I am a construction surveyor so summer is my busy season.  Not much time between that and tending to the garden, the family and the woodpile.  Once the heat of the summer cools down comes my time to play.  I just finished a great book and I'll be replacing that time with introductory blacksmithing literature.  I found this pdf online that has stopped me from looking any further.  I like it because it is basic basics plain english.

 

http://www.bushcraftuk.com/downloads/pdf/blacksmithing.pdf

 

I'm thinking between this Harries and Heer writeup, local connections and this website I should be ready to start hammering before the snow flies.  Would you say this looks like a pretty darn good introductory article or do you know of any others that I should be looking at instead?  

Thanks,

Pete

There is a lot of usefull info in the pdf you've linked to, but not all of it the best, or definative. I would suggest you make the most of it and suppliment it with the wealth of info available here and when you have a specific question, fire away.

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You might enjoy this pdf Blacksmiths manual illustrated.

http://www.bamsite.org/books/BLACKSMITHS-MANUAL-ILLUSTRATED.pdf

 

With that I can retreat and do some good reading.  What a wonderful publication.

Thank you for this,

Pete

The COSIRA books are available as free downloads

May I commend to all y'all's attention:

http://www.bamsite.org/books/books.html

Just a note about Bernhard Heer, co-author of Basic Blacksmithing. He's visited my shop/school a few times during the last year. He is presently in Gallup, New Mexico, USA. During his last visit, we drove to the Center of Contemporary Art in Santa Fe to look a Tom Joyce's latest exhibition. Tom is doing some truly amazing large, forged sculptures. Before Bernhard left for Gallup, he took several photos of me, and said that he was going to make a cast bronze bust of me. We shall see.

One of my fave books is "Plain and Ornamental Forging" by Ernst Schwarzkopf. It's written in English.

Very informative thread for me!