james austin Posted January 13, 2020 Share Posted January 13, 2020 Hello! I've been reading the forums here for most of a year, and figured it is time to come out of the shadows and participate a bit more. I've been doing some woodcarving recently, mostly spoons and bowls and cups. I've reached a point with that work where I need some pretty specific tools which are either quite expensive, or simply not available, so I figured I should learn how to make them myself. Should be pretty easy really, just heat up some rebar, and smash it with a giant sledge hammer right? well maybe not, but I figure I should be able to produce something workable, and there are loads of things to make in the meantime to practice hammer control, and fire management. I don't have a ton of experience with smithing. I had a quick demo, and bit of practice back in college (can that really be 15 years ago), and last year took a 'fundamentals of smithing' class at the Steelyard hear in Rhode Island. They have open shop hours, and I had been planning on going back to use their equipment, but it has turned out to be a bit harder to manage than I expected. I've spent the past few months putting together a little back patio smithy. Anyway, I'm really excited to get started making some useful stuff out of steel, and definitely glad I found this forum. It's been a fantastic resource for building things on the cheap that will actually work pretty well. So thanks to everyone here who has made this forum what it is. And we have fire! 404 link removed Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted January 13, 2020 Share Posted January 13, 2020 Weygers has a whole chapter in "The Complete Modern Blacksmith" dedicated to the forging of wood carving gouges with special shapes to make them better for inside work. I strongly commend this book to your attention! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
james austin Posted January 13, 2020 Author Share Posted January 13, 2020 Thanks Thomas. I've been keeping an eye out for that one. I got a copy of "the making of tools" when my library discarded it, and he has some on gouges there, but I've seen mention of the Complete Modern Blacksmith having more/better info particularly about the carving tools. Perhaps I should just put in the order. Its pretty cheap over on Amazon. And I just found that the public library has a copy. Excuse me while I go request that Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenn Posted January 13, 2020 Share Posted January 13, 2020 Check into the New England Blacksmiths Assoc. Connecticut Blacksmith Guild and other in your area. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irondragon Forge ClayWorks Posted January 14, 2020 Share Posted January 14, 2020 You can download a free copy of The Modern Blacksmith by Weygers here. https://ia600201.us.archive.org/28/items/The_Modern_Blacksmith_Alexander_G._Weygers/The_Modern_Blacksmith_Alexander_G._Weygers.pdf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
james austin Posted January 14, 2020 Author Share Posted January 14, 2020 Thanks! I wouldn’t have thought that was old enough to be on archive.org. Glenn: I often forget about the Connecticut groups so thanks for the reminder. I’ve been hoping to catch up with the NEBA group, and just haven’t gotten there, yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irondragon Forge ClayWorks Posted January 14, 2020 Share Posted January 14, 2020 It's the edition prior to The Complete Modern Blacksmith but still a good read. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pnut Posted January 14, 2020 Share Posted January 14, 2020 I found a copy at bamsite.org along with a lot of other good PDFs. Pnut Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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