Blacksmithing...tales

[hammerkid]

well here is my story ! I started welding about 3 years ago. I learned to mig , stick , tig , oxy-fuel. My cousin taught me. We was working a vw bug of his and we was building a body lift for it and he had to hold the pices while I welded it. After that First Bead I was Hooked for LIFE!!! At first my bead looked bad ( I was going way to fast) then he taught me later that day what the bead should be like. (ok I`am going to speed the story of I hate typing) I seen some blacksmithing work, Then in sept. of 2007 I meet Unkle Spike on the hobart welding board. I went to his shop and first made a nail hook. after that I WAS HOOKED!!!!! I built a coal forge , got a hf anvil. Now I have 2 coal forges , building a gasser , a 110lb hf , a 55lb. hf , a 250lb. , many tools. Thanks,Chris

[FieryFurnace]

I saw a guy forge a leaf at Stone Mountain Park in Ga. Heat steel and beat the devil out of it. What could be better than that? Also, I like swords, daggers, knives, shields, and armour. How do you make those? LEARN! I also like the satisfaction of working till I'm blue in the face, and when I am done, I can say, "I made this with these two hands. Now let's make something better!" And you start all over again. As a side effect you get a wonderfull night's sleep.
I'll go with "Tald the Dead's" last sentence. This is what I am.

The kidsmith,
Dave Custer

[Frosty]

Dave:

I just visited your Family's site and have to say it's very well done. Kayla has done a very professional job.

Your line of forged products look good as well.

My only criticism is the daisy background on the Lip Balm page makes it hard to read.

The farm looks like a little slice of paradise and I live in a pretty charmed land myself.

SPRING PROMISE PYGMY GOATS

Frosty

[keykeeper]

Well, here's the abbreviated version of why I wanted to learn blacksmithing.

A few years ago, I was collecting old tools and putting together a set of farrier's tools, as I had an interest in that type of thing, at the time. I bought a box of old tools, and found these carpenter's nipper's in the box. They were obviously handmade. The more I looked at the craftsmanship of the tool, the more I appreciated the maker. I figured if these were made by hand, I could make things by hand. Thus began my journey into the the how, what, when, where, why, etc. of blacksmithing. I'm not up to this type of quality yet, but someday it will happen. Pardon the dirt and rust on the tool, I've been using them in my shop.

It's been downhill ever since....LOL.:D

[Tom Lumpkins]

Boy there's some good stories on here to be read, Thanks to all of you all that have shared, wished I had the time to read them all tonite...Tom

[Jim Black]

In the late forties while growing up in a small midwestern town we still had two working blacksmiths.The sharpened plow shears and made parts that were no longer avalable or were just cheaper to reproduce.I got ran out of both shops on a regular basis, but the idea of making something useful out of a piece of scrap just intriged me.Went to many auction sales and tried to buy an anvil at around fifty dollars but they always sold for more that I was comfortable with.Finally got a nice Fisher 200 plus lbs and a portable farrier forge.There is just something about making a forge weld that looks as though the piece was cast that way that still excites me, and I guess it always will.I sure hope that this art is carried on into the future so my Grandchildren and their children can experience what we have.

[yesteryearforge]

Jim
You have the torch now and are charged with carrying it into the future.
Dont drop it and for all our sake dont let it burn out on your watch.


Mike Tanner

[Mende]

I saw a video with some dude making knives in his backyard. . .and I thought I could do it with RR tracks and a hammer. . and maybe a fanned fire. ...but after reading some info. .I realized I needed better tools. .so I paid some visits to the shut down smithies in my area and got some stuff. ..Built the forge myself . .from internet blueprints. .modified 2 work with hat materials I had. ...Now If I only had the time to use it :(

[Tom Lumpkins]

KYBOy, i'd love some of your welding knowledge!, mine is slim.. :-s

Me, my greath grandfather was a 5th generation blacksmith, my grandfather learned the craft as a young man, but after WO2 never practiced it, when i was a kid he told me he was gonna teach me , since there was again a small market growing for artisanal work.. but he died of cancer before he could teach me mutch, i grew playing with wood, metal, horn .; al kinds of material, went to to university and dit a master in product design, tok some welding clases and learned how to operate a lathe, now at 26 am once again a part tilme student, doing a 2 year course to be a farrier, and practicing blacksmithing on my own, but visiting allot of smiths in the area, to learn wat ever i can, my dream is to become a full time blacksmith/farrier (in the old days those where one and the same person in the villigas around here) in 4 years from now, until then i'l keep practicing at it, and keep paying the bills with product design work, and teaching art history.

My great grandfather was the smith in a small Arkansas hill town; but I didn't find this out till years after I started smithing.

I grew up with a fascination with arms and armour (remember whittling palm frond swords back when I was 11 or 12); but never thought I could make such things myself until I was encouraged by the SCA back in 1978. So I made my first maille shirt and found a copy of Weygers "The Modern Blacksmith".

My first forge was set up in 1980 or 1981---I usually use 1981 as my starting date. I still have the first knife like object I forged---hidden carefully away so I don't hear it laughing at me so much...I should reforge it and call it my Twice Forged Knife and serial it 000...

In 1983 the oil patch crashed and spent a year apprenticed to a professional swordmaker, Tom Maringer, 6 days a week in the shop, 2 meals a day with the family, no pay and anything I made on my own, He set the price on and took the shop cut right off the top.

It was a great experience for me; but really showed me how an apprentice does not help the bottom line in a one man shop until *after* a long training period. After my year was up I got married and had to find a "real job" to support a family and gradually worked my way up to where it could support my hobby too.

Lived for 15 years in Columbus OH and so had SOFA *and* really great fleamarkets in the blacksmith's happy hunting grounds. (Not to mention Pennsic and becoming part of the iron smelting team running a bloomery there).

That job evaporated and now I'm out in NM with my first built from scratch smithy and save for the scarcity of good scrounge loving it.

Temp in the 90's with *4%* humidity yesterday!

I grew up in Father's metal spinning and machine shop. Some of my earliest memories are of sitting on the ways behind the tailstock playing race car with the adjustment wheel while he spun. It was Dad's version of baby sitting.

I can still feel the difference between the red, gold, silver or gray cars, how each one sounded under the tool, how the lathe vibrated how the motor worked.

You can say my feel for metal was beaten into my head through my butt as a very young child. We moved from there before I was four. The attached pic is either the daylight basement or attached garage of one of the next places we lived.

As you can imagine I "got" to work in Dad's shop as soon as I could get around without hurting myself too badly, about eight. I started out wiping and oiling machinery, sweeping came a little later, it was kind of dangerous for a little kid with all the cuttings on the floor.

Free time was spent working for Dad and school centered around metal shop, drafting and such. I was burned out on precision work before I was 10.

At about that time I was wanting to play with fire and hit things and living in S. Cal. there's no way a kid could play with fire and not get in trouble. BUT if you're blacksmithing you HAVE to play with fire so I started pretending to blacksmith.

Father discouraged me from smithing, kept telling me to learn a paying trade. I still hadn't convinced him it was for fun when I was in my 40's.

I still loved the feel of having my way with metal but being able to do it intuitively, by feel and eye rather than die and instrument was like cool water in the desert.

After a number of years I had a fairly decent home made set up I played with occasionally. Then in 72 I moved to Alaska and left it behind, not that much to leave, no regrets.

I'd lived here a few years and got a job that took me into the field for most of the year and I couldn't bring myself to drink myself into oblivion after work like a proper driller so along with reading I started playing with hot iron in the campfires.

After a couple years of that I welded up a rail anvil and brought a pair of tongs, my blast was a Coleman InflateAll and a piece of pipe.

Shortly after that I put the word out and a friend's neighbor, a retiring farrier, sold me my first "real" anvil a 125lb. Sodorfors #5 Sorceress and a pallet of tongs. She's still my favorite, a face so hard a file will skate so you have to be careful not to mis and hit an edge, that's probably why it's still ruler flat and virtually undamaged. There are a couple tiny chips but that's it, the previous two owners didn't even cut on the step.

I've been doing smithing as a hobby with the occasional detour into a paying commission for a good 45 years now and enjoying it immensely.

I basically started out pretending to be a blacksmith, had fun so I continued. After a while people started thinking I WAS a blacksmith so if I didn't want to be found out as a fraud I had to keep pretending.

And here I am!

Frosty

I have always hung on to things of old so to speak.I have enjoyed blackpowder hunting and studying crafts of old,I have been a welder for six years the modern equipment is great but does have limitations lose of power etc.I started driving a bus and spotted a forge sitting in someones back yard.After work I went to the house and ask the old gentleman if he was interested in selling it.I explained to him I knew nothing about blacksmithing but would like to learn.I remember the look on his face when he told me no one was interested in that stuff anymore.I told him I was and wanted to learn all I could.He told me he had been smithing for forty years and would teach me all he knew.Well that was the start he has given me a dozen books to read and shared much knowledge as well as helped me aquire the equip.needed.I have just started forging this year and wish I had time to do more but I have a lot to learn and I have been lucky to not only forge steel but a friendship with someone willing to pass on the knowledge of a trade to keep it alive.Thanks Chet!

When I was about 6 years old I sat in the pick up and watched as my dad and a couple other guys clean out my great grandpa's garage of all the "junk" metal. My great grandpa had worked as a blacksmith for a couple local mines doing all sorts of repairs of tools, chain, carts, hitches, wagons, rails, and what ever else. I have one picture of him several years after he had retired, sitting in his big overstuffed arm chair with a cigar hanging out his mouth and a long handled 5 pound sledge being held straight out level from his shoulder, he passed away a couple months later which was about 3 years before I was born. So I never seen him use the tools or hear his stories but watching my dad and three other big guys struggle while putting his old anvil into the back of my dad's truck and being told by my great grandmother that my great grandpa had moved it by himself when he brought it home was an awesome picture in a young lad's mind. I have no idea how much that old anvil weighed was but I remember it was about 3 foot long on top and that when the pointy end poked dad in the gut it makes him cuss. I also will never forget the answer I got when I asked if I could have some of those old tools... "It's nothing but old worthless junk son"

Advance a few years, I and my wife was standing talking to a reenactor smith and after sharing my story with him, he offered me the hammer. I took ahold and that was my first day of learning the basics of this addicting craft. I worked at that village for several years until the man I was working with was pressured into allowing 5-6 young boys all in at once to learn how to beat on metal. They all only had one thought and that was to make a knife or sword. This in itself wouldn't be a bad thing but the shop was crowded with two people working make it 7 or 8 and it wasn't do-able... the second time a piece of hot metal came swinging and burnt my arm and caught my shirt afire I knew it was time to move on and make room for others.

I had continued doing some work for a few reenactors from a couple different time periods and outfitting a new cabin with some custom cooking and fireplace items, a couple festivals and such. Mostly just just worked as I found the time. 2 years ago I was hit on my motorcycle by an SUV. Kept me from working metal (and a lot of other things) until just recently... So now I am once again working myself up to being able to work at the forge again. My wife ever encouraging me to smith, she has requested a bathroom makeover, including iron towel bars and TP roll holder etc...

James

Here's just a few of the many great posts that came outta this topic, I know there's plenty of stories to share, Maybe some of you knife smiths would like to chime in and share your Stories, I for one would love to hear ED Gaffrey's story, How he got started and what inspired him..You all have a good day.. Edited June 8, 2008 by WagonMaster

[AdrianWood]

I got into it about 11 years ago. I did a fine art degree then went to work at the V&A museum London. I was visiting my Brother in the North of England Who incidentally is a Farrier. I went with him to one of his friends forges, he let me hit a piece of hot metal, from the moment i hit i knew i wanted to be a blacksmith. Got back to London on the monday handed in my notice and started looking for Blacksmiths shops.
I started at a forge four weeks later for a guy called Don Barker of York. I then moved to a general Fab shop. Then i was asked to work for a guy called Brian Russell of County Durham. He taught me a huge amount, i owe him big time, he is also a big smithing hero of mine!!! I was then given the opportunity to set myself up in business about 5 years ago and here i am!!

[Tom Lumpkins]

Great story, I'm glad you got to beat on that metal. I know there's lots of people on here that have stories to share.Keep um coming..

[Archie Zietman]

About 6 years ago now, I was getting Bar-0Mitzvah-ed. Traditionally one sings the week's Biblical text and Haftarah and gives a sermon. The link between my haftarah and Torah was the holy vision of the huge lamps in the first and second temples. I decided I was not only going to sermon about them, but also make my own interperetation of the second one.

I met a great welder-fabricator near me and he and I worked for three months on a three foot tall copper tree with coriander flower-cupholders (13 of them) and we set it on a base of stone from Jerusalem. After working with a torch and copper I was totally hooked on metalworking.

After that I pursued my love of metals into armouring which I tried and failed to do for a good two years (This is a whole nuther story with it's own cast of characters). I never made anything, and I got frustrated, but refused to learn from anybody. I regret that attitude now.

Then a friend of mine told me that she was learning blacksmithing from a blacksmith about 40 minutes away, and it might be interesting since armouring and blacksmithing are similar. So I went along reluctantly (I was very much into being all snobby about armouring. Should have been given a beating.) but once I got there, I fell in love with iron.

The workshop was a garage crammed with two anvils, a coldwork bench, a treadle hammer and a coal forge. It was dark, the fire was glowing, and my friend, and the blacksmith (who looked like Abraham Lincoln) were pounding hot iron. She was making a toasting fork, he and his son were repairing a japanese pull-bell for somebody. It was amazing.

He told me afterwards that if I wanted to get into blacksmithing I should just throw some coals in a barbeque, use and old chunk of steel and get going. This is exactly what I did. I loved hot iron so much that I often forgot to actually make anything. I forgot to actually make anything for a good 3 years. I can only really call myself a blacksmith now that I've learned to learn from others and made stuff.
As my grandfather used to say "Well there you are!"

be merry,
Archie

Edited August 6, 2008 by Archie Zietman

[triw]

I was into campfire cooking and saw a set of camp fire tools made out of iron. When I asked about them you would have though they were made of gold by what the guy wanted. (He did not make them he was selling the stuff)
Some one told me of a blacksmith near me and I went to visit him. He did not do custom work but he let me hang out at his shop and watch. He was making things to sell at a craft show coming up. He let me hammer on some steel and I made a crude hoof pick for my wife. I tried to work out some classes with the first smith but he was relucdent so I found out about Frank Turley blacksmithing three week class. I took his class in 2001.
I have a small adobe shop and have been doing different things from time to time. I also made the campfire tripod and tools. I tried to do craft shows but found out I don't like to do production work (did to much of that in the pastry kitchen)
My first big piece was a saddle rack for a friend of mine where I twisted 3/8 inch rod into rope and the front is a lasso with the coils being where the saddle sits. I traded that for a new roof om my shop.
I watched Ray Rybar do a knife making demo a few years ago and then took a class from him. And started to make knives traded a few and sold a few but nothen big I am still learning.

[NateDJ]

My dad was a welder all my life and usually kicked me out of the shop when I was too young so my younger brothers and I would get hammers and go to his scrap pile to "make stuff" after a while of beating pipes into "swords" and etc. we started asking dad to weld this/that and he decided we needed to learn to weld. He taught me to weld and use a torch to make things I needed or wanted instead of trying to go buy them.

While I was in the army I found myself repairing trucks and tanks which often had all kinds of damage so I would usually just get the torch out heat the piece up and beat it back into shape if it could be done, if not I would try to make a new part for it instead of waiting for the ultra slow supply system to get it for me, naturally there are many parts that one cannot make but surprisingly there were much more than I would have suspected that could be.

I have been out of the army for about 10 years now and have found the need for some tools and other stuff as well as a way to help reduce the stress of an office job downtown OKC, I started by going to the gym and sitting in the sauna etc. and that helped a lot but when I was out in the garage I usually found that at least in OK it is hotter in my garage with the door shut than in the gym sauna, and I don't have to pay for the time. So while I am out in the garage I decide to make a few things and get out my hammer again, a few days of taking stuff over to dads to cut or weld it up and I decided to buy a welder and torch of my own. Even with a welder and torch I found myself heating the project up and beating it to the direction I wanted if I could instead of cutting and re welding. I also found this to be a good stress relief!

My wife has "commissioned" me to build her a "nice" gate to shut the kids off from the dining room and kitchen as a plastic one doesn't hold up well enough but I just couldn't see putting up some type of plain welded mettle gate and I knew I could make something better if I put my mind to it. So I started searching the internet for ideas and found the blacksmithing community. I have been inspired and hooked ever since and my wife has a very long list of things she wants made, the real problem now is, she is looking over many of your sites and saying I want you to make me one of those... ya, me with weeks of experience making some thing it likely took an experienced blacksmith with a nice power hammer a month to build and she wants me to walk out in the shop and "Get-er-Done" well at least I have her support, and the support of people like you all.

The blueprint section is truly inspiring as it helps me to be able to break down this first very large project (large for me anyway) into many small ones and it causes me to feel like I can actually do it. The gate for instance will be made of leaves with long stems 4"-12" and some what scrolled so that they touch at random places where I can weld them together, I will also put a few flowers where the leaves are and maybe even try to make a few small critters such as lizards and dragonflies to put a little more life into the project.

Because of the information on this site as well as a few others I am now looking at this as a good way to practice and learn real hammer control, hoe to use an anvil, what metal to use for this type of project, the idea that when I make something I should consider it as an art project instead of just a piece of metal, what the different tools are and how to use them, how to make the different tools I need, I could go on and on.

The nice thing about the internet is that it to is a torch barer. The information we post to this site and others like it will be here for as long as this site is active or until it is deleted. If this information is allowed to be copied to other sites, respectful of copyright, It will remain for the life of the internet. there are also sites which archive sites for histories sake and are a nice place to go search for older stuff when it is no longer available. Internet Archive Has a copy of this site all the way back to Feb 13 2003 for instance. I hope that all who think the information they posses will die with them will put it out here on the web for the rest of humanity to find when we need it. I am grateful for the knowledge you guys have shared with me and intend to pass it on to my sons and hopefully grandchildren when that day comes. I would like to even pass a little back up to my dad :)

[Tom Lumpkins]

I am grateful for the knowledge you guys have shared with me and intend to pass it on to my sons and hopefully grandchildren when that day comes. I would like to even pass a little back up to my dad

Thanks Nate, Archie, and Triw
for sharing your stories with us, I enjoyed reading them.
There's a bunch of good stories in here where Blacksmiths got there start and where they come from. Good reading..thanks again....and if someone else wants to share there story, The stage is your's...

[Tom Lumpkins]

Just wondering if anyone else has stories to share, There's a bunch of good one's here in this tread.

[pkrankow]

DITTO, nothing worse than warm gatorade UGH .

There is MUCH worse than warm gatorade.


I've been enamored with metal, wood, and fire for a very long time. My parents never let me try much with hot metal, but Dad and I did some cold forming of brackets and such, more than a few times. Shop classes were cut back when I got to high school, so there was only wood shop, drafting and engine repair left. All the metal trades were cut. I learned basic welding in collage and became fair at it when Dad got a MIG welder. (Funny thing is that my brother and dad only use flux core anymore.)

About a year ago I was repairing the exhaust on my car, and broke a bracket. It was mostly rusted through. Nice piece of 3/8 rod, upset on the ends, bent into a funky shape to tuck into the rubber hangers. So I moved the gravel around in the chiminea to make an air passage, I'd call it a tuyere, but I had no blower. I used a very short railroad track section as an anvil, and a claw hammer. My camping hatchet was my hot cut tool.
From natural air flow I got a nice hot fire, hot cut, and bent up my new bracket complete with upset ends. I used an "aircraft" clamp to hold it to the pipe, and it is working great.

I used the rest of the rod to make a fire poker. While I easily reached cherry red, I could not get any hotter. Then the bottom broke out of my chiminea. Glad it was on a brick patio, and not wood.

I've spent the last year reading all I can find, and now am starting to put a propane forge together. Adding to my difficulty the scrap yards are now no public access. You drop off, but cannot buy.

Phil

[Francis Trez Cole]

how I got started

In 1987 while in the Marine Corps I was living in the town of Jacksonville NC. I had read every book I could find on blacksmithing. A museum in Richland, the next town over, had a great curator, Albert Potts. He would bring in folk artists on Sunday afternoons to do demonstrations. One cold and icy Sunday, I read in the paper that he was going to have a blacksmith at the museum demonstrating civil war pieces. When I arrived there were about six others who had also braved the cold. Shawn, the blacksmith was just lighting off his forge. He had a bellows and all his equipment was homemade. He did his demo in an hour then everyone else left. I didn’t. I had tons of questions. He looked at me and said I could stand there all day and you could ask questions but instead he handed me a piece of steel and commented, “you are only going to learn this by doing it”. So I started hammering and we ended up talking for two hours. He asked me why I wanted to blacksmith. That was simple. I wanted a set of ice carving chisels. I explained that I was a trained chef with a degree from Johnson and Wales University and unwilling to pay thousands of dollars for something I felt that I could make. I helped Shawn pack up and I decided to just go home and do it.

I searched flea markets for tools and found a good vice and a hammer. I built my forge and bellows. I drove to Wilmington, NC and bought my first bags of coal. So Saturday morning came I had worked to do I needed tools for the forge a shovel, poker, rake and water can. Well with in an hour the wooden arm on the bellows broke. Not giving up I made one out of steel lifting the bottom of the bellows by hand I forged my first Eye then forged welded it. Feeling good yes I can do this. So now I could start on my list.

Then something strange happened. My neighbor Derwood came over. “What do you think you’re doing”, he asked. “I am blacksmithing”. “No, you are doing it all wrong”, he said. Then he picked up my rake and started pulling my fire apart. “It’s ok. You can light it up again now get in my truck”. Now Derwood was in his 90’s and I had a lot of respect for him. He was still cutting his own fire wood to heat his house. Down the road we went, off the main road and onto a dirt road through woods which felt like forever. The woods cleared and there were thousands of acres of corn. We pulled up to an old tobacco barn. “See that stand of trees over there? That is where I was born. The house bunted down years ago”. In the barn we went. “She’s here somewhere”, he proclaimed, “If you can pick her up you can have her”! There she was in a corner under a tarp… an anvil, battered, chipped and old. I walked over and wrapped my arms around her and off we went. She was now mine and I hers. Years later I found out where the anvil had come from. Derwood told me he had received it from the great great grandson of John Ford the first blacksmith in Onslow County, NC in 1774. After a lot of research I found out it was made by Mouse Hole Forge. I tended to the abuse she had suffered over the years and to this day she still serves me well.

A few years later I moved to Chapel Hill, NC to take over as Executive Chef of UNC Hospitals. This is where I met George Berrett of Storybrook Metal Shop. We became friends and I would watch what he was producing and go home and make the elements I had seen in his shop. Every time I lit off my forge I had work for hire from fixing farm equipment to making custom pieces for people.

In 1999 I moved to Sarasota, FL. I started working for the Golden Apple Dinner Theatre as the Technical Director. I set up my shop and got my first big commission. The Venice Cathedral needed a fence for a cemetery. I installed it on the morning of 9/11. Since then I have produced pieces for collectors and worked with members of the Histicorial Society recreating and expanding existing pieces from old Sarasota. I’ve also had pieces commissioned by a Japanese cruse line and Bush Gardens of Tampa.

I blacksmith for the love of the art. Who would have thought from that cold North Carolina day I would find my self 20 years later under an old oak tree in 90 degree weather with 90 percent humidity (what was I thinking) listening to that old anvil ring and boy does she sing.

[divermike]

In high school metal shop in 77, I took a BS course, teacher said I had a knack, but 25 years of life got in the way, then in 2001 I read a book called the skystone, by Jack Whyte, and another called wolf and iron by Gordon Dixon, both fiction with lots of blacksmithing, and got me to thinkin. When I sold my business in Ca. and moved to western NY, in 2004, I took a year and a half to myself to learn what I could, made myself a forge and took half the woodshed for my smithy, now the wood is outside, and the smithy has doubled in size, and I'm a member of NYSDBA, SOFA, MABA, ABF and ABANA, and I can't imagine myself not being able to go hit hot metal, and I'm very thankful to Glenn and you all for this site, being able to learn and share has brought great happiness to my existance. Happy hammerin folks.

[CTBlacksmith]

i started out when i was fourteen and i wanted to temper a knife blade for my cousin. i had a big pile of dirt in my backyard and i put a coffee can in the ground with holes in it. i ran a copper pipe out and put four bricks around the can. my air supply was an air pump for camping. i dont think i ever tempered that knife but i did straighten it out ( it was a trap spring). then i started playing around and i made a pair of tongs out of two concrete form ties. i thought they were the best thing ever and i showed them off to everybody in my family. now i look at them and wonder what everybody was thinking when i showed them.
My cousin had a small anvil that he let me borrow and i started making different hooks and things. then i was looking through an old book and found plans for a brake drum forge. the same cousing helped me get all of the parts and weld the forge together. for about a year i used a compressor and a valve on my forge for the air supply. it worked ok but it was noisy and the compressor was too small. i thought it would be nice to get a hand crank blower but i had never seen them anywhere for sale. on my way home from Maine i stopped at a barn sale. the guy had different forges and swage blocks for sale, but the best thing was an old hand crank blower. it worked and all of the teeth were on the gears. i payed forty five dollars for it and that is the best forty five dollars i have spent.
After about a year of that forge i decided that i wanted to learn how to weld. i bought an oxy-acetylene and my cousin gave me bottles for it. the first thing that i wanted to do was to gas weld a forge and firepot. i was able to cut out the table and weld on two of the legs. the welds eventually broke off and i realized that if i was going to make it work i needed a welder. once again my cousin helped me and welded the firepot and legs on for me. the forge sat around for a while because i didnt have time to finish it. this year i finally got a welder and finished the forge. i cut the legs off and welded it to the base of an old skinning machine. now i use it just about every day.
my senior year in high school (this year) i won a three thousand dollar award for fine metalsmithing. i am going to college to be a metal shop teacher and artisan. my plan is to teach during the school year and i can blacksmith when i am off in the summer. i have been blacksmithing for about four years and i cant imagine ever stopping.

[Tom Lumpkins]

Great Stories , Keep um coming. Thanks..

[dablacksmith]

welll started in highschool my welding teacher was friendly and i wanted to plat with forgeing instead of welding. he said ok bring him the items i made for a grade .. got a b+ (learned what too much air in a naural gas forge does to metal).still hadnt figued it all out when i went to my first mountian man rondesvous.. saw a smith there forgeing wached him for hours! was hooked !i went home and started forgeing ! within a year i was going to local rondesvous selling ironwork .that was in 83 been smithing for a liveing off and on since then..

[TASMITH]

I had the opportunity to serve an apprenticeship in Blacksmithing at a major steel producer back in 1980. Worked in the shops dept. of the steel mill. The shop had 5 Blacksmiths and two apprentices. We had 3 large steam powered hammers. One 1,000 lb, one 1,500 lb, and one 3,000 lb hammers. Each hammer was run by a hammer driver as they were called. Each Blacksmith had a helper and the one on the big hammer had two helpers. there were three gas forges with the one on the big hammer being an actual furnace with an interior that was approximately 4 feet wide by ten feet long by five feet high. It was capable of heating a 14 in sq billet up to 2300 degrees F (used to make 100 ton crane hooks). we also had two large coke forges that we used for welding.

We made a large variety of things used in all the different dept's. out in the steel works. We made specialized tools for the various rolling mills, steel making, coke making, iron making. tube division, finishing dept's.

We also made up four legged chains and hooks, and made the links and welded them to fasten the four chain legs to a large ring and attach the hooks we made to the other end. These were used in steel making to dump the scrap hoppers into the Basic Oxygen furnaces when charging them.

The big hammer was used primarily to make the crane hooks used in the overhead cranes all over the plant ranging from 15 to 100 ton capacity. We also made large lifting clevises for the steel making and riggers to use out in the various mills.

The items we made are too numerous to mention here but covered pretty much all aspects of Blacksmithing that you could ever think of, including heat treating. Having the opportunity to work with five highly skilled Blacksmiths, each with their own methods of doing things gave me the best possible insight into how to make something and how to do it right, as someones life depended on it. After 7, 280 hrs of apprenticeship, three years of night school related courses and a further 1500 hrs of "improvership" I got my ticket and was a qualified journeyman.

After a big economic downturn and major lay-off from the plant in the late 80's, I found a job at an auto parts forging operation as their Blacksmith making all the tongs used by the hammer operators forging the auto parts. I also made all the hand hammers they used as well as pry bars,cold chisels.peening tools for the die dressers and all the heat treating of the hot trimmers and cold work dies for the finishing dept. of the operation. I spent 22 years there and the company closed down about three years ago now. I now just work at my little forge at home doing what ever comes to mind or what someone may ask for. After thirty years of working with power hammers my back is pretty much done in and I do all hand work now in nice small light materials.

I have written a number of articles and sent them to Glenn, of my experiences and observations at the major steel mill I worked at and hopefully he will be able to figure out the small problem he has of trying to get them viewable to the rest of the community soon.

I am also going to be doing a blueprint up at some point on how I make my tongs as I make mine quite a bit differently from almost any others I have ever seen. As I have made/repaired, as near as I can figure, in excess of 20,000 (not a typo!) pair of tongs in my career, I feel that I have gotten the science of making them down pat....LOL

Have fully enjoyed every hour of my work and still do. I don't think there is anything more satisfying then having an idea and bringing it to life in metal!

Terry

[Glenn]

Steel Making Introduction
Coke Making
Iron Ore

Iron Making
Steel Making
Continuous Casting

Hot rolling
Cold Rolling and Finishing Part 1
Cold Rolling and Finishing Part 2

[TASMITH]

Glenn,
Glad to see the links to the articles. Glad you got it worked out. As usual you have gone out of your way to make things happen on this site. Thank you.

Terry