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I Forge Iron

Making A Horseshoe


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That would certainly stop me :). I hot shoed myself once. Had a horseshoe in the vice and wasn't thinking and grabbed it. Took a microsecond to let it go. Reiterating a safety lesson, kids: Treat all metal in the shop like it's still hot. Even a black heat can be incredibly hot. Glenn had just told me how to treat burns on your fingers or hands a couple days before this. Put them in water and leave it. Not just until it feels better, but long enough to dissipate the heat. Even if you have to go to the hospital, keep soaking it. It works. I had my hand in a cup for probably an hour. Burned the inside of my thumb, index and middle finger. It hardly hurt at all. It barely blistered and healed quickly. Don't touch anything unless you are positive it's cool enough to touch. No touchy!

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Also use the back of the hand to check when you are not sure about the heat.  The natural tendency is for your hand muscles to contract when its hurt,  pulling away from the heat if you used the back of your hand,   Conversely if you used the inside of your hand you just grabbed onto it.  Just a little medical info for yall

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I liked it. He makes nails at great speed, something I couldn't possibly do. :)

As for the lose hammer, lack of goggles and distance to the forge :blink:

He is wearing on his head what seems to be sunglasses, obviously to look into the fire and not for forging. The hammer ... ? Does he adjust the head at some stage? He may have plonked it in water for a minute. We will never know. I looked hard to see the distance between forge and anvil, but no luck. It is after all a personal choice. I pull the anvil away from the forge or close according to what I do. We are all different. All in all, a good job and someone who is clearly not a farrier is showing publicly what he does. Nice anvil on a nice sturdy stand, and not the wobbly tree trunk you see often on you tube.

I have yet to publish a video of myself forging, playing the piano or water skiing. Takes a form of civil courage to get started, and I am sure that many in this forum could produce quality and useful  videos yet do not for various reasons, not the least, fear of criticism or ridicule. 

The world is a strange place. 

I did note that Frosty liked the video too. One for you Frosty. :D

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In general, I liked the video. But he asked about music. I just don't like it very much in any kind of video like that. He was speedy and worked faster than I do.  I'm sure it takes courage to put yourself out there. And I envy his anvil. It's very nice

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Yes, music background on videos is a risk. Can only please those who like that sort of noise and aggravate the rest. 

I would have piano blues as background, may be boogie woogie?  

Actually, the best background music to blacksmithing videos would be the aria from Verdi's Traviata ... "La gitanella" 

Can someone identify the anvil used here?

The triangle is off beat ... :angry:

 

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On 6/25/2019 at 10:27 AM, Steve Sells said:

1  Make rectangle bar 3/8 inch thick, about 1/2 inch wide and about  10 inch or so long. 

Thanks for the info, but that's for the regular shoes.  I was curious about the small ones you make at demos.  I guess I could figure it out, but I kinda wanted it straight from the horse's mouth.....

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Wait....I gotta go get my tape measure.

.......OK, I'm back.

I got the following lengths on some shoes I had handy:

#000  12 1/4"

#1  14 1/4"

#2  14 3/4"

I was under the impression that your small shoes were maybe a couple of inches or so in size.  So the 10" length gets you a shoe somewhat smaller than the #000.  Good size for a kid to carry around.  Not nitpicking you here, just fishing for the bar size.  Thanks again for the info!!

(BTW, I was a math major in college, but I changed my major to geology......DUH)

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Point of normanclature, those are heal calks not clips. With out the calks a bare will grow (outside circumpherance) 2x the width. So a 10” bar makes a shoe 11 1/2” measured from heal to heal around the outside. 

Best to just turn up the calks, true them up and then set the heal edgewise on the anvil and giver a smack or two to change the direction from across the heel to perpendicular. Heal calks arnt much use with out toe calks so you might skip weld a set on wile your at it. 

image.jpg

That’s a toe clip. If you turn the heals as I describe you acualy draw your length back out (hand mades not modified keg shoes). 

So let’s consider your tiny demo  shoe, if you start with 1/4” round and flatten one face that gives you 3/8” x 3/16” or so, cut off 5” and round the heals, now bend it the hard way 90 to form the toe. Square that up. If your going to fuller now is the time. Bend each branch and punch your holes (toe even with the back edge of the toe web in the middle of the bar, third nail at the widest point of the shoe and the second nail between the others) now nerrow the shoe so the inside edge of the heals is as wide as the toe holes.  Front shoes are full like packman wile the hide have strait sides and are shaped like a deviled egg. 

There you go 2” or so wide shoe of the right praportions. Kick the heals into trailers for a cool look if you must. 

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Andrew: If your goal is trying to teach how to make this particular horseshoe, I could watch your video and learn how to do it. And you look efficient doing it. The music is probably good for the entertainment value also if that is your aim.  Safety and prevention is stressed religiously here. If you read my post about burning my hand, that is a prime example of why. That is why they point out issues about not wearing safety glasses and such. They don't want anyone to be hurt by what they SEE someone else doing. The safety practices in my shop are probably not grade A either. But I'm not putting something out where everyone can see it. Visuals are powerful. As I said, I like your video except the music. But that's my opinion. And I can read Steves instructions on how HE makes his shoe and follow it and I'm going to give that a go. Charles is a farrier, so that is his profession. You don't have to be a pro at what your are doing. I can do a lot of things, but I'm not a professional anything. 

Thanks for the invite Charles. Tommie and I were just talking the other day about that. He has to go up to Reno sometimes a couple times a week for work. He said I ought to take you up to Bradley and go see Charles. I wish I had more time and it worked out in your time also. I would love it

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26 minutes ago, CrazyGoatLady said:

Andrew: If your goal is trying to teach how to make this particular horseshoe, I could watch your video and learn how to do it. And you look efficient doing it. 

Yes, I understand that my videos are not for newbies like tutorials in terms of safety, maybe I can write smth like a disclaimer just to warn people that this is not so good as a tutorial

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I don't know how all that works, but that may be a good idea. Maybe something like " This is how I do it. Not meant to be an instructional video, but I hope you enjoy watching." And if someone wants to try it and make it successfully, all the better. I was just letting you know that on this forum, if safety issues are seen , they will be pointed out. Things don't always translate well in text so I hope this makes sense to you. Maybe keep that in mind when you make videos that monkey see, monkey do and make sure you are stressing safety as well. :)

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I am not a farrier, but my blacksmithing mentor is, and he had me make some shoes to learn something of the principals. For a seemingly simple object, a horseshoe is more complex than it would seem. I was really pleased when he nailed one of mine on the horse we were working on with just a few cursory taps on the anvil. There are a lot of projects that can be done with old horseshoes, like hooks, brackets, bookends, hoof cleaners, and more.

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