One of my many endeavors has been to blacksmith. It has taken me a while to gather the tools to get started. Now that I have the fun has begun. When you forge and look down in the fire. It is so hot, above 2000 degrees, that you can place a poker into what was rock and has become molten rock. This heat is doing your bidding to manipulate iron into a new shape. As a wood worker I wait for the tree to grow. As a blacksmith I only wait for the smelter to produce my material.
All of our tools and anything we used that was made of any metal was produced by a smith. If it was of metal they made it. Metal was so precious that they would burn a structure and retrieve the nails from it after it burned.
Many of the tools we consider modern were forged by the smith.
I have a few basic smithing tools to make that I need to use to produce the hardware I want. And my intention is to create them myself.
I am looking to build nails, pulls, hinges and other decorative pieces.
I have just gotten my hands on some coke. This is coal that they have cooked the impurities out of. It burns clean and very hot. A have a british friend of mine that tells me they toasted there crumpets over it a s a child.
It requires a lot of oxygen. A ole style hand blower will not produce enough air to sustain the fire. They would mix coal with it in the ole days to keep the fire going.
Now I would like any tips and ideas that you can give me. I am learning this and love to learn more.
I was playing around with my software and made a movie trailer. I will show that first then the second video will be a few tools I have made.
The holdfasts in the video are a test set. They are to small in diameter and have not been heat treated properly. Thank you for your time and patience.
And the feature film……….
Excellent post and videos, Dave. I always knew there was coal and there was coke, and that they were not the same thing, but until now I never knew what the difference was. I just vaguely remember “People’s Gas, Light and Coke” company from when I was a toddler.
All that aside, this is probably your most informative forging post, to date. At least it is to me. Looks like once you get the air flow worked out, you’ll be hammering out all kinds of hardware to compliment your woodworking.
Happy Holidays!
Why thank you Ted. I am glad you got to see the videos I know the internet trouble you have. You know our age shows if you remember the old power companies. I am old enough to remember ready kilowhatt. Thanks again for joining me on my journey, and come again Ted, you are always welcome.