'm no blacksmith- not yet!