Does blacksmithing include arc welding or oxy-acetylene welding? ?

[Marc1]

When I started working in a smithy at age 15, the shop made decorative items large and small, from window grills and gates, to multi light pendant, beds, tables to small artefacts and trinkets, most made in small numbers and some custom made for customers who supplied their own design. 

The master blacksmith was a real artist with the pencil and his designs could be framed and could hang in anyone's living room with pride. He was equally skilled with the hammer, yet he was (in his own words) a progressivist. He did not give a toss about traditional methods, only aesthetics of results. He conceded that many times traditional method gives the best results, but whenever possible, modern fabrication methods must be employed. 

So he used a grinder, no not an angle grinder, they were not invented yet, but a contraption that had an electric motor hanging in a cage that could swing in any direction joint to a flexible shaft and a grinding stone at the end. He also used a large guillotine to cut stock, and was a master with the oxyacetylene and the arc welder. 

He used to say that his master joined scrolls with rivets that had to be countersunk and hidden and that arc welding was a bit of a cheat but made a piece commercially viable without taking away its artistic value if done properly. 

I sit on the fence on this. I have seen work by other blacksmith that have weld spatter all over it and visible weld beads like chicken poop. And other work that is equally welded but with the grace and finesse of a professional welder ... I personally am proud of my welding proess, yet to learn TIG properly, I plasma cut, have a large metal cold saw, a dozen grinders of all sizes nad would have a water jet CNC table if I had the room for it. 

Having said that ... I have also seen comments here and elsewhere of blacksmith that declare as if it was a badge of honor, that "they can not weld for peenuts", or that they don't even own a welder. 

I suppose that ... each to his own. If someone can get away with not welding at all, I suppose it's OK. A bit self limiting in my view but hei, who am I to criticise right? 

Reminds me of those purist jointer who don't use nails nor screws nor glue. Sure, a lot more work for little gain, but possible. Would hate to have to make a cabinet that way and sell it for a profit. It would cost a bomb for sure.

So after all this rant, my point is ... should blacksmithing include welding as part of the craft?  If you want to build something (besides a knife I suppose), you have to be able to weld past the chicken poop level. Good welding techniques in electric arc in all forms and oxyacetylene is very important. One welding form I have yet to learn and that I can see as potentially the best form of welding for a blacksmith is TIG welding. Hidden, uses nothing alien to the piece and needs hardly any dressing at all. 

Or should we only use rivets? ... and drill all holes by hand or pedal power? 

What do you think? Is welding wrong and alien to blacksmithing or is it part of it? 

What about plasma cutting? Sandblasting? Electric drills?  

 

 

[Glenn]

Are people going to pay more because of the brand of anvil you use ?  Are they going to pay more if you take an extra heat or two while at the forge ?  Or are they purchasing a product that you are proud enough to sign with your touchmark ?

[pnut]

If you're working in a shop  and trying to make a living it seems prudent to use whatever method that will have good results with the smallest expenditure of time money and materials so I have to say yes with the caveat unless you are making a reproduction with the methods used during the historical period that the item is from and arc and oxy/acetylene welding wasn't the norm then.

If you're a hobbyist that's a completely different mission. You can use whatever you enjoy using. The short answer is yes I think arc and oxy/acetylene welding has a place in blacksmithing. I would guarantee a working smith from whatever period used the most efficient methods at their disposal as blacksmiths tend towards practicality and pragmatism. 

The " period blacksmith" is a pretty recent development with the exception of traditional Japanese swordsmiths who use older techniques as it is involved in their Shinto belief system and not because they want to be "old timey".

Marc1, I agree with the master blacksmith you mentioned above. 

Pnut

[Fowllife]

I would agree that there is nothing wrong with using a welder, but just like any other jointing method it needs to be done correctly. I have also noticed items with welds that totally take away from the looks in my opinion (mostly pintrest/etsy photos)

I think the bigger question is what do you consider a "blacksmith"? In a large part of the mid-west USA I hear the term blacksmith used for steel & fabrication shops. These shops don't usually have a forge or an anvil. In that area a blacksmith is anyone who can fix stuff with steel, a welder, and a torch.

[JHCC]

Samuel Yellin was an early adopter of arc welding*, although making sure to have those welds as hidden as possible. Edgar Brandt was an enthusiastic proponent of the artistic potential and possibilities of oxyacetylene welding. It's a tool like any other: if it serves to execute the design, well and good. If it's not done well and detracts from the design, not so good.

The other day, I saw a photo online of a piece from a novice smith who had bent three pieces of steel, twisted one of them, and then welded them together rather sloppily and without any attempt at cleaning up the welds. It looked awful: not because it was welded, but because it was welded badly. Considering that the same (or a very similar) design could have been executed quite easily with some pretty rudimentary forging, we had both a failure of design (substituting welding for basic smithing technique) and a failure of execution (bad welds and absence of cleanup). Fixing either one of those would have resulted in a much better piece, but that's not welding's fault.

When I made the urn for my father's ashes, I could conceivably have done all the welding in the forge or changed the design to make welding unnecessary. However, having the MIG welder ready at hand gave me the freedom to execute the design I wanted. I'm not going to sweat some judgmental purist trying to convince me that it's a lesser piece because I used electricity to stick some of the pieces together rather than coal.

 

*Noah was an even earlier adopter of ark welding.

[ThomasPowers]

Ark *Wielding*....as to the question: it depends what you are trying to accomplish.  High level historical work may involve using real wrought iron, a charcoal forge and only hand hammering, riveting and forge welding.  Making 250' of fence may involve an ironworker and arc welding and hot dip galvanization.

I will note that all the untouched 100 year old blacksmith shops I have visited had a carbide generator to make acetylene in them..."Traditionally" blacksmiths tended to be early adopters of new technologies---often having invented them themselves...(cf vise grips).

I find it useful to learn earlier techniques as that shows you when and where modern ones might actually be better and NOT restricting you to only use modern techniques---like Robb Gunter's example of spending a ton of money machining Ti parts from massive billets where a forged preform cuts time and materials down by a huge percent.

I have noticed that people try to explain why the methods they use are the *CORRECT* ones and other peoples methods are WRONG WRONG WRONG.   I try to fight that in myself.

[JHCC]

As you should: that's WRONG!

[Frosty]

No tool makes, it's the person wielding it. Poorly done is poorly done period. Is an arc welder suitable in a blacksmith shop? A Mr. Miller invented the modern arc welder and a Mr. Hobart invented the oxy acetylene torch. Acetylene was a hazard of water contacting calcium carbide, a by product of fertilizer production and acetylene is dangerous stuff. 

Well, as I recall the story Mr. Miller was a multi generation blacksmith doing large scale business but wasn't pleased at all by losses caused by failed welds on large pieces. Forge a couple hundred elements and ruin the piece forge welding them together. At the time arc welding meant a pair of carbon rods with an arc between them melting the joint like a torch and a filler rod to fill the puddle. Mr. Miller invented the fluxed wire and grounded work.

Mr. Hobart's father, uncles, cousins, brothers, etc. were blacksmiths many with large shops and his prospects for success weren't great. There was a market for a better way of doing field repairs though. At the time to repair a broken or bent gate required taking it down or apart, rigging a temporary then hauling the broken piece to a blacksmith shop for repair. I don't know or recall how he came by the idea but Mr. Hobart came up with the idea of adding oxygen to the air acet torch and was able to repair large pieces on location and before long had torches made under his patents in every serious blacksmith shop. 

The Hobart that got into making commercial food machinery, mixers, fryers, freezers, washers, etc. made his own niche as well. 

All that said I have a question. How could an arc welder or fuel oxy torch NOT be proper blacksmith's tools seeing as both were invented by blacksmiths?

Again, it's not the tool that does the work, good or bad, it's the human.

Frosty The Lucky.

[anvil]

7 hours ago, Marc1 said:

He did not give a toss about traditional methods, only aesthetics of results.

There lies the answer. It's the aesthetic you create and this is what sells a "Craftsman's" work.

But first, there should be no moral judgment. Quite frankly if what turns your clock is to creat your work "by hammer in hand", then go for it. On the other hand, if a combo of contemporary and traditional float yer boat then a big high five. Any other reason than this is just unneeded justification. They, in our age, are two different pathways to a very satisfying way to make a living.

 

Back to aesthetic. What is this aesthetic? Well, it's hard to pin down. For me, I can look at a piece of iron from say, gothic to now and know it is "forged iron". Somehow, just how it looks defines this to me. Do I know that "power tools" haven't been used? Nope., It just looks like forged iron. Well, that is the aesthetic I strive to have in all my work. And the primary tools to get this aesthetic are a forge, anvil, hammer, and a wire brush. However, It's appropriate for me to use any tool I choose as long as it doesn't take away from that aesthetic.

Here's an example. I know that if I have a piece of work and the texture is there, if I use a grinder on this piece, it will remove this texture . I do know how to restore this texture if I choose to grind it. The choice is based on time and material. If the time to make a new one beats the grinder routine, my scrap pile grows, if not, I grind and restore. The critical point is the final aesthetic,,, in this case texture.

Here's the kicker. When you first start out let's say you recognize this aesthetic, and want to pursue it, but you have no clue how to produce it, then you hit your first catch 22. "If I don't use this (torch, welder, grinder" I'll never make any money. So you grind it. You cover it up with two coats of primer and two coats of paint. Texture difference is gone. But your texture aesthetic is gone too because, perhaps a hot oil finish is needed to get what you were trying to get. Or maybe you did a hot oil finish over your grind,,, and saw the glaring difference between a forged finish vs brightwork. So you have saved time and gained some good learning. And here comes direction choices. An immense learning curve vs economics. 

Yes, Yellen and most, if not all Smith's of his caliber used the new power tools. They had a lifetimes experience dealing with this aesthetic thing and had no problem using them in a profitable manor that did not change their aesthetic.

Some of them even treated a welded bead as a design detail instead of grinding it and hiding it.

 

[Gazz]

Consider the work of Albert Paley.  He did not hesitate to use any modern equipment available to him as would have any smith of any era.  To truly be a purist, you would have to start with iron ore that you smelted yourself in charcoal fire (after you made the charcoal) and then forged it with a stone hammer on a rock.  You could then make your own iron hammer and anvil and other tools as you needed them.  Blacksmithing is technology so why limit yourself?

[ThomasPowers]

Yet generally historically blacksmiths didn't do their own smelting in Europe. (A few rare remote Norse farmsteads are the exception.)

Africa and India had tribal groups that both smelted and smithed.

You can be hand powered and yet do poor quality smithing; or be motorized and yet do high quality smithing.  It is the SMITH that makes the biggest difference.

[Marc1]

Wow, so many good answers ...

So most if not all agree that unless you work in a museum or demonstrations to show ancient techniques, if you are free from constraints of that nature, you have no issues welding when necessary. 

And so to my follow up question ... why is it that so many blacksmith I know, unless it is a series of unfortunate coincidences ... are lousy at welding? To me, correct me if I am wrong, it seems that the welder is wielded as a tool of last resort, a necessary evil used reluctantly, and not a valued tool to be proud of. 

I am trying to teach myself TIG because the beads can be either invisible or a thing of beauty. Yet would struggle to bring this in a conversation about blacksmithing.

Oh ... before I forget the comment by our bird lover friend

8 hours ago, Fowllife said:

I think the bigger question is what do you consider a "blacksmith"? In a large part of the mid-west USA I hear the term blacksmith used for steel & fabrication shops. These shops don't usually have a forge or an anvil. In that area a blacksmith is anyone who can fix stuff with steel, a welder, and a torch.

 

Interesting. Didn't know that. Although it happened in other languages too. The etymology of Herrero in spanish is metal worker, Fabbro in italian is simply a worker ... literarily a "doer", and schmied in german metal worker.

All of them can be used today when referring to metal fabrication ... however that was not my intention ... but ... you may be onto something. If a welder in the workshop makes a blacksmith turn into a metal fabricator, then my question is pertinent. And if you think so, why do you?

Others have noted correctly that the blacksmith of old was not a troglodyte stuck on old methods for the sake of it and opposed to change. To the contrary the traditional town blacksmith was on the vanguard of the available technology of the time and rushed to incorporate all sort of innovation when they become available. ironically it was those same innovations that doomed the forge in favour of the fabricator  ...and the rest is history. 

Who can TIG weld properly?

 

 

[JHCC]

2 minutes ago, Marc1 said:

why is it that so many blacksmith I know [...] are lousy at welding? [...] it seems that the welder is wielded as a tool of last resort, a necessary evil used reluctantly, and not a valued tool to be proud of. 

I think there are two parts to the answer, and they compliment each other. The first is that welding is a skill that takes time to perfect, and many smiths simply don't feel that they have the time to devote to learning that particular skill -- or indeed the need to do so, depending on the kind of work they do. Second, there is indeed an attitude among some smiths that (non-forge) welding is distinctively "less-than", and so these smiths are even less inclined to invest time and energy in learning that particular skill.

On the other hand, there are a LOT of excellent smiths whose arc and gas welding skills are fantastic and who use them to good effect in their work. Many of these are folks who came into smithing by way of welding/fabrication, so they already have that skill set down. Others are working smiths who recognize the value of adding welding to their list of available services and who embrace the expansion of their practical and artistic capacities.

(Then you've got hobbyists like me who barely have the time to get any actual forging done and whose forays into welding are almost entirely practical and rarely artistic (or even borderline acceptable for public view). Thank God for grinders, that's all I have to say.)

[Marc1]

Thank goodness for grinders ... ha ha, good one. There is one more to your post, Welding like shooting takes not only practice but such practice needs to be kept up to date. You don't become a proficient welder and remain that way even if you don't weld unfortunately. 

If I have projects that do not involve welding and my project tend to stretch out for month, when I get back to welding something i stink for a while like any amateur.

[pnut]

Marc1,Proficient shooting is definitely a perishable skill and I'm pretty sure your right about welding falling into that same category. I think most things that require dexterity and technique must be practiced to stay at YOUR peak level of performance. After being away from field target competition for a while I definitely let myself get rusty and had some catching up to do. 

Pnut

[Marc1]

Perishable skill ... why didn't I think of that expression

[Fowllife]

On 1/23/2020 at 4:32 PM, Marc1 said:

Interesting. Didn't know that. Although it happened in other languages too. The etymology of Herrero in spanish is metal worker, Fabbro in italian is simply a worker ... literarily a "doer", and schmied in german metal worker.

I hear that reference mainly on a farming forum I read. The assumption that I have always made was it is somewhat of a regional, or generational slang term. Their dads, or grandfathers in the late 1800-early 1900 always had to take their steel equipment to a blacksmith for repair. Traditions and slang can sometimes die hard, so they still use the term blacksmith for any steel repair shop. In essence though modern welders and fabricators are performing the same tasks that traditions smiths did back in the day, just with torches and welders. 

I would answer your question like others did above, in my opinion having a welder in your shop would make you a smart blacksmith. We should always use whatever tool or technology make our jobs easier. It is up to us the be a good blacksmith and know where and when to us them. The exception of course would be if your goal is to be a traditional smith using only traditional tools and methods. They would pick the time period they would like to stay in and not deviate.

[ThomasPowers]

Even then a lot of people don't know how things were done historically---I dislike the term "traditionally"; like water driven tilt hammers predate the use of coal in smithies or that factories might use large numbers of smiths to forge items making "was it hand forged or factory made" a false distinction. Or probably the biggest mistake: thinking that a smithy would only have one person working in it.

[JHCC]

24 minutes ago, Fowllife said:

if your goal is to be a traditional smith using only traditional tools and methods. They would pick the time period they would like to stay in and not deviate.

For that, I would say that “period blacksmith” would be a much better term. 

[Fowllife]

You are both correct, "period blacksmith" would have been a better term. 

For a little twist, I'm a woodworker as well. Should I only be allowed to use a hammer and chisel? Can I use a brace and bit? Or a cross cut saw? I much prefer my shaper, chop saw & planer. Does that not make me a woodworker?

The same would go for many "old" professions or trades. Why do smiths feel like they need to put themselves in a box?

[Shabumi]

While I was reading this I got interested in the definition of tradition. It comes from "tradere": to hand over or betray, which is also the root of traitor and treason.

My old Miriam Webster ditionary defines tradition as "the handing down of information, beliefs, and customs by word of mouth or by example from one generation to another".

 

Which tells me that of you do things the way you were taught, then you are a "traditional" Smith. So even if you do work based on specific period, but you weren't taught by someone from that period, or from an unbroken line of Smith's who worked in that tradition, then you wouldn't be a traditional smith. 

As for the question at hand about liquid phase welding in a blacksmiths shop, I say go for it. As frosty said, they were invented by blacksmiths to make their work easier, so why not use it for it's intended purpose. You wouldn't deny using a fuller simply because it wasn't what they used before they invented them, would you?

[ThomasPowers]

People often want to make what they do *special* and so claim that their methods are the "true" methods and other peoples' methods are "false".

In reenactment you often get people claiming that the concessions they make to not living XYZ hundred of years ago are understandable and OK while the concessions some other group makes for the very same reasons are TOTALLY WRONG!  Thus getting folks who claim that using cotton for clothing is right out; but using steel who's manufacturing process dates to after you could buy levis jeans at the dry goods store is totally ok.

Want to go  for a particular period/place?  I'm all for it; but do your homework!

[Marc1]

3 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

... Thus getting folks who claim that using cotton for clothing is right out; ...

Thomas, why is cotton 'out' ? ( in the purist mind anyway) Is cotton clothing a modern invention? Only curious,

Personally I find all that period obsession rather ludicrous. In my life experience, blacksmithing is a form of metalwork that can achieve through forging what modern metalworker can not. 

So really, what is important is to establish if a particular period technique, tool or material achieves a better result than it's substitute modern day. So, if you need to rivet a forged flat bar to another, is subjecting yourself to the torture of a hand driven drill a way to achieve a better result than drilling with an electric drill? And the same can be asked about cutting with a plasma cutter, measuring with a laser etc. 

Conversely, hot punching a hole is clearly a different way and sometimes better than drilling it out with a drill bit. 

Reminds me of those artist painters who make their own colours risking their life with poisons, in order to be period correct. Are those colours really better and noticeable in the end result? 

I don't know, but suspect that they are not. 

 

3 hours ago, Shabumi said:

While I was reading this I got interested in the definition of tradition. It comes from "tradere": to hand over or betray, which is also the root of traitor and treason.

Not really. Tradition comes from the Latin 'trans' that means across, and 'dare' that means to give. Handing down to the next generation.

It is Treason  that has a common root with tradition because the traitor is handing over what he should not.  

[ThomasPowers]

The groups I have been involved with tend to be western european and  early medieval: Anglo-Saxon, Viking, Irish of Brian Boru's period and so they predate any common use of cotton in their areas:  Linen, wool, hemp, nettle, and rarely silk.  Of course my wife is a spinster and so I've heard a lot of discussion about the whole skipping the hand processed, hand spindle spun, hand woven-vertical loom stuff. I guess it's payback for bloomery smelted real wrought iron discussions she's had to listen to...

Now the value in trying to accurately reproduce period items in a period way is to give you an appreciation for the lives of the craftsmen and sometimes why they did things a certain way.  However most reenactment people need items to use and don't care how they get made. Few are certainly willing to pay extra for the high level authenticity methods and materials!

[George N. M.]

Dear Marc1,

Cotton is sometimes considered "bad" by various re-enactors depending on the time and geographic location being portrayed.  Cotton would not be "period correct" for a viking re-enactment but would be OK for a US Civil War Confederate portrayal.  Unfortunately, in many historical re-enactment groups there is a "more authentic than thou" ethos.  That can lead to madness and finer and finer nit picking.  You can get something like: "OK, your tunic is wool but mine is hand woven.  OK, yours is hand woven but mine was woven on a warp weighted loom (a type of ancient and medieval vertical loom).  OK, yours may be woven on a period authentic loom but mine is from a period breed of sheep AND was dyed with period natural dyes. Etc., bloody etc." 

You sometimes see some of this in blacksmithing, e.g. induction vs. propane vs. coke/coal vs. charcoal forges and welding vs. riveting vs. forge welding.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."