Sargos Posted January 30, 2017 Share Posted January 30, 2017 Glad that I found this forum, plan on researching before paying for gear I don't need.... and learning from a huge well of knowledge. Thanks to the admin of this page and to the active members. Sincerely, John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenn Posted January 30, 2017 Share Posted January 30, 2017 Welcome to the forum. Please add your location to your profile so we can better answer your questions. Pack a lunch and a cold drink and read the sections of interest to you, starting with the stickies. Then move on to the rest of the site. The gear you will need is a heat source to get the metal hot. Look for a fuel that is available in your area that is cheap. Then look for something to beat on, heavier the better, and something to beat with, 2 pounds is good. Junk, uncoated, metal can be found in many places at low cost or for free. If you are looking for mild steel or structural steel, go to where they use that material and ask for drops or left overs. If you are looking for car metal such as springs, staring linkage, or other stuff, go to a garage or repair shop where they fix or replace those items. If you are looking for Rail Road track or spikes, then go to a place where they have trains or repair rail road tracks. Always take cookies or donuts as food opens many otherwise closed doors. Find a blacksmithing group or organization in your area and go to the meetings. THAT is where you will find blacksmithing equipment for sale, and the knowledge you seek. You will learn more in a day than you can ever imagine. Remember to take cookies or donuts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted January 30, 2017 Share Posted January 30, 2017 Welcome aboard John, glad to have you. Glenn seems to have covered the basics, putting your general location in the header keeps it in view every time you post so folk close to you will remember. You just never know when a neighbor of yours is interested in playing with fire and hitting things with hammers. We're everywhere you know. Get hooked up with a local smithing organization, you'll learn more in a few hours working with an experienced smith than you will in days trying to figure it out yourself. Been that route having someone show you is sooo much easier. Same story for tools, equipment and supplies, folk who do this know where available stuff is, lots of folks, lots of stuff. Don't be a stranger, we're a pretty friendly bunch and we LOVE pictures. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
notownkid Posted January 30, 2017 Share Posted January 30, 2017 Best advise you will get you just did from Glenn and Frosty, esp adding your location and reading what is here amazing amount of shared info. Enjoy the site and Blacksmithing in general. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sargos Posted January 30, 2017 Author Share Posted January 30, 2017 OK location has been added, hoping for a nice slow week at work to give me time to start reading the forum's more. I have already found a local mentor that does work far beyond what I currently dream about doing. Stand up guy, and he has built his own canon that appears historically accurate. I can't even seem to light the coals for a BBQ without thinking of forging lately. Same way I feel about older full size Keeps I guess. (1963 Wagoneers, 1967-69 M series, all the Jeepsters, 1974 - 1983 Cherokee. See what I mean? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted January 30, 2017 Share Posted January 30, 2017 So what direction in smithing do you want to travel? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sargos Posted January 30, 2017 Author Share Posted January 30, 2017 I am wanting to take a utilitarian approach to it, my mentor suggests making a set of tongs as a first project. I have a lot of work to do in just researching what works well for others... and surely there will be some common themes. I want to keep it close to traditional techniques till I get a good feel for that, then move into powerhammers and other powered equipment. I am already in contact with the local guild, and have sat in on one forging session. There aren't many things that get me excited like this.... unless it's an older Jeep or it's belt fed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted January 31, 2017 Share Posted January 31, 2017 Welcome! and now the "Wow the earliest power hammer I've seen documentation on in western europe is from the 900's so your traditional methods will be earlier than that?" The most traditional method I know of is having a minimum of 3 to 5 people working in a blacksmith's shop besides the Master; having only a single guy making a living in the shop is a modern thing only made possible by powered equipment. Blacksmithing "traditions" go back over 2000 years giving a lot of room on how things were done. Unfortunately many people get their ideas of blacksmithing from Hollywood and poorly researched fantasy books or the memories of when smithing was pretty much winding down as a common career and making the change to an avocation. So narrow down your "traditions" to say a century or so and I can probably suggest some historical sources that cover it...(see why I'm called a curmudgeon???) Of course if it's the enlightenment it would help if you were a fluent french reader---sure wish I was one! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sargos Posted January 31, 2017 Author Share Posted January 31, 2017 So far in life I have had the most succes learning and becoming very familiar with the basics of anything I am attempting to learn. Then, and only then, do I move on to more complicated or technical aspects. This is how I work, not saying there is anything wrong with any other way, but this works for me. If you were somehow offended then that's just too xxxx bad. It wasn't intentional. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted January 31, 2017 Share Posted January 31, 2017 Not offended we get a lot of folks through here that really don't know enough to ask the questions they have in a way that makes sense. They often have very odd beliefs on how blacksmithing was done historically and many do not know *how* to research things; it certainly wasn't taught in my classes in school or the universities! (Note a Hollywood Robinhood movie that had them casting steel centuries before it was done by Huntsman!) So iron vs steel: up until the 1850's the primary material of the blacksmith was wrought iron which is a composite material composed of iron and ferrous silicates AKA slag. Around the 1850's the Bessemer/Kelly process was discovered producing mild steel; however 3 decades later books like "Practical Blacksmithing" Richardson were still discussing the differences between how you worked the "new" material. Real Wrought iron---the material---gradually died out with the Great Depression being a major factor. One if not the last manufacturers of it finally went out of business in the 1970's and donated their factory to the Blists Hill Museum in England where it now is used to recycle old wrought iron for sale. Nowadays it's more a discussion in how "mild steel" works vs A36 which is often sold, (fraudulently in my opinion) as mild steel. Stuff sold today as "wrought iron" is nearly all made from A36; it's much like what happened with "linens": once objects made from linen but now a generic term with almost *NONE* of them being actually made from linen. So can you go over your "blacksmithing traditions"? Many probably date from after the 1850's, some may even date to the Arts and Crafts Movement of the early 20th century; shoot we even owe a lot to the back to the land movement of the 1960's! And yah I'm one of the historical nuts; been smithing 36 years and researching it more than 40 and I'd love to have a discussion of how it's changed over the centuries... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sargos Posted January 31, 2017 Author Share Posted January 31, 2017 Thank you for that invaluable information, THAT is one of type of things I am here to learn and not argue about. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swedefiddle Posted January 31, 2017 Share Posted January 31, 2017 A heated Discussion is one that happens, when you are Forging with your mouth moving. Breathe deeply, little one. Learn with your mouth open, just enough to breathe and your ears on standup alert. Don't think with your mouth moving, trying to do two things at the same thyme, gets your murds wixxed up. LOL Enjoy the Journey, Sarg. Check out the NWBA Spring Conference in Longview, Wash in May. Lots of Learning, some story telling, sometimes the Truth, Tailgate Sales with the Honour Can at the table. No cheating, it comes around and bites your behind, makes you walk funny!! Neil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted January 31, 2017 Share Posted January 31, 2017 Now you can be a *great* smith without knowing the fiddly bits of the history of the craft---except you do have to use the jargon correctly. It has precise meanings (one of the jobs of jargon is to allow precise communications on a restricted subject), and if you start using it incorrectly it confuses things. Gotta go trouble at the mill! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sargos Posted January 31, 2017 Author Share Posted January 31, 2017 True, however I know myself pretty decently... I love learning the true historical factoids. Too much of it gets lost to time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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