old school blacksmith Posted September 27, 2017 Author Share Posted September 27, 2017 Thanks fiddle for letting me know Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swedefiddle Posted September 27, 2017 Share Posted September 27, 2017 Good Morning, OSB The hardest way to learn, is with your mouth open. These guys are offering you 'GOLD Information', please be humble enough to TRY to understand or at least ask a thoughtful question. There are a few Blacksmith Association's in your area that are crying for a young person to show up and ask "HOW". Please look them up. One of the best Blacksmith's, lives in Gary, In. He is getting on in the year numbers, but he has forgotten more than you will ever know. He is a humble man and would LOVE to talk to you, his name is Clifton Ralph. He no longer has young ears, You will have to speak loud and clear. Enjoy the Journey, Neil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irondragon Forge ClayWorks Posted September 27, 2017 Share Posted September 27, 2017 You can lead a person to knowledge, but you can't make them think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JHCC Posted September 27, 2017 Share Posted September 27, 2017 Learning to ask the right questions is the first step. I know you're stubborn and have strong ideas about what you THINK you need to know, but you need to learn some humility and start LISTENING. You say you want some basic info on beginning swordsmithing: have you even read the pinned posts in the bladesmithing section? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted September 27, 2017 Share Posted September 27, 2017 Ok the best book(s) for a beginning swordmaker would be any of the good beginning blacksmithing books out there. They have been discussed many times here. I would suggest you ILL several of them at your local public library and see which one(s) fit your personal learning style best. Then buy it/them! If you told someone "I want to win the Indy 500; but I don't know how to drive a car; what should I do first?" What do you think they will tell you? And yes this analogy is nearly spot on! As for swordmaking there are few books that cover it; EXCEPT the 3 (4 someday!) by James Hrisoulas: "The Complete Bladesmith", "The Master Bladesmith" and "The Pattern Welded Blade" HOWEVER knowing the basics of smithing FIRST before getting these books will really help you profit from them. For Christmas this year you might ask for one of the beginner's books you like and "The $50 Knife shop" and "Introduction to Knifemaking" Learn to drive before you pull out onto the racetrack! Please! Learning to make *good* swords means you need to know what a good sword is. Lots of good historical examples out there to work from; just remember that every style of sword blade was good for a certain use case and so what would be really great for one task would fail miserably at another---like dueling with zweihanders in narrow alleys or trying to cut the heads off pikes with a later Renaissance rapier. As for judging many modern Sword Like Objects; my first filter is weight. For nearly 1000 years a good european battle blade weighed around 2.5 pounds. (Funny thing Katanas average close to that too!) You think that 1000 years of placing their lives on the line using swords taught them anything? (besides fullers and distal tapers and sizing of ricassos and blade shapes, etc and so on ) Also think about long term plans to attend some of the American Bladesmith Society classes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted September 27, 2017 Share Posted September 27, 2017 All RIGHT! Welcome to the gang OSB! Well done Neil, thank you. Stubborn is GOOD OSB, you have to overcome STEEL and make it do what YOU want. Oh yeah, we're all stubborn. We'll be proud to help you climb the learning curve, it makes US feel good. I was hoping Thomas would suggest a book or two by title but he believes a student should research on his/er own, so do I but sometimes a guy needs a gimme to get going. Randy McDaniel's, "Blacksmith Primer," or Jack Andrews', "New Edge of the Anvil," or, "New Edge of The Anvil," are all excellent beginner's books. Check one or all of them out at the library, ask them to ILL a copy if they aren't on the shelf. The librarian will know exactly what you mean if you just say ILL. My standard recommendation is to learn blacksmithing before trying to learn bladesmithing, one learning curve at a time is actually much faster with better results than trying to learn several things at once. Don't despair though, there are other learning curves you have to climb to make knives and a couple don't interfere with forging. You need to learn to: heat treat, grind, dress, and finish blades. You can buy knife blanks and make stock removal knives to hone those skills and if you do well, sell them and buy better equipment and materials. Does that make sense? Learning to control the steel under the hammer takes a little knowledge and a lot of practice. Practice on inexpensive steel on projects you can sell or toss in the make something smaller from THAT bucket without breaking the bank. Everybody has a bucket, pile, yard, etc. of things that didn't work. Which would you rather toss in the hopelessly screwed up pile, $0.50 worth of mild steel or $5.00 worth of O1, (blade steel), or worse yet maybe two+ days worth of hard work in a billet of pattern welded steel YOU had to make? Believe me you WILL make mistakes, some that can't be repaired. a 20' stick of mild steel/ A 36, is cheap, mow a couple lawns cheap. It's a LOT harder to screw up low carbon steel than high carbon steel. Once you've become proficient at the anvil, learning to forge high carbon steel is only a matter of adjusting what you are already good at. You have to hit it harder, can't work at as low temps and be roe careful heat treating. Once you know how to blacksmith learning to adapt to forging blades is a couple afternoons on an easy peasy learning curve. Frosty The Lucky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert_t Posted September 28, 2017 Share Posted September 28, 2017 I haven't posted on here in years and after seeing this thread I think I understand what he is asking for. What your asking about is Smelting in a bloomery furnace. This is how they use to extracted iron. While this does produce molten steel/iron it is not like casting as you are not handling the liquid iron/steel directly. Here is a link to an example of it being done(this is not my group just an example I found). This takes at-least 2 days of work not counting the setup the building and collecting of materials. My blacksmith chapter has done it once and it took some where in the neighborhood of 150 pounds of charcoal to produce a billet of carbon steel the size your asking for The rest of it was cast iron and slag. Now granted this was the first attempt but it took 15-20 men with probably 100-200 years of combined experience and months of planning to do this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted September 28, 2017 Share Posted September 28, 2017 In my decade + experiences with smelting we never produced a liquid, (save liquid slag), got to a bloom the consistency of old library paste common with the direct process of smelting iron. Blooms did range in carbon content. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buzzkill Posted September 28, 2017 Share Posted September 28, 2017 I am not going to try to read his mind. I don't think he knows or understands enough yet to help us help him. On the one hand he talks about "melting cups" and melting scrap steel in order to produce a bar of iron, and on the other he says it's not casting. It's not smelting from ore if he's talking about melting scrap pieces, and if he's going to melt the scrap pieces then he will effectively be casting the liquid unless he's interested in crucible steel. I told him where to look to get an idea of what is involved there. He also says he wants to do what they did with their scrap in medieval times and referenced melting it again. We're pretty darn sure that in general scrap pieces were forge welded together and then forged out for use. Until he learns enough to know what it is that he's really after I'm not sure how much more we can help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted September 28, 2017 Share Posted September 28, 2017 Okay guys. Hes young and didn't know the terminology, making long involved guesses isn't going to help. He want's to learn blacksmithing by making a damascus sword. Is that something you've never heard before? He made a typical young beginner's mistake, give him a break. Let's stop making suggestions about casting, smelting, etc. we ALL know it's years beyond his skills. It isn't helping. Don't worry OSB, things'll settle down soon and we'll get you on track. Okay? Frosty The Lucky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charles R. Stevens Posted September 29, 2017 Share Posted September 29, 2017 I Heck, I'm years away from casting steel, lol I would be years away from a Damascus sword. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted September 29, 2017 Share Posted September 29, 2017 Me too. Unfortunately I built this belt grinder then thought "what the hey" and asked for Theo''s collaboration seax to finish. Now I have guys in the club dropping by to take a look, offer help and yesterday dropped off a stabilized piece of "Hurcules Club" for a handle. When I told him I already had the wood picked out he said, "use it on the next one." I feel the dark side's pull Charles. . . .Help, I feel myself slipping down that treacherous slope! Ah, I've only been a hobbyist blacksmith for something like 45 years now, I can stop anytime I want to. Really. Frosty The Lucky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
old school blacksmith Posted September 29, 2017 Author Share Posted September 29, 2017 a do ya'll know how much space I should need away from a house that a forge needs(in FT)? just give an educated answer if you don't know I'm just seeing if my info I got is some what right. and please just put the number and no comments. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted September 29, 2017 Share Posted September 29, 2017 Depends on ground cover and fire type. A charcoal forge tends to put more sparks in the air so 30' is a good distance and if there's dry ground cover: grass, leaves, etc. take the garden hose to it and wet it down first, AND again after you're finished. It may not be necessary but better safe than sorry and you never know when a pinch off flipped under a piece of something and is causing a smolder. I set up my charcoal grill up about 30' from the house and hose down the grass and woods close by and it virtually never sparks. However I have caught it dropping a coal out one of the air vents so I make the ground under it soppy. It ain't So. Cal. desert dry here but I live in a forest so . . . If it's between yours and a neighbors house, split the distance and wet it good. It's MORE important to be careful of other people's property than your own. Good question, little brother. Frosty The Lucky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted September 29, 2017 Share Posted September 29, 2017 I've know quite a few people who forge out of their attached garage and I have forged in my basement before. Lots of factors come into play. My current smithy's: 1 is at the far corner of the property and at my rental I am using the front porch---masonry house and a brick floor. If your forge is freestanding 30' is a good number; if it's in a wooden structure more space is good---just in case! If it's in a steel or masonry building then quite close is allowable; it's probably the noise issue that's the space factor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daswulf Posted September 29, 2017 Share Posted September 29, 2017 42 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irondragon Forge ClayWorks Posted September 29, 2017 Share Posted September 29, 2017 I see what you did there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charles R. Stevens Posted September 29, 2017 Share Posted September 29, 2017 I'm sure 50' is what the fire marshal would say, but that's conservitive in the extreme, 25-30 is good. I forge under the carport, probably 15' from the house. But I keep my fire small and my workspace clear. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted September 30, 2017 Share Posted September 30, 2017 42 I don't think he wanted to know EVERYTHING. Frosty The Lucky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JHCC Posted September 30, 2017 Share Posted September 30, 2017 All we need now is a blacksmith with two heads and three arms. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted October 1, 2017 Share Posted October 1, 2017 and knows where his towel is... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
old school blacksmith Posted October 1, 2017 Author Share Posted October 1, 2017 Man y'all make to many jokes on here for one person meaning y'all can start a comedy show. Also just to let you know that joke made me laugh! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted October 2, 2017 Share Posted October 2, 2017 Oh Noooooooo, <sniff> this is all going to end sooo badly I just know it. <sniff sniff> Survival is infinitely improbable I'll probably end up as a juicer . Ohh boo hoo hoo hoo. Frosty The Lucky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SLAG Posted October 2, 2017 Share Posted October 2, 2017 Frosty Effendy, Frosty Saith (JUST NOW), "Oh Noooooooo, <sniff> this is all going to end sooo badly I just know it. <sniff sniff> Survival is infinitely improbable I'll probably end up as a juicer . Ohh boo hoo hoo hoo". I suspect that it may be time for both of us to take our evening medication? Just sayin, SLAG. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted October 2, 2017 Share Posted October 2, 2017 Hah; I take medication every 3 minutes and see what it has done for me?! (Struth, insulin pump...) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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