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Reviews
The reviews of the demonstrators (Master and Journeyman Blacksmiths) that ODBSA has had provide us with the similarities and differences used by various smiths, giving each member a choice of what to emulate or not. As I review each DVD of our past events I will post what I think is pertinent. My intention is not to repeat how to fabricate an item but to point out these blacksmiths ways and ideas in general.
1. Fred Crist
2. Peter Ross
3. Dale Morse
4. Charlie Hanks
5. Ken Schwarz
(1) Master Blacksmith/Teacher Fred Crist
(November 2006 at Metalsmiths Inc. in Waynesboro)
1. Hammer style was normal with cross peen weighing between 2 ½ to 3 lbs with a longer and somewhat narrow handle
2. Hand grip was with thumb on top or toward top and, most of the time, his hand grip was in the middle of handle except when hitting hard
3. He wears a cotton glove on left hand when working and sometimes puts a larger welding glove on top of this when metal could be hotter
4. He wears chest high leather apron
5. He likes to use longer pieces of metal instead of cutting it and using tongs.
6. His English style anvil looks to be over 250 lbs and slightly rounded on the edges. He has the horn on the right side even though he is right handed
7. Works with yellow or white heat because it is not as much work as other colors
8. Forge heat was arrived at on top of fire with no covering by coke. He said everyone has his or her own way but this is his because he can see it better than making a hole in the coke pile fire
9. He looks at color of metal to see if it is liquid looking and watches to see if it sparks a little to determine when it is welding heat.
10. He flicks off the flux and scale before ever welding.
11. Most of forge weld's first hammer blows were very light because he does not want the metal to move.
12. He likes to use Easy Weld because it grips metal better when first welding and uses borax when he need the flux to run into tight places and/or final weld
13. He puts Easy Weld on outside the first because it sparks in the fire and less is lost in fire.
14. Most of the time he puts borax on metal in the fire with a long spoon.
15. Uses the torch to localize the heat better than forge fire and suggests using a gas saver if you use a torch
16. Most of the time he puts borax on metal in the fire with a long spoon. He says, “ There is no real mystery to forge welding. The principle things to remember is that both pieces of metal need to be at same heat, the fire needs to be clean (remove clinkers or it could produce hot spots), be relaxed when doing it and look at it as something you want to do other than something you have to do”
17. Making the scarf nice and thin will make it easier to close the weld
18. He did not wire brush anything until the weld was finished
19. Does not quench mild steel because it makes it brittle
20. Fire pot has lasted over 16 years with fire bricks lining it that are not mortared in
21. His vise is to his right of the anvil attached to his worktable with 3” by 3” angled aluminum in the jaws.
22. His anvil about 5 foot from forge and the height looks to be knuckle high
23. Quenching tub is to his left in front of the forge
24. He found S2 to be the best for making chisels
25. He said there are 3 different grades of wrought iron
26. Air supplied by electric blower
(2) Grandmaster Blacksmith/Teacher Peter Ross
(At the Plantation Forge at Long Island in April 2006)
How does one become a grand master blacksmith? I really don’t know if there is such a category in existence but as far as I’m concerned, Peter is one. His knowledge of historic blacksmithing and his ability level is as good or better than anyone that I have ever seen. He has spent over 20 years truly studying how they made things in the 18th century and then replicating them. He has the ability to truly hold the heat in metal when working it and it is amazing to see how long it stays and what he can do. He works the hammer at many different angles and seems to know the anvil as if it is part of himself. Peter’s hammer control whether hitting the hot metal from a few inches away or from over a foot over his head, is right where he wants to place it; his accuracy is awesome. As a true beginner, his ability level was not really understood by me but as my own level improved, I started to appreciate his skill and knowledge. I’m now in awe of what he knows and does.
1. Forced air supplied by hand crank blower.
2. Peter’s hammer is one that he made, which was what I call a standard cross peen weighing about 40 oz. or 2 ½ lbs when he made it, showing its use by having a few small pieces missing out of the face and the very long, somewhat narrow handle being repaired near the head with tape. His hammer face had about 1/16” curve to it.
3. His hand grip on the handle was, most of the time, in the middle with his thumb on the top or near the top with a somewhat lighter grip and it looked as if he was sort of pinching the handle with his finger and thumb and used a lot of wrist action on small strokes.
4. When he took a hard hit, his hammer was really high above his head.
5. To bend metal he used a lot of glancing blows on the horn.
6. Peter is left-handed and we set my old, very worn, Peter Wright anvil (about 110 lbs remaining) with the horn on the right and the height set to his specification.
7. “Keep in mind that round metal is about 20% more metal than square”
8. Peter said “ he thinks the key to understanding forging is learning what normally happens and how to use it to your advantage and how to keep it from working to your disadvantage.”
9. “It is much better for everything, not to quench; even mild steel will harden. The range of ingredients in mild steel vary a lot, so you can harden a piece without thinking you are hardening it. It is always nice to be able to adjust a piece a little when it is cold but if you quench it you cannot do it. It is just a bad habit. It does not do the piece any good; it serves no purpose.”
10. “You cannot use the same methods your great grandfather used and have the same success.”
11. When the metal gets to 300 – 400 degrees, you can quench it to cool it off
12. He put flux on in the fire with a spoon. Before the demonstration started, he told me his uses borax and Easy-Weld mixed.
13. Not necessary to use any flux. A friend of Peter’s says, “If you think your weld is better with a certain flux, then use it. It is all a matter of confidence.”
14. Put the piece horizontally into the fire to heat it.
15. When making a point on the metal, his hammer comes down at about a 45degree angle.
16. “Welding heat is just before it sparks” Peter made several welds during the day and did not have to go back and re-weld. His first blows were very light when he thought the two pieces of metal might skid when hit. His scarfs are small. He does upset the metal to make it thicker above the scarf.
17. His hammer drops lightly, freely onto the anvil in between working the metal.
18. The vise also quenches metal and he says to heat it back to a dull red and let it air cool (normalizing)
19. The longer cooling time the softer the metal will be.
20. Scaling is a form of oxidation.
21. His peen is almost flat. Same curve as head of hammer. “The advantage of flat peen is that it does not cut through the work when it is thin and it cleans up well. Flat peen spreads much faster than a round one.”
22. Peter never flicked or hit his metal on the anvil before a weld. Only a few times did I see him scrap the piece on the side of anvil or with his hammer.
23. He makes all of his own tongs to the size of metal that he will be using
24. Five or more times during the day, I saw Peter put a ¼” bar into the bottom of the fire pot and with this, lifted the coke up about an inch.
25. Only in the last 100 years or so have we had wire brushes. He never used a wire brush all day long and his finished item (with the use of hammer only) was as clean and straight as I have ever seen.
26. “How you plan each heat is the pre-industrial approach”
27. To not have scale “Finish at low heat (high red or low orange); do not reheat; shape at high heat”
28. Files have been out for over 2000 years and all blacksmiths used them. It is better to finish the item with the hammer as much as possible so you don’t have to do as much file work.
29. Two hundred years ago, the challenge was to make something not wrought looking—They would file and polish off the forge surface. This took skill and time. A sign of a good craftsman was: no forge marks; anyone can make it rough looking.
30. He likes small punches.
31. He likes to work with fewer tools.
32. He says: “99.9% of the time I use just one hammer”.
33. Peter Ross makes everything "Look" easy.
(3) Dale Morse (Blacksmithing Master/Teacher)
This demo was done at the Jacksonville Folk Art Center at Floyd, Virginia in March 2006
1. Forced air supplied by an electric blower.
2. The anvil used was a European style.
3. Dale starts the fire by using half sheets of newspaper rolled up in donut style and places coal/coke around the sides of three of them and he makes a fuse out of a narrow strip of paper to start it. Once the fire is started he takes the top donut and pushes it into the middle of the other two, covers the fire and turns the blower on.
4. Fire in the firepot can get to over 3500 degrees.
5. Hot metal in his shop has the right of way.
6. Uses the back of hand to see if metal is still hot.
7. He has used the same hammer that he bought when was 13 years old and it used to weigh 3 lbs. It is a standard cross peen.
8. Uses limited wrist action when hammering
9. Let mild steel normalize because if you quench it could damage your drill bits, etc. Mild steel will get brittle if quenched.
10. “Steel likes to draw down square.”
11. Glancing blows are used to make something round like in hooks.
12. The flakes from hot metal are like super fast rust.
13. Suggests using earplugs since for the first 15 working as a blacksmith he did not and now has some hearing loss.
14. Suggest anvil height be about knuckle high when arms are at your side.
15. Thumb was on top or toward top when hammering.
16. He drops hammer lightly on anvil when working.
17. To clean the anvil top he wipes the anvil with hand or blows on it after every forge work.
18. “The secret to an even twist is even heat.” Cold metal is even heat.
19. Poor mans plating is the brass brush.
20. “ The fire has three main parts: green coal, coke and clinkers. Clinker is waste material and clinkers also go to the bottom because is the heaviest.” You want coke because it produces more heat than coal and has less smoke. Does not suggest using charcoal from grocery store.
21. He uses rings at the end of tongs to hold them tight.
22. Planishing blows are always lighter.
23. Make a cutting table of mild steel or aluminum for anvil.
24. In recycled steel you never know what you have. He suggests using S-7 which is air hardened steel so you do not need to temper.
25. The way to avoid flat steel from having a seam in it when drawing a point is to hit it with the toe of the hammer.
26. Scarf end needs to be paper-thin and it melts into surface. Keep your scarf as short as you can. The reason for that is it is easier, quicker, not as much upsetting and you get better results.
27. “ Your flirting with burning metal when you’re forge welding. You are bringing up the temperature so it is starting to oxidize”. To be able to control that, there are two things that you can do: first, is to build a reducing atmosphere fire and second is to use flux, which burns faster and combines with oxygen quicker than iron does. He suggests using borax, which can be bought at the grocery store (20 Mule Team Borax).
28. “You don’t really need flux but it surely does help”
29. Brushing off scale is a good idea before fluxing.
30. “You can put flux on in the fire, but I do not like to do that for two reasons. I lose a lot of flux in the fire and second it makes huge clinkers, which bogs the forge down and will give you trouble latter on. It does not take a huge amount, just enough to cover. Joe Stokes of England instructed me to flux well up the bar. One thing that you do need for a good forge weld is a good heat as far back as you can.”
31. In mild steel you can break the weld. You cannot x-ray mild steel for imperfections in the weld.
32. At Dale’s blacksmithing classes at his shop/studio, it is a must to wear earplugs and glasses.
33. Pulverized green coal works well when using punches and drifts. A cheap, short-term solution for a punch. Shape the mild steel and put it and a piece of cast iron into the fire and, when the cast iron turns a red orange, put borax on it and rub the mild steel and cast iron together and quenched.
(4) Journeyman Blacksmith/Teacher Charlie Hanks
Lynch Station at Iron from the Forge Blacksmith Shop on August 2006
We did this video before we had our sound system and Charlie’s blower motor and our recording close to it made it hard to hear him on the dvd so I was not able to pick up much of what he said on the dvd.
1. Air supply furnished by an electric blower.
2. He wears a chest high apron.
3. He used a newer European anvil which was on the left of the forge in front about eight feet; quenching tub was to the left of where he stood at the forge and the vise was to the left of the anvil about 10’ mounted on a very solid metal table.
4. He wears dark shaded glasses anytime he is near the hot forge.
5. His hammer handle is the shortest that I have seen but he has excellent control with it and his hand is closer to the head of the hammer than most when using it.
6. His thumb is toward the top and he seems to use a light grip with the finger and thumb as if pinching the handle, especially when working lightly and up close. He has excellent, precise hammer blows.
7. His hammer is the standard cross peen type
8. He uses Easy Weld with long spoon outside the fire.
9. He uses medium, fast hammer blows when forge welding.
10. He uses a wire brush to clean metal.
11. Charlie continually stops and checks/corrects the straightness and curves of his metal at every stage before progressing.
12. He finished some of the work when metal was cold.
13. He has a piece of tin in his vise jaws.
14. He cold riveted all his rivets that day.
15. For protection, he uses a mixture of bees’ wax and linseed oil with some turpentine to thin the mixture. After wiping it on the metal, he in puts it on top of some green coal smoking to get a beautiful black color and then wipes the piece down.
(5) Master Blacksmith/Teacher Ken Schwarz
At L.T. Skinnells shop/studio (Otter Hill Forge) in Bedford, Virginia in June 2006
This ranks as one of the best dvds that we have done yet. The film is very clear, lighting superb, sound was fair/good, and the amount of useful information was large, good participation from members and an excellent Teacher/Blacksmith who seemed to enjoy the day as much as we did.
1. Electric Blower was the source of the air for the forge.
2. Ken worked with wrought iron this day.
3. He wears a waist high leather apron.
4. European type anvil that was located about three feet from the forge on the left side toward the front. Slag tub to immediate left of forge. The pole vise was in back of the anvil toward the left.
5. Anvil was too high for Ken but he adjusted extremely well to it. Nothing seems to slow down a professional blacksmith. He said there are very few hard and fast rules; you have to work in a way that you are comfortable with.
6. All the hammers used were somewhat similar to the standard type. He uses hammers that weigh between 2 and 3 lbs and have a slight arc to the face. The peen is flat about 3/8" wide and has a slight arc from end to end. He likes long handles.
7. He use to have his thumb on top but has changed to it to the side because of some paintings of blacksmiths he saw in earlier times and the representations showed blacksmiths did not have thumb on top. His hand moved up and down the long handle according to how soft or hard he was hitting.
8. A very useful exercise to improve fundamentals is the making tongs.
9. Worked metal from white to red in color.
10. His swing: He calls it “swinging from the ankles.” His whole body was in motion with his swing. Holding the hammer as far back on handle as he can, standing on his toes, reaching high above his head, with no wrist action, he took the longest hardest swing that I have seen to date and it really hit the exact spot that he wanted it to go to. Amazing power and accuracy. He says: “The force that you deliver with the hammer is determined by the weight and velocity it is traveling. The faster you can swing the hammer, the harder the hammer blow, the more work you are going to get done with each hammer blow.”
11. He put borax on hot metal both with fingers when outside the fire and with a long spoon if metal is in the fire.
12. Often he cleaned the anvil face by hand and by blowing on it. The top never seemed to have any slag on it.
13. He used 1075 steel for most punches but also used scrap springs also. He does not heat treat any of the punches because they are going to loose their tempering when quenched.
14. He does not quench metal he is working on or when finished with it.
15. His scarf edge is paper-thin.
16. He taps the piece he is working on lightly when coming out of the fire on side of the anvil or sometimes scrapes it with the side of anvil or with the hammer to remove slag.
17. Most of his first few hammer blows in forge welding were light and firm but once he had heavy stock and his first few blows were his medium (my hard) blows. He really hit hard after that until some color went out of the metal.
18. With heavy metal you could have 10 to 15 seconds to make the weld.
19. To smooth the surface use light strokes.
20. At the end of a heat he does a lot eyeballing to see straightness. He said that most people have a dominated eye. To tell: look at a small object several yards away and center your finger over it. Now close one eye and then the other and the one that you cannot see the object with is your dominant one.
21. If someone says that the tongs are right-handed tongs you hold them in your left hand but hammer with your right hand. It means the person hammers with his right hand. Hold tongs in your hand that you normally use to hold them and if the bottom reins is toward your body then that is what you want.
22. Most right handed smiths have the horn on left side but all at Williamsburg are the opposite for a right handed person because that is the way Peter Ross, who is left handed set his up years ago and every one got used to them and left them that way.
23. Wrought Iron is easier to work with and welds easier than mild steel.
24. “Wrought Iron does not like to be hammered round.” If you try to round it like mild steel the fibers in the middle break and leave it hollow. So to make it look round, you make an even octagon at high heat to keep the fibers parallel.
25. Five minutes smoothing with a hammer can save hours with a file.
26. To check if you have welding heat in iron. (1) See if the two-pieces will stick together in the fire. (2) Look for sparks in top of flame, when you see this you are close to welding temperature (3) Look at the color of the flames. Outside flames have a different color (the borax is starting to burn and welding heat is getting close), the middle has bright yellow heat. Try to avoid looking directly into the fire. Turn metal every couple of seconds when you are close to welding heat.
27. Borax is a fluxing agent and it produces oxidation. When welding things together you don’t want iron oxide to form on hot iron, especially in the area you are going to be welding, because it makes it more difficult to weld.
28. Proper size tongs is one of the most important things that you can have.
29. Practice, practice, practice the fundamentals.
30. To help the upsetting process when the metal is horizontal on the anvil, push the metal toward the hammer blow at the same time you hit.
31. When you have made a forge weld for an eye make sure before you run a drift that you have the metal really hot or it might open up the weld.
32. Drink plenty of water. On hot days he drinks 4 to 6 litters a day.
33. In iron: 2500 to 2600 degrees for welding but burns around 2700 degrees.
34. Know your references of the anvil for measurement. For example the anvil face might be 4 or 6 inches the hardie: hole ¾ or an inch.
35. When making a hole with a punch, especially a thin punch that heats quickly, breakup some coal into dust and apply it to the metal where you are punching. Do this in between cooling off the punch in water. As the coal catches fire, it produces a gas and it expands so the punch is less likely to get stuck.
36. By the end of the day Ken had created his own Sunday T-Shirt----it was holey.
37. He said, “ We kind of rate the heat by how far down your clothing that you are drenched: (A) Waists band day; (B) mid thigh day; (C) knee band day; and (D) if it gets to your shoes “it was a hot day.”
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