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Suggestion for new smiths...keep records of what you do and make.


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If I could offer a piece of advice for new smiths it would be to keep a journal or some sort of record of what you make. When you make a piece, record the stock size used, length of pieces cut, measurements for placement of pieces and holes drilled, drill bits used, rivet size, finish applied, what you charged for it etc. Then take a picture of it.

 

I just made a wall mounted coat rack for a client who is giving it as a wedding present. The day after I delivered it I got a text that my client likes it so much she wants two more just like it. If I had kept all the info above it would be very easy to refer to my notes and knock another two out. Since I didn't I am starting from scratch. Luckily I have the original drawing I created for the piece. If I had more detail it would make it even easier.

 

I have heard many times in the past that another good suggestion is if you are making one, go ahead and make a second at the same time. I agree it makes sense but have never gotten in the habit of doing that either.

After this I will be keeping a journal in the shop just for the purpose of keeping better notes when working on custom projects like this.

 

 

coat%20rack_1.jpg

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I have kept a bench book for years with memos and instructions to my future self.  If I make something only occasionally I write down instructions for myself so that I don't have to try to recall something I did 5 years ago.  Maybe it will be of some value to someone in the future besides me but I often send thanks back down the time line to my former self for having the foresight and wisdom to instruct me.

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this advice go's for any person new & Old !! if you don't have a camera GET ONE !!!!

 

take pic's of ALL step's it takes to make a project !!  & JIGS used

 

I also when bending stuff in my Hossfeld take pics of WHERE the pins are in the holes = full set up of how to bend that  piece

unless you use hossfeld often you always re-think how did do that last time & then run a test piece to ck out

= time lost !!! --- its also nice to go to a folder pull out a drawing of how you set that up LAST year & get to work :)

this go's for jigs that have be set for that job & changed for the next one = SAVE'S TIME !!!

 

I a;ways depending on cost & what project is MAKE an extra one !!! this way next time you need to make one you have a copy

right on hand & you also have a show piece so a customer can look @ it :)

 

I do this with all my welding & blacksmithing jobs its EASY  & you can EM pic's to a customer if needed ! I keep a camera in the truck for this so if I ck a portable sit job like a hand railing to build I take pics of EVERYTHING !!

that way in the shop when a ?? comes up on where or how the site is I can ck out pics that may save going to the site to ck again

before I make a mistake that I will have to fix later when it pops up  :o 

 

& what DKForge said also !!

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Another lovely example of where a little foresight and discipline can save you time, and grief, and can even make you money.  There have been projects that where free hand artistic pieces, like carving a wizard head that actually looks like a human face... that I haven't been able to reproduce.  If I could only remember all the things I have forgotten I could surely fill a couple of books, but I suppose I would just loose them and forget where I put them... :-)  Never underestimate the LAZINESS of your own mind, you can forget things so easily.

 

Shop note cards. A bench book.  A file folder with elaborate notes and pictures. What ever you call it, do it,and don't be too proud to explain the process like you are an idiot, cause at some point in the future you are likely to be... ;-)  If I am as disgustingly normal as I fear I am;-) And for heaven's sake write it out NEATLY so that you can actually read it and tell what it says!!! ;-)  Typing up your notes is a good idea, (it also uses a different part of your brain, and makes it more likely you will be able to remember the process, and the details...  Kinda like rewriting your notes, and then explaining them to one of your friends in school, then you get a better grade on the test... ;-)  Plus it makes it supper easy to teach someone else how to do the project, and you can give it to the editor of your local Blacksmithing group, or set it up here on IFI for all the rest of us to see...  And when you haven't made one in 20years, you can rifle through your notes and find the file on that project, and do one just like you used to... Hopefully only BETTER;-)

 

Love any suggestion that helps me become a better smith, plus re-inventing the wheel every time I need one gets old.  And the notes are just like a recipe,, you don't have to follow it EXACTLY like Moses carried it down from Mount Sinai, you can use it like a guideline or a suggestion on a good place to start... 

 

I plan on being more disciplined in advocating for discipline in others... ;-) and try to be a little more disciplined myself! ;-)

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Besides sketches I'll also often take picts with a tape or graph paper to use as a scale to record measurements. In some cases I'll put down the original on the steel table and chalk out measurements or notes quickly and snap a picture so I can clearly remember key points. When doing test samples I'll punch in reference points so I can take before and after measurements and record them. That way I know when doing an upset hole exactly how much stock I'll loose, or how much I need to upset a piece so the foot is the same on each one. These little notes with sketches before and after come in handy for other projects where I want to use the same technique. I can use my notes to cut some steps and quickly figure out where things will end up without having to do all the preliminary steps all over again.

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Being disciplined is sooooo hard!

 

I try to take photos of every piece I make.  Even a simple point-n-shoot camera can be a tremendous aid when you're trying to remember how something was done!

 

I'll second the idea of making a double.  Every single project I've ever made has always come out better on the second try.  Often times, the second one has had slight changes made to it because what looks good on paper doesn't actually look "right" in reality.  Moving the hooks on a coatrack a quarter-inch closer or farther apart, for example, is something that you can only really judge when you have something in your hand to look at.

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This is a habit that I was lucky enough to be told to form early. Though I don't take pictures (which I will start to do now) I do have a notebook in which I take notes, draw sketches. One thing I need to start doing to keeping a notebook near my bed because at night or when I first wake up is when I think about how something will work the most. I lay there taking projects apart in my head to figure out what I need to do, or how I could have done something better. In the beginning this craft is definitely a learning experience.

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A piece of cardboard can serve as a background, It is medium in tone, available in large sizes, cheap, and photographs well.  Purchase a piece of 1 inch hard wear cloth or other known size grid and lay it on the cardboard. or draw lines at a known distance using a sharpie marker.  An overcast day is  great for even lighting, or use 2 work lights at 45 degrees to either side of the lens axis to eliminate hard shadows. You WANT to see the details of the metal and of the work piece. This is for recording information, not artistic photography.

 

Any camera will do including a cell phone. Digital media is cheap or at no cost so use it. Take an overall shot or two, then move in for the details. The more photos you take now, the less you will have to figure out how to do it again later. Does it take some time, yes. Will it save you time when you need to make another one, oh yes. The photos and especially the detail shots can also be used as information on other projects.  

 

While you are at it, start a photo listing of all the interesting details you run across. Rivets, rivet heads, scrolls, joints, and the list goes on and on. It can become a very useful file when you design a project. 

 

 

 

This work is by Sam Yellin. You can see the detail of the joint and overlay of the collar and how it is used to join pieces together. Notice that the fishtail scroll is NOT centered, but made so the inside of the joint is flat or in the same plane as the rest of the project.  These file photos were taken in 2002. As I said, the details are in the photograph. (grin)

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  • 2 weeks later...

Very good advice. I have a dozen notepads full of drawings from all my years fabricating. One of the people I was working with suggested it to me 10 years ago. I need to start taking pictures though, because a lot times what you draw doesn't end up exactly as you originally designed, or sometimes your dimensions need to change to make it work.

Also what I've noticed with blacksmithing is, recording dimensions halfway through forging such as the length of taper you went with  before scrolling it. 

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Quick heads up about cell phone pics...I lost over 500 pictures when my smart phone nicked off the other day.
Some of them were very important to me. 



Contact your phone carrier. My helpers wife lost her smart phone a few weeks back and was devastated that she hadn't downloaded any of the christmas picts of the kids she took with it. Turns out the phone company automatically down loads and saves all that info every few days. They were able to link her to the vast majority of her picts. She lost the picts of the weekend she lost the phone because the phone hadn't down loaded yet, but all the others were all backed up.

Might be worth a call to them and see if they do that on your phone, even if you aren't aware of it.
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Quick heads up about cell phone pics...I lost over 500 pictures when my smart phone nicked off the other day.

Some of them were very important to me. 

 

Sorry to hear that, I managed to loose a few thousand images by clicking the wrong box and backing up one drive to another which overwrote the first instead of adding to it. I bought recovery software but it recovered hundreds of thousands of images all without names…nightmare.

 

Presumably your smartphone wasn't an iPhone then. One of the irritatingly clever things on my iPhone is the built-in access to iCloud / Photo Stream. As soon as I have taken a photo it whisks it off to the ether and then dumps it into my laptop when that is next activated, and also in to my mums iPad. Happens so fast that even if you delete one immediately it still shows up on the other devices. If you haven't already replaced your phone an iPhone might be worth considering for that facility.

 

Alan

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