Blacksmithing workshop

If there is one thing that is more dangerous than fire, and more mesmerizing, it is molten metal. Every kid has seem blacksmiths working at historic villages, though few get to experience the art first hand…

Back when every town had a blacksmith, it would take seven years of learning and practice to become a journeyman. Here is our four hour tour…

Kwartzlab member Sean Stoughton, a pro blacksmith, led a four hour intro workshop. See more about him at his OABA page. He’s a veteran of 8 years, and you might know him from Black Creek Pioneer Village or Waterloo Region Museum. The end product of the workshop would be to make a hook out of mild steel.

The first half was dedicated primarily to how not to get seriously injured by burning or impact, as well an intro to the tools and fire maintenance. Safety glasses are a must! Don’t try this without a safety lesson and expert supervision… unless you’re okay with loosing fingers or getting third degree burns.

There are dozens of tools and every blacksmith makes many of their own. The basic set it the forge, pliers, hammer, and anvil.

The anvil, for example, is not a chunk of metal as we found out. It is carefully constructed by fuse welding together different steels that make each of the different parts. Sean demos how to use the horn of the anvil to selectively bend the work piece.

The forge depicted here is DIY made from a brake drum, welded pieces of tee bar for legs, and discarded food cans for the vent port. It is aerated with an old hair dryer with a foot petal switch.

 

The coal fire starts with a slightly acrid smell and yellow smoke of sulfur as it burns off. It really makes you wonder what it would have been like to live in the middle of the industrial revolution, where Wales and England were choked by coal smoke. Coal not only ran metal foundries and smiths, but pretty much every machine that was in use from ships to textile mills. As the fire progresses, blue flames indicate a much hotter flame: one that is ready for business…

Finishing touches are done hitting the piece with a raw hide mallet on a wood block. This allows for final shaping without destroying the detail that was previously added.

 

A decorative twist is added to the larger end of the hook. It’s tricky to get the middle properly heated without burning the tip. One of the students ended up melting the piece in half.

 

While differing metals were mentioned, for beginners it is recommended to stick to mild steel. It is pretty forgiving and has a large range of working temperatures. Specialized alloys tend to be far more temperamental and each takes even more time to learn how to handle. Just opening any metal catalog will give you a glimpse of the complexity of metallurgy.

If this workshop taught us anything, it’s that this is most certainly this is a trade that is way harder than the pros make it look. After a couple of hours, only some of us came away with a hook. And generally these looked pretty bad. Slightly misshapen, with a variety of defects. Some had melted or weren’t quite finished. A blacksmith would be able to safely make a nice looking one in a minute or two, and would know about many other tools, techniques, and materials.

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