Hello from Blaine MN

[Alexre97]

Hello I am Alex and I am just starting up in blacksmithing. I live in Blaine MN which is just north of Minneapolis.

I am going to start with bladesmithing and eventually move onto full out blacksmithing, but I still need to find an anvil and some tools. For a forge I have plans to make a brake drum forge which seems to be the cheapest one possible that still works great. One thing that is a problem with wanting to start blacksmithing is that most things are pretty expressive and  that I have a small budget to work with, which is part of why I signed up here. I'm hoping to find some people to learn from and some places that help out a starting blacksmiths. 

If you have any tips tricks or great beginner guides to share that would be greatly appreciated. Also if you know of any places that have decent material or tools please share as I am having trouble finding stores in the Minneapolis area.

Thank you.

[jeremy k]

Contact the Guild of Metalsmiths - many ppl in your area that do smithing

[Charles R. Stevens]

Look up Glenn's "55 forge" the side draft and bottom draft sans fire pot are easy and inexpensive. If one cant find a drum, the same can be aplied to an oil drain pan, washtub, bucket or box. Even old sinks, bathtubs and a stack of tires ramed with adobe will work. Air from a hair drier, air bed inflator, hatroom fan and such works fine. 

As to the tools, once the forge is built, a hammer, a few files, a hacksaw, and an "anvil" are all you need. A large sledge hammer head, rail car cupler, peice of rail, largeish block of scrap steel (4" square aproximates most anvils up till the london pattern anvil some 200 od years ago) will serfice. Tongs, chisels, punches, drifts and such can be made by you. If you scrounge sutable scrap it wont cost much but will teach you valuable skills. Such as drawing, tapering, rounding, squaring, bending... Chisel comes first, then The punch and drift, then tongs then....

[ThomasPowers]

I once built a complete starter kit: forge, blower, anvil, basic tools for under US$25; if that's too expensive perhaps this is not the hobby for you; oh I see "stores"; so you are trying to buy stuff at the most expensive places and wondering at the cost.  Flea markets, yard sales, barn sales and scrapyards are where I find tools.  (Found a lovely set of Diamond Farrier tongs for $5 today at a flea market down here---wasn't there yesterday when I checked then.

Learn how to re-handle hammers properly and the handleless heads go for cheap. (and many old tools will need a new handle anyway, why pay extra for something you have to throw away?) Learn how to judge a good handle before you buy it too.

The biggest problem I see is you are wanting to start backwards "I want to start with my doctorate and then branch out to a masters and bachelor's degree"  Bladesmithing profits HUGELY from knowing how to heat and hit metal learning the basics first speeds up the process immensely. I have a lot of students who want to dive into bladesmithing before they have decent hammer or heat control.  I will often allow them to do a blade early on and then when they mention that they have spent 12 hours filing it to get rid of the hammer marks and now it's too thin to make a blade they are willing to go back to learning the basics.  As I tell them: everything we do making a simple S hook applies to making a knife; so try to get good at that and then we will add on the next step.  It's a lot less frustrating making a series of simple projects that you can give away or sell than to make a pile of scrap steel worth pennies per pound

Edited May 25, 2015 by ThomasPowers

[Frosty]

Garage/yard/etc. sales are your friend, I only buy at stores if I have to. Learn to blacksmith before you start making blades. If you want to forge blades you have to learn the craft anyway. So stepping up the learning curve without the expense of high carbon steels and not setting yourself up for failure as a learning strategy. Seriously blade smithing is a specialized area of blacksmithing but it's blacksmithing. You wouldn't expect to learn to drive in a formula 1 racer would you?

Learn to forge doing fun things, stuff you can make from what you find on the roadside and just toss if it doesn't come out close enough to right. Believe me you'll screw up plenty of projects before your skills sets grow to the point making blades has a good probability of not failing at some point. There are a lot of potential failure points forging a blade and most are single point failures. Meaning if just ONE thing goes wrong the whole blade is scrap.

Frosty The Lucky.