Help!!!!!

[IRon_FOrgerI22]

I am still looking for some place where i can apprentenship at.

[son_of_bluegrass]

Have you looked at ABANA's site for a local affliate? Don't take this the wrong way but I keep seeing you whine about looking for someplace to apprentice. In maybe 10 minutes I found NJBA (new jersey ABANA affliate) with a couple of open forge nights a week and a number of class opportunities in the area or bordering states. If i'm stepping on toe here - sorry (for some reason not all the post in this thread are making it to my end).

[Joe H]

You sound like a good kid... If you stay at it enough, show your parents how truly interested in this art, I doubt they will refuse you.

Make safety your number one priority. Talk to your neighbors, let them know what you'd like to do.

Try to get your parents interested, reading through this site would be good for them, and you.

Remind them that you could be a kid that just wants to play video games (like most), or worse... Instead you want to learn an an art. I think that is VERY admirable of anyone, especially a young man of your age.

Just hang in there and be paitient. I have a feeling your parents will come around. Knowledge is your best asset, keep reading and gaining more.

[Dutchmancreek]

My mom wants me to find a place where i can do my blacksmithing like almost like an appreticship but i said then i can't make what i want do you guys no what i mean. I mean its great to go some where to forge so someone can teach you but i mean i want some freedom on what i make.

Just what is it you want to make?.....Please don't say swords. You have to start with the basics and the best way is to watch and learn from people who already know what they are doing. If you don't want to listen to what the more experienced smiths say, and want to do only what you want, then why are you posting on this forum? Attend open forges and chapter meetings and watch. If you can't do basic exercises (drawing out, upsetting, bending, tapering, punching, scrolling, twisting, etc) then you aren't ready to move on. Many organizations have basic classes several times a year...sign up for one.

Can you make an S-hook? Now make 50 more just like it. Add a twist. Then make hammer-in wall hooks. Make a lot of little things...you can give them away for presents. There are a lot of books available (check your library) that will show basic projects.

The only way to learn is to start with basics and move up a step at a time.

[fat pete]

I know how you feel about doing your own thing...I will tell ya if you try and do those things first you wont know how and it will frustrate you more than you can believe. I am just starting and I get sick of making hooks. I make em tho! and what I do is try and do something different to the tops of them meanwhile doing what I must to learn the moves....I get my little flair on them. I have a blacksmith primer by randy Mcdaniels...good book ...full of little projects that if you follow them you have good habits and it kinda of opens you to do some things on your own...he tells ya how you should do it...it does take time so develope some patience...if you play any sports look at what you did 5 years ago and see what you can do now ....same difference...

[ThomasPowers]

Authentic to WHEN and WHERE? Propane is authentic to late 20th and early 21st century blacksmithing in the Americas and Europe as is coal and charcoal.

For European smithing:

If you want to do 19th century through the high middle ages you are limited to charcoal and coal.

If you want to do early medieval or earlier forging you are limited to charcoal.

Unfortunately they type of iron that was forged changed after the American Civil War and is not made anymore save by recycling it in England---check out the Real Wrought Iron Co, LTD. So if you are going to be doing it authentic you had better get used to recognizing it in the scrap yards and spending days making pieces of scrap into the starting sizes and shapes you need.

As for apprenticeships: How much is your Mother willing to pay? Even in Colonial times the family *paid* the master smith to take on an apprentice. Many people have an odd idea that an apprentice pays for 1on1 training with his labour.

Well it can be done; in a general discussion about bladesmithing it was decided that 10 hours of unsupervised scut work would be a reasonable trade for 1 hour of 1on1 training. Unfortuantely many smiths do not have that much unskilled work around and so having an apprentice slows them down as they have to spend time teaching them to do more skilled labour. So they end up getting less work done and so make less money.

How to get around this? Find someone who is doing it for the love of the craft and cares little about the money---if they do not have to support themselves by it they can be free with their time though often on nights and weekends. How do you find such folks? By attending meetings of the local blacksmithing group and asking around!

An added problem is insurance. Basically you are asking people to bet their shop, home, etc on you as many insurance policies *require* that another party gets sued if there is an accident or they will not cover it---your agreement that you won't does not hold!

Classes are really a better faster way to go. As a parent I would have my kids make the money for the classes to show they are committed and then provide the transportation.

Did you check out that Peters Valley link for classes offered in Northern NJ?

[solvarr]

You can micro batch your own charcoal.
Get a 35-55 gallon drum or a non galvanized metal container.
Fill it vertically with a bunch of yard waste wood no thicker than 3 inches wide.
Have one piece stick out the top about 3 inches
Start a fire in the barrel and use a piece of metal as a lid so when the extra 3 inches burn down the fire goes out.
This will not give you an optimal yield but it is an easy technique.

There have been times when I have bypassed the charcoal and used a small but intense camp fire and setup a side blast using an inflatable bed blower and a length of pipe to blast air right into the coals.

I have read anecdotes of Appalachian blacksmiths using chunks of seasoned hardwood directly in their forge.

[MRobb]

Hey John. You don't know me, as I just joined/registered yesterday. I have been reading over what has been posted. I can't really add anything to all the great advice given so far. Except maybe one thing.
Question. Are you on good terms with your neighbors? If you talked to them (as one person has already mentioned) and explained what you wanted to do, you might then be able to go to your mother & tell her that they don't mind you trying. That would knock one thing off her list of why you shouldn't do this at home.
Also, try making things that she can use around the house. Let her see useful & productive things coming from this. It doesn't have to be anything big.

[J W Bennett]

John,
I see you live in New Jersey. I would imagine 4H is not an option but the Boy scouts offer a merit badge. I don't know what age you are but that is also an option. It sounds to me like your mother would like to see a controled learning enviroment and honestly I can see her point. Check out the resources available to learn the craft properly.

John

[ThomasPowers]

4H may be an option; New Jersey had the greatest number of farms of any of the United States not that long ago---why it was called "The Garden State" Market Gardens for NYC. When I lived there our township in Monmouth County was about 50% small farms and 50% stockbrokers---mercedes and tractors on the roads together.

[IRon_FOrgerI22]

Just what is it you want to make?.....Please don't say swords. You have to start with the basics and the best way is to watch and learn from people who already know what they are doing. If you don't want to listen to what the more experienced smiths say, and want to do only what you want, then why are you posting on this forum? Attend open forges and chapter meetings and watch. If you can't do basic exercises (drawing out, upsetting, bending, tapering, punching, scrolling, twisting, etc) then you aren't ready to move on. Many organizations have basic classes several times a year...sign up for one.

Can you make an S-hook? Now make 50 more just like it. Add a twist. Then make hammer-in wall hooks. Make a lot of little things...you can give them away for presents. There are a lot of books available (check your library) that will show basic projects.

The only way to learn is to start with basics and move up a step at a time.

I am not trying to say that i will not listen to more experiexed blacksmithing what i am trying to say is that my mom will not let me have my own shop at my house and you can only go to a workshop at certain times.I really would like someone to teach me how to blacksmith hands on. But i don't not wana have a shop.

[IRon_FOrgerI22]

John,
I see you live in New Jersey. I would imagine 4H is not an option but the Boy scouts offer a merit badge. I don't know what age you are but that is also an option. It sounds to me like your mother would like to see a controled learning enviroment and honestly I can see her point. Check out the resources available to learn the craft properly.

John

I am 13 years old and i was in boyscouts. Some of my friends are still in it i will find out when they are going to do that badge and maybe i could tag along.

[ThomasPowers]

Note that one usually learns to drive a car before they actually own one and can set off on a cross country trip.

So learn to forge even if you have to use someone elses and then when you can have a forge you will already be up on what works best for the stuff you want to do! I had one student who built his first forge while he was in college, sat out behind the dorm with the BBQ grills.

We *all* have to work within our constraints---shoot I have to make sure I don't overheat or smash my insulin pump or catch the tubing on the handle of the postvise when I go by (I just hate when it rips the canula out of my abdomen!)---I hope you never have that one to work with!

Instead of spending time bemoaning how rough things are get to working on a plan to surmout them---perhaps work up a savings plan so that when you are of age you can go and take the classes at Peters Valley *or* at the American Bladesmiths Society school in Texarkana!

A good training exercise is learning to hammer, so "helping" someone build something out of wood can actually be secret training for smithing! Can you check out or ILL books from the public library? "The Complete Modern Blacksmith" by Weygers can show you how he made a forge from a paint can and a piece of pipe. Can you use such blacksmithing books for required book reports?

Do try to lure your parents to an ABANA Chapter meeting to see that smithing is a respectable and safe hobby done by doctors, lawyers, rocket scientists as well by the shaggy hippy fringe---(got to watch that, I'm a bit shaggy and have a couple college degrees and work surrounded by astrophysicists...)

As a parent I am impressed by concentrated effort. I also know that the teen years are a time for peoples interests to bounce all around which generally does not incline me to spend a lot of time and effort on an interest they have not demonstrated a committment to! (I've raised 4 teenagers so I do have a basis to speak from)