Why blacksmithing? initial pull

[BillyBones]

I am new to this but it was to keep me occupied. After a couple deployments i came home with PTSD pretty bad, I served on an M1 tank if anyone cares. After a few years of drug abuse and alcoholism i finally got some help. My therapist suggested a hobby. It is not so much for my PTSD it is to keep me from going back to a life of debauchery.  I used to be quite the accomplished artist and sculptor, however one of my injuries i lost a lot of finer motor skills in my hands. I can no longer do pen and ink drawings. So i am an auto tech by trade and i can use hand tools and the like. Then i was watching a series about a guy in KY that was a blacksmith. He smithed all sorts of things but did a lot of gun work. Then of course i have seen the forged in fire show. Then i learned just how simple building a forge is. I also grew up on a farm and my grandpa would use a forge in the barn to repair tools and the like. The first time i ever forged something was in high school where i made a cold chisel and a screwdriver in metal shop class. We also melted and poured metals and learned to weld. One thing led to another and now i hammer on metal. I do sometimes have to use vice grips to hold my pieces with sometimes because of my hands, but a hammer fits just fine. 

 

[ThomasPowers]

Look into tong loops to make any set of tongs into visegrips. (I cut small sections of pipe and hammer them down to a slot that fits on the reins.) Also look into tongs that hold the stock "trapped" like V bits for square stock instead of flat bits.  Using tongs is excellent therapy for the off hand and the hammer for the main hand.

Have you made it to a SOFA meeting yet? I hope to be at Quad-State this year.

[Tock]

Yes it is my Ptsd escape plan as well    My brother was a tanker in Germany and then went to Afghanistan because of the terrain no tanks there! Surprise you are now infantry. He got blown up now has a tbi.   I was a 12 bravo which was not fun.   Bombs are cool.   Not.   I got blown up in 2010 I am all good with a pimp limp and a wicked short fuse. So I get your pain  keep forging on and know that we are just “forged in pain” and that’s what makes us US  

[BillyBones]

12 bravo, combat engineer? My dad ,who is also retired Army, was a combat engineer in Vietnam. He retired as self propelled artillery though.

The vice grips i use are kind of modified. Couple years ago i needed a slide hammer. I welded a 12 inch bolt with a 30mm socket over it onto the adjusting screw of an old pair of vice grips. i cut the head off the bolt to remove the socket and now have a set of vice grips that have 12 inches more reach. They actually work pretty nice. I can clamp them on and the extension stays cool enough to hold. 

 

[SLAG]

BillyB,

Great idea. Do you have any pictures of the device? I am a spatial Klutz.

Somewhat mildly neurologically challenged, but interested in the implement.

There may be a few similarly afflicted folks here that may similarly be interested. (really).

Thank you.

SLAG.

[Glenn]

For those with grip issues on the tightness adjustment knob on vise grips, make a 1 or 1-1/4 inch ring and weld it to the adjustment knob. You can not turn it with gloves on.

[sfeile]

4 hours ago, Tock said:

 I was a 12 bravo which was not fun. I got blown up in 2010 I am all good with a pimp limp and a wicked short fuse. 

First let me say thanks. The after effects of that job are not pleasant. I lost a very dear friend of mine when his PTSD got out of control.

As for your initial question, I have always been interested in knives and metal working. My dad was a welder and I struck my first arc in 4th grade. My great grandfather was a blacksmith by trade and I was always fascinated with it. Now that I'm 45 and have settled down a bit with my own house and a job that doesn't require me living out of a hotel room, (and a hip surgery that slowed me down quite a bit....) I decided it was time to give it a try.

I do find it very therapeutic as well. No PTSD, but I am bi-polar, so there are times that just beating on something is great. Then you start to see something actually forming and it gives you focus. Before you know it, you actually have something useful out of all that beating and hammering and it turns a bad day into something better.

[BillyBones]

I stuck the socket on it to show how i used it as a slide hammer. It was for removing the front pump out of a transmission. You do not need a lot of force just a few good taps. This is how my mind works though, adapt, improvise, and overcome.I did exagerate a bit more like 8 or maybe 10 inches longer. That is a head bolt from a Mazda i think. 

 

[Tock]

12 bravo, combat engineer that’s the one. That is one nifty contraption I will definitely have to keep that in mind if I need such an awesome tool.   

[SLAG]

BillyB,

Thank you for posting the picture.

SLAG.

[DavidF]

I was researching my ancestry and origins of my surname. I found that my last name, Ferre, had originated from farrier. The Fe is actually from the periodic table for iron. So I now understood that sometime in the past, I had a heritage for farriers and smithing. I started watching YouTube videos on the craft and became mesmerized. Watching the process of transforming a square piece of stock into something that had utility and was the pinnacle of art just hooked me. During the day, I design infrastructures for computing. A lot of logical, mind melting work. And the lure of doing something creative just took a hold of me. At first, I had the incorrect perspective that this would not require a lot of thought cycles. I would be able to do something physical and just lose myself in the process. As any of you can confirm, I was completely blown away by the science and math involved in this craft. The amount of learning about chemistry, physics, etc. really resonated in the things that I am passionate about. Then a show called Forged In Fire started up on the History channel. I couldn’t get enough of the show and also started finding more and more videos from Walter Sorrels, Man at Arms, Telly Slavik, etc. I began picking up tools, like a mig welder, drill press, belt sander, etc and set out to build my own forge. I have now built a gas forge, several knives, and some art projects. So what started as an artistic endeavor to satisfy my creative side, based on my heritage, has morphed into a full fledged addiction. I love building something from scratch as a craft that has a higher value than what can be produced by mechanical tools nowadays. It is the process and immediate gratification of being able to hold something artistic and of high utility that I find rewarding. And although the initial goal of doing something manual that I did not believe would take a lot of brain cycles was mistaken, I have found that the endless investment behind the science has also been a huge draw for me. I would not have thought prior that transforming metal by annealing, normalizing, and hardening would be so complex, but as the guys in this forum know, a smith could rob ably walk into a chemistry or physics class and be the instructor. So many parts just resonate with me.

[Desmond Redmon]

On 2/6/2018 at 1:57 PM, ThomasPowers said:

I know a number of FORMER wood workers who have fallen into that trap! (And some still fighting against the pull of the dark side...bwahahahahahahahaha)

Haha, yah that seems to be where this has been going... I find myself designing tools that would make projects easier and then in the middle of making the tool realise I spent the rest of my free time on the forge LOL.

[ThomasPowers]

I once had a highly skilled turner show up at the smithy. He was doing a lot of high art pieces turned from irregular and "gappy" materials and was using carbide lathe inserts on the end of his turning tools. He needed some special curved tools for turning the insides of his items.  As the cutting edge would be an insert I got a handfull of steel rods of various diameters and heated them in the forge and then stuck the hot end of one in the postvise and told him to grab the cold end and bend it to his desired curve. Zwoop way too much!  So I told him to grab the end and bend it back....15 minutes later he had a  series of bent rods ready to be set up for lathe inserts.

Next weekend he bought an anvil off me...the emperor was pleased!

The swordmaker I worked under started out as a wood carver and wanted to make his own specialized tools and ended up as a professional swordmaker...

[Kuja_torra]

For me the journey started when i welded a sword together in high school.  It broke after just two swings.  I forgot about that for a long time since i was an active kid with many hobbies at the time.  After the military though i started the American dream for myself and got married. Soon into my marriage I got smacked over the head with the reality that i needed help with my life.  Counseling wanted me to get involved in something that interested me.  I thought hard about what interested me and it brought me back to that sword. I wanted to do it right this time and invested into learning how to forge. I took a couple of classes so that i wouldn't develop bad habits before i truly knew what i was doing.  As of now I have made two knives and no swords. I have no interest in making them at this point but I love smithing.

Thanks for reading some of my story.

KB

[SLAG]

Welcome aboard,

There is a lot of information here & good people many with vast experience that are willing to help. 

Mr. JHCC should be around soon with a direction to read the "read this first"

 thread. Also, check out many of the "stickies" that are concerned with the topics that interest you.

Gain some basic knowledge, terminology and then ask questions.

Again welcome,

SLAG.

[Bone]

I got started about three years ago when our farrier took out his hardy, cut a shoe in half and made me a hoof pick out of it. Took about 10 minutes and I was hooked. He invited me over to his place the following week and let me beat my first knife out of a rasp. I went home with a sore arm and a new addiction. I'm 53 and missing my right leg due to a motorcycle accident in '07, which put an end to my career as a crane mechanic. Tried several different hobbies to fill my lust for knowledge and to keep my hands busy. Smithing is the only one that stuck. Makes me happy and keeps me thinking. 

[Jouni]

I'm new to this and just starting to work on a hobby blacksmith. I have allways been interested metalworking, I have built motorcycle etc. I have maked parts myself, not bolt-on parts. Few years ago I had to make wall and gate for guard dog and i finally understood how relaxing metal works are. I have big family and hard job, my wife became illalla in the brain tumor four years ago. That's I need some "therapy" and I guess blacksmithing is good for me.

I have been looking for affordable blacksmithing tools, last summer I found +100 years the old leg vise and few week ago the Swedish 1896 anvil. History is very important to me and that's why I'm getting tools that are historic. I still have to make a forge and then I'm ready to learn blacksmithing. 

This forum is very good, I've read many hours what You've written about blacksmithing and tools. My english is little bit bad and it's very slowly but maybe I learn english too. :-)