Newbie looking for some ideas

[NickOHH]

a good beginning blacksmith should be able to stylishly hang all there possessions in only a  few months  :D

[SJS]

...Try three with a snub end scroll, then three with a penny scroll, lot of options. If done in series you can learn a lot of different skills and end up with hooks to give to everyone.

 Excellent advise. In the series you can see your progress, and you are working on developing the skills you are focused on.  It is so much easier to judge your work when you are comparing apples to apples...  Forge work is stimulus and response for me the programing is basically hardwired at this point, I don't look at the hammer, I don't think about the hammer.  I watch what the hammer does, and make the next move, and repeat...  While you are programing the old lizard brain you have to look at how you are holding the hammer, and think about what you need to do to get the results you want, and watch the steel respond to the hammers blows

[Frosty]

a good beginning blacksmith should be able to stylishly hang all there possessions in only a  few months  :D

 

So true Nick, as can all your friends and relatives.

 

Don't get discouraged Marcy, making the same thing over and over may seem like you're not progressing but as SJS says, you're programming muscle memory. Once you have the lizard brain programmed you can start thinking about what you want IT to look like, not how to get it to look like you want. Your forebrain will become the director, not the crew running the machine. If that makes any sense.

 

The most complex things I've ever made were just simple basic things connected in the right order.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

[NickOHH]

So true Nick, as can all your friends and relatives.

 

Don't get discouraged Marcy, making the same thing over and over may seem like you're not progressing but as SJS says, you're programming muscle memory. Once you have the lizard brain programmed you can start thinking about what you want IT to look like, not how to get it to look like you want. Your forebrain will become the director, not the crew running the machine. If that makes any sense.

 

The most complex things I've ever made were just simple basic things connected in the right order.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

 

Im noticing that frosty, the more i make hooks and the things i started out over the summer with, the easier they get and the nicer they start looking, so the more details i can put in them, faster, and not think about how im going to do that as much or how to fix something, and the more im learning how the metal is going to react so it has made everything else i want to try easier, and with less thought required before hand, which results in less mistakes (but there are still plenty  :) ). 

[SJS]

Disciplined practice doesn't mean its not still fun. If you have a goal, it is easier to achieve if you have a plan, and all the things you are doing are helping you achieve your goal.  A good analogy would be, you think you would like to run a marathon (can say as I would EVER want that but...) so you go out a few weekends and run a mile or two, or you set up a dedicated training regime... Blacksmithing is more satisfying if approach it from a method that gives you the skills to succeed.  If you want to be able to make whatever you want, you need to internalize these skills and processes.  I call it stocking your mental tool box, if you don't master each process, you are essentially putting shoddy tools in your box, they may or may not get the job done in a pinch.  Just like the thread started on "Why make Tongs really nice" well made tools work BETTER, and they are easier on you, and generally a pleasure to use...  If you take the time to master each element of hand forging, then you have stocked your mental tool box with well made tools that are sharp and polished.  Then it is just a question of working out new and interesting applications of those tools.  There is a great deal of difference between 20 years of experience, and 1 year of experience repeated 20 times...  I'm not trying to steal anyone's joy here, I am trying to help you focus on HOW to get the most out of your interest in blacksmithing.  If you invest in the tools, and pay for classes, and work to get time to play in the forge, but haven't invested in developing yourself, you are sabotaging yourself...  It is much more fun when you are good at blacksmithing, when it only takes 1 or 2 tries to get something that you are pleased with. It is fun to see the progress as you are building your mental toolbox, when you need to make 10 S-hooks to get one that looks really nice.  It is a lot of fun later when you see a picture of something and just go out an make it, because everything you need is already in your head, and in your hands, and if you have to make a few new physical tools so much the better;-)

 

My son is about to turn 15 and he has played at blacksmithing a bit at hammer ins and doing 4H projects, but I need to think about setting him up so that he can really learn. I think about smithing all the time, how to do it, how to teach it, things I want to make in my oh so copious free time... ;-)

[NickOHH]

Well put SJS, good advice. Your mental toolbox is as important or more than your actual toolbox .

[MarcyOHH]

I understand that hooks teach you a lot of things, I will definitely continue to work on hooks as well. I would like to also work on candle holders.  Pretty much I have only worked at making a round bar square, then pointing and tapering out the bar, rounding it out again and making scrolls/hooks.  Nick and I together made a candle holder with a heart at the top. 

[VaughnT]

There are about a eleventy-million types of hooks, and they all start out with the same motions.  Instead of pointing the iron, flare the end and give it a fishtail look.  Are you forging in a countersink for the screw head?  Have you made some from railroad spikes or flat stock?  Why not take a handful of hooks and rivet them to a longer bar so you could make a pot rack?  Or rivet them around a hoop so you could make an herb dryer?

 

Look up 'hand forged wall hooks' on pinterest and see some of the many variations.

 

The biggest problem new smiths face is in seeing the possibilities in the iron.

[Rashelle]

I enjoy doing candle holders also. A couple of the easiest styles to do are the colonial style candle holders with the bottom rolled up like a laid on it's side lollipop. And the "Swedish candle holder" Like a tulip with a stem that comes around as it's base. I like doing both of those with a leaf as the handle. You can do different finials as practice for the handle sections. It's all up to you of course. Even doing different twists using square stock on any of the projects can make it an "Oh cool" moment. (If it isn't already, heehee.)

[Frosty]

Marcy: Shane puts it well, I've talked about the mental tool box many times and we agree. The physical tools, from a chipped stone to the International space station are nothing but refined dirt without a human mind and hands to work them. It's the human mind that does the work, everything else just is.

 

Summer before last a youngster came to me wanting to become an apprentice. I tried to explain blacksmithing apprenticeships don't really happen in America and certainly not to me. Eventually his Mother brought him out and I discovered the kid had never even swung a hammer, couldn't figure the area of a circle or accurately measure with a scale. His entire experience in the craft was online games. So I had to start him with basic eye hand skills and for two sessions in my shop and one at a club meeting he made nails.

 

Nails and one fireplace poker at the meeting. I haven't seen him in quite a while but he's been taken on by one of the guys in Anchorage and has probably progressed past nails. He has high hopes but they're not very realistic however if he keeps at it he'll at least learn some useful hand skills.

 

I'm not trying to compare you to him directly, I think you get it at least to a point. A LOT of what any person needs to learn are the hand skills to make the tools do the dance. There's really only one way to learn those and that's do it.

 

Nothing wrong with wanting to do something other than hooks. Have you made a nail header? Making nails goes fast and requires pretty precise hand skills. As with hooks though everything you, your friends and family own needing a nail will have a hand forged one by you. Tent pegs, garden tools, etc. etc.

 

Oh wait the point, I KNEW I had a point around here somewhere. Do a couple hooks or half a dozen nails or whatever basic process practice item on the score card as a warm up. THEN start making something else needing a new technique. Candle holders are excellent practice pieces, they can be as simple as a drive hook with a drip pan and point. A more complex candle holder is the miner's candle holder. (I don't recall the name or I'd include a link) Candle holders can be as simple as a tin can opened to a reflector and drip pan with a wire handle up to a chandelier hanging in the Louvre.

 

A good warm up really helps get the juices flowing when you're learning a new craft. the first couple should be old familiar gimme piece, then perhaps one you're working on mastering  followed by that new thing you learned last session. Pick a pace that's comfortable, you don't want to wear yourself out on the warm up or kill your enthusiasm. We need stubborn to beat steel to our will but we can beat the stuffins out of ourselves being stubborn too. Go for the former, avoid the latter.

 

If you think you have long even tapers down, try something new. Have you tried twisting? Twisting is a LOT easier than it seems but you need to be consistent on several fronts. The steel needs to be drawn evenly and smoothly to take an even twist. It has to be heated evenly throughout to take an even twist and this gets more complicated with longer twists so start with short ones, a couple inches at most. The last really important technique to producing even twists is speed, you GOTTA go FAST.

 

Pre adjust the vise and twisting wrench, a Crescent wrench works just fine if not ideal. Adjust them before the steel goes into the fire for the twisting heat so you don't waste time and lose heat adjusting things when you pull them out. Then you heat the steel, it needs to be the same color full length and the brighter yellow the better. Remember the vise and wrench are going to draw heat fast so you have to MOVE IT.

 

Pull the piece, put it in the vise and close it, place the wrench on the other end and close it. Now get twisting and count the turns. Being able to twist and keep the stock straight is a good thing but you can straighten it later on a wood block with a swocker. Swocker is a secret term blacksmiths have held dearly for centuries, mundane humans might call them wood mallets, clubs, B ball bats, etc. But here amongst the revered family of blacksmiths they are SWOCKERS.

 

Get twisting down and you've put several tools in your mental tool kit. Not the least being SPEED. Fast is important, steel looses heat as soon as you pull it from the fire and looses it pretty fast. You MUST strike when the iron is hot.

 

Here's another exercise for the beginner, pick a THING you'd like to make. Now take it apart in your mind and analyze it shape by shape, determine the technique each section  requires to make and in what order to do them. Draw sketches, make notional notes, etc. etc. Now GO for it! AND write what you did and why in a notebook. Keep NOTES! Oops, THAT didn't work. <sigh> Repeat the process to analyze the failure, element by element, step by step join by join, etc. etc. Write it down compare those notes to the ones you made when you made it and the ones you made when you planned it.

 

Failure is a fact of life, success is accurately and honest failure analysis. Folks who don't fail never tried.

 

Uh, oh, eh HEM, I'm starting to ramble . . . again. <grin>

 

Frosty The Lucky.

[SJS]

Warm up exercises, are an excellent way to continue to hone a skill and keep it sharp. Nail making, S-hooks, patch knives and even chainlink welding are a great discipline to adopt that helps polish the fundamentals.

[MarcyOHH]

I'm hoping to forge on Sunday, (I work a lot so I don't get to forge often) and I'm really looking forward to try out everything. The advice you all have given me so far has gotten me really excited about my future in blacksmithing. I appreciate all the tips and ideas everyone has given me. I leave for vacation on Monday, heading out to Michigan to see my family. I'm lucky enough to be meeting up with some local smiths while I'm out there. I'm hoping the experience of going to a real shop and working with professional smiths that it will jump start my skills a little more. Can't wait!

[SpankySmith]

 

Here's another exercise for the beginner, pick a THING you'd like to make. Now take it apart in your mind and analyze it shape by shape, determine the technique each section  requires to make and in what order to do them. Draw sketches, make notional notes, etc. etc. Now GO for it! AND write what you did and why in a notebook. Keep NOTES! Oops, THAT didn't work. <sigh> Repeat the process to analyze the failure, element by element, step by step join by join, etc. etc. Write it down compare those notes to the ones you made when you made it and the ones you made when you planned it.

 

 

 

Frosty The Lucky.

 

I agree with Frosty on this, the practice of poking around Pinterest or some such source, finding something you like and then trying to replicate it is an invaluable teaching tool.  As one of my instructors says, look at something a LONG time, take it apart piece by piece in your head, and learn to see it as individual pieces and processes that all come together.  I've got a project I'm "working on" right now, but primarily I'm working on it in my HEAD - I've yet to put hammer to it because I'm still working out the logistics, the individual parts of the process in my head.  That process of figuring it all out has become one of my favorite elements of blacksmithing. 

[Matt_K]

The physical tools, from a chipped stone to the International space station are nothing but refined dirt without a human mind and hands to work them. It's the human mind that does the work, everything else just is.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

 

 

This is really well put. I'm going to use it, with credit where credit is due, of course. 

 

 

Swocker is a secret term blacksmiths have held dearly for centuries, mundane humans might call them wood mallets, clubs, B ball bats, etc. But here amongst the revered family of blacksmiths they are SWOCKERS.

 

 

This one, I'm just plain stealing outright.