steveh Posted March 27, 2008 Share Posted March 27, 2008 for me it started when my wifes friend gave me the anvil in her yard,a peter wright(333lb).from there it just gets worse 100lb vulcan,82lb hay budden,130lb peter wright,224 double bick vaughan,2 buffalo forge tables with blowers,1 cast forge tablewith blower,3 free standing blowers,3 post vises,almost forgot my riveters forge and my brake drum forge.it doesnt stop there as you all know,i dont even want to think about the wish list.this has only been 2.5 years,ive added on twice to my shop.my shop and tools have all been paid for through my blacksmithing so it keeps me in the wifes good book and i got the wish list(power hammer, H13 anvil,bigger drill press.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ice Czar Posted March 27, 2008 Share Posted March 27, 2008 sideways, by wheedling my way into an apprenticeship with no real smithing experience. (but a strong art and sculpture background and the right attitude) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blafen Posted March 27, 2008 Share Posted March 27, 2008 a sudden bolt of inspiration, a shop vac tire rim and some clay, was my first forge and my first anvil was a chunk of ibeam from the mirage hotel, i have since gone propane and have 200 pound vulcan. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rfb343 Posted March 27, 2008 Share Posted March 27, 2008 I had an overwhelming burning desire to make a screwdriver that wouldnt stand out in a 18th century reenactment so I could take apart the smokepole to clean it, started with propane torch and a $40 anvil from craigslist, now I got a coal forge and a few more self made tools, still growing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johannes Posted March 27, 2008 Share Posted March 27, 2008 grandfather was son of a blacksmid, for 5 generations, but died before he could teach me annything, went to get a masters in product design, a degree as a farrier, sculpturing clases, and now 'im triyn to teach myself the craft, building a new shop and big masonary forge at the moment, and have recently bought an 100 y old 350kg anvil for the new shop. My goal is to become a full time professional blacksmith/farrier within 5 years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeaverDamForge Posted March 27, 2008 Share Posted March 27, 2008 I want to learn to make hinges, latches, and maybe even locks for a timberframe house. I worked on a piece of rail for about 9 months before I was given a real anvil, 100lb Fisher. My present forge is a stack of firebricks/mud with a box bellows I made from some scrap plywood. Smithy is a lean-to against the house with a gravel floor. It's a hobby for me, I like to spend a couple afternoons a week forging if the weather is good. Good Luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markb Posted March 27, 2008 Share Posted March 27, 2008 I wanted to make knives. Started collecting tools, got a coal forge, anvil tongs etc., did some ornamental stuff, built some gates, but just never made the time, now 30yrs. later i"m making time and trying to make a knife with your help. Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Travis Covington Posted March 27, 2008 Share Posted March 27, 2008 Boss at work took a course then asked if I would help him set up a forge. Everything I made I made two of. He may have burned 100# of coal in 5 years. I've probably burned a few tons. Travis Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dablacksmith Posted March 27, 2008 Share Posted March 27, 2008 It started for me from reading the lord of the rings and wondering how they welded in midevil times... then the metalshop teacher let me play in the propane forge( I made knives and swords in highschool!) but I reall got the bug when i went to a mountian man rondesvous and saw a blacksmith working.... watched him for hours! then went home and started working... 25+ years later and ime still going strong... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted March 27, 2008 Share Posted March 27, 2008 Well I still remember watching the blacksmith at Williamsburg when I was in single digits, (and I'm closer to 100 than to 0 these days). Always interested in medieval arms and armour and got started cold working metal by the SCA; then ran across a copy of "The Modern Blacksmith" and built my first forge for US$1.17 total back around 1981. Spent a year apprenticed to a professional swordmaker 1983-1984, (6 days a week in the shop, no pay, two meals a day with him and his family...) and it's just gotton worse(better) since then! It's a chronic condition. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jmercier Posted March 27, 2008 Share Posted March 27, 2008 I've always been enamored with blacksmithing, several years ago I got talking with the fellow demonstrating at the King Richard's ren faire near me, and he said to just come in some sort of costume, pay for my ticket to the faire and I could spend all day with him learning whenever I wanted. I didnt have any costume at that time other than a suit of chain mail I had made, so i strapped on my kilt and a baggy shirt, and started going to the faire to learn to smith. 25$ to enter the faire day after day may have seemed like a lot, but it was literally nothing for a day's worth of blacksmithing lessons. I learned to forge wearing a kilt, and sometimes still do so today =P Hey kilts are comfortable ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pete46 Posted March 27, 2008 Share Posted March 27, 2008 ALEX BEALER; [YES OFFICER THAT'S HIM ] READ HIS BOOK,10yrs & A WHOLE LIBARY LATER .I'M STILL HOOKED! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sandalphon Posted March 27, 2008 Share Posted March 27, 2008 Grew up smithing my own tools and farrier work around the kibbutz i grew up on Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted March 27, 2008 Share Posted March 27, 2008 and have recently bought an 100 y old 350kg anvil for the new shop. A 350kg anvil? Have you posted a picture I missed? If not what's wrong with you Buddy? Okay, I opened my mouth so I'll propogate my tale, though I believe this thread has been done already. Hasn't it? I grew up in Father's metalspinning shop and had little choice about helping out in my spare time. When I say grew up in it I mean precisely that. Some of my earliest memories are of sitting on the ways of his spinning lathe playing race car with the tale stock wheel. Well, having spent so many hours doing brutally physical, dangerous but precise work I most certainly didn't want to spin for fun. Playing with fire and hitting things by eye rather than micrometer was a lot more fun and relaxing. Dad on the other hand discouraged smithing as a dead craft and I never really convinced him I did it for fun not profit. Another benefit to smithing was being able to play with fire. We lived in S. Cal. where kids are NOT allowed to play with fire, however if you're "blacksmithing" they cut you some slack. So, I've been doing it since I was maybe 10 as a hobby, teaching myself because Dad wouldn't help in any significant way. Mother wouldn't let him forbid it, it kept me out of her kitchen. Then sometime in the late 70's or early 80's I discovered Bealer's "Art of Blacksmithing" in a local book store. They'd gotten a dozen copies by mistake and they were on the bargain table for really cheap. I picked up a copy and after thinking about it went back the next day to pick up a couple more but they were all gone. All 12 gone in two days. The manager of the book store still couldn't be convinced to stock smithing books because nobody was interested! EEDEEOT! Well, "Art" really opened my eyes, I learned why I couldn't do some things, how to do others, what to call some of the weird tools and maybe most importantly that Bealer was dead wrong, some of the things he said couldn't be done were easy for me. Soon I started finding other books and when the internet went public in 91' I discovered a vigorous smithing community online who gladly and with great tolerance pushed my education into warp speed. Frosty Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mende Posted March 27, 2008 Share Posted March 27, 2008 It started for me from reading the lord of the rings and wondering how they welded in midevil times... then the metalshop teacher let me play in the propane forge( I made knives and swords in highschool!) but I reall got the bug when i went to a mountian man rondesvous and saw a blacksmith working.... watched him for hours! then went home and started working... 25+ years later and ime still going strong... This is funny!. .To read LotR and only get intrigued by welding . .Too bad there are classes for dragonriding and magic and arcane cures and necromancy ..I'd sure sing up! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mende Posted March 27, 2008 Share Posted March 27, 2008 Anyways .. .Altho I'm not a Blacksmith ..and can barely be called an amateur compared 2 most of u ppl. ...I started about 2 yrs back ..when I decided I could probly forge knives with just hot coals left over from a bonfire and a simple hammer and a RR track section. I started collecting tools and stuff and finally managed to build a good enough brick and earth forge and found a 150 kg anvil hiding in a nearby mountain village. Never could find the time 2 forge a lot tho ..been busy with getting into college and such . .and now I'm leavin for London ..so maybe during summer breaks. . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
divermike Posted October 1, 2008 Share Posted October 1, 2008 I had done some smithing in high school, but then 25 years of life got in the way. So one day I'm reading a book called The skystone, about a roman times smith trying to figure out how to get a meteorite hot enough to work it, because his granddad had made a dagger of one, and it hit me, this is what I want to do! The horseclans novels may have contributed, Wolf & Iron also was one I read during that time, all these got my juices flowing. Now 3 years later, after wasting a year on my own, I'm getting to know which end of the hammer works best on the hot yellow stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psilogen Posted October 1, 2008 Share Posted October 1, 2008 I read that book recently, it was great. I got a little excited any time he started talking about smithing when I could predict where he'd go next in the conversation. I started working at a historic site because I didn't want to go to college and I had some connections, and there I started migrating more towards the shops area than the marching field. I've made a couple nail headers, a tomahawk, hundreds of nails, and plenty of s-hooks, among other things. It was a little tough working with 1820s tools, and I never did learn drop-tong welds or much heat treating, but it was a good start. Now I'm going back to school and hopefully I can come out with enough education to get a job where I can afford a house far away from homeowners' associations and other weaklings, so I can build a shop in the back yard. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inazuma_x Posted October 1, 2008 Share Posted October 1, 2008 Since a very young age I've felt that I was born too late...though the fact I am a type 1 Diabetic (from the age of 8) means I probably wouldn't have lasted too long in days of yore...but regardless i've always been fascinated with ancient times and have endeavored to discover as much as I can about them. perhaps it is my desire to find a simpler life...a more wholesome life...a life that doesnt so much rely upon the toils of others to scratch my existence out of the soil...to that end blacksmithing has always held a special place in my heart...from my artistic (sculpture) driven childhood i also developed a love of creating things with my hands...making my every fantasy seemingly come alive...or atleast into the real world i didnt actually get started blacksmithing until about 4yrs ago when i found a local smith (Alan Ball) who held introductory blacksmithing courses near-ish to my home...there i found what i truly loved about it...the seemingly magical experience of turning unyielding steel into basically what ever you desire...be it a simple hook or scribe...or an ornate piece of furniture unlike anything that can be had in a store or unlike anything the world has seen before...for me it is a truly magical thing...and that is what drew me to it...and that is what keeps me there... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inazuma_x Posted October 1, 2008 Share Posted October 1, 2008 I had done some smithing in high school, but then 25 years of life got in the way. So one day I'm reading a book called The skystone, about a roman times smith trying to figure out how to get a meteorite hot enough to work it, because his granddad had made a dagger of one, and it hit me, this is what I want to do! The horseclans novels may have contributed, Wolf & Iron also was one I read during that time, all these got my juices flowing. Now 3 years later, after wasting a year on my own, I'm getting to know which end of the hammer works best on the hot yellow stuff. I liked the skystone though i found it increasingly difficult to suspend disbelief when reading his subsequent works in the Camulod Chronicles... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob Browne Posted October 1, 2008 Share Posted October 1, 2008 I can remember the blacksmith shop as we called it on the family farm still in use when I was MUCH younger. I used to hang around because I could get real dirty and not get in trouble and it kind of rubbed off. We did basic farm maintenance then the arc welder kind of killed it off so I used it to shoe horses and bit n pieces. In the past few years my boys have become more interested so its back up there again. Besides you can play with fire and hit things and get away with it......perfect :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rustyshackleford Posted October 1, 2008 Share Posted October 1, 2008 I tired building a small furnace in the side of the hill by our house. I made a pair of bellows from some ziploc bags and composite board, they worked the best out of the whole affair . Anyway, the furnace was a flop, but it would heat up rebar to red hot (barely). I found a hefty, reasonably firm rock, and managed to flatten the rebar out a decent (read: minimal) amount. I was hooked, and have had black boogies ever since! Later I used an air mattress pump and burned out a depression in a stump, which I lined with tin can lids; my friend found my peter wright and sold it to me for $100 (a great deal I suppose). My grandfather traded fixing a clock for a neglected buffalo forge, which I added a brake drum to. Now I was cooking with gas! well, coal. Now I have a kind of 55 forge that I fun off of a blower/vaccuum. That was my beginning, and now I'm looking toward the future. I've been looking to what new anvil I am going to buy, a shop, fabricating a new forge and accumulating the basic tools that will allow me to produce items for myself and anyone else. (man, I sure could use a bag full'o money!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sam Falzone Posted October 2, 2008 Share Posted October 2, 2008 (edited) Looking back I realize that blacksmithing has alwys been a part of me. But there's no evidence of it in my family -I'm first Canadian generation to Italian immigrant parents who have never had a smith in their family tree. But I know the smithing bug has always been with me. When I was younger it was tucked away at the back of my soul, gently nudging me every so often. My first blacksmithing experience didn't happen until ... around 16 years ago, when I was back in university. I had a photo-shoot assignment for a class so I decided to visit the local "pioneer village" - it was right next to the university. I remember it like it was this morning. It was winter and I had shot around 3 rolls of film in the village. I decided to visit the blacksmith shop. As I went to pull the big doors open, something happened to me (I don't tell many people what happened because people always get this weird look on their face like I'm some kind of nut). Needless to say, it was a watershed moment for me. This was the last time this village had a master smith working there (they ended up hemoraging money and couldn't afford to keep master trades-people). His name was Ives and he was from Quebec. He was a great guy. He let me look around (behind the rope, right up to the forge) and answered every question I had - I was there for 2 hours. Even though I had never been in a smithy before, it felt like I had spent my entire life in one. I loved that shop. It was an authentic 1800's forge - beam and clapboard shop, cedar shingles, brick hearth and flu, great bellows, big old Peter Wright anvil on an oak stump, pot belly stove in the corner, ... the works ... not a welder to be seen anywhere. The floor was wood boards, cobbles and compacted sand (wood in the front half of the shop, cobbles in the working half and compacted sand around the forge and anvil). Tools were everywhere, ironware hung from hooks and from the rafters. As soon as I left the shop I went to the park office and applied as part-time help doing odd jobs and covering people on their lunch breaks and such. Ives agreed to teach me some basics - heating, drawing out, making s-hooks and j-hooks, etc. I surprised him and myself at how quickly I picked things up. I worked there for 2 summers ... Ives left to go back to Quebec at the end of that first summer. That they wouldn't give me the shop fulltime and the way the administration ran the place were what made me leave. But I took a re-kindled passion for smithing with me (I say re-kindled because I truely do believe that I've done this sort of thing before - this is where the weird looks come in ... ). Then came some quiet years while I finished my degrees, and then I got a job, right out of teacher's college in an elementary school with a great shop complete with a natural gas forge, anvil and sheet metal shop. I haven't looked back since - going on 10 years at that same school. And now I'm starting to build my obsession and my dream forge in my own home. Luckily I married a woman who shares my passion for history. She's a weaver and spinner and she sews while I do woodwork, woodcarving and smithing ... we're both cooks. We're absolutely perfect for eachother, and we support eachother's dreams. It doesn't get better than this. :) Edited October 2, 2008 by Aeneas Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Einhorn Posted October 2, 2008 Share Posted October 2, 2008 University of Connecticut offered a non-credit intro to blacksmithing course a the smith's house near Storrs, Connecticut, about 35 years ago. I was in the first class he taught. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted October 2, 2008 Share Posted October 2, 2008 Looking back I realize that blacksmithing has alwys been a part of me. She's a weaver and spinner and she sews while I do woodwork, woodcarving and smithing ... we're both cooks. We're absolutely perfect for eachother, and we support eachother's dreams. It doesn't get better than this. Cool. Deb's learning spinning and had to start learning to knit so we wouldn't be buried in yarn. I don't think there's much mystery about why people with similar interests are drawn to each other. Deb and I are in a similar situation, she has her Pygmy goats and now an angora fiber goat looking to breed pygoras. She's also good with her hands, picked up repousse first try and fell in love with fold forming and enameling. Me, I like making things from mechanical contraptions to odd shaped things beaten out of metal and other oddments of creativitism. We got together online after a story I wrote about Hale Bopp went viral. We ended up corresponding and one thing led to another. When things started getting serious and we started talking on a more personal level she was reluctant to tell me she breeds goats. I love goats I'd just never considered actually owning any. Oddly enough Deb thought blacksmithing was something wonderful. We've been going strong ever since. It's good to find the ONE isn't it? Frosty Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.