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Here are some items are not in any order, other than a little history first.
Smiths are the people who make stuff out of metal. In the remote past coal or later, coke (that's coal which has been heated enough to burn out all the impurities so that only the carbon is left as fuel , thus a hotter and purer heat results) was used to heat up the metal. Initially (way long ago, as in the bronze age), non-ferrous metals were used, but the principle of heat and pound were established. When techniques for iron ore were developed to make steel, blacksmithing took off. The people are called smiths - black smiths because of the coal soot covered everything . Whitesmiths were the guys who did silver pewter, and Tinsmiths and Goldsmiths - well you got it. The place where you had your forge was a smithy. The basic tools were some closed space to heat up and contain the metal and something to shape it - the forge and the hammer/anvil.
I got interested in blacksmithing when I took my then teenage son to the yearly Indiana Blacksmithing Conference which is held in the nearby Tipton county fairgrounds, the first weekend of June. It is a (needless to say) very informal, but well organized gathering of smiths with guest demonstrators and projects, books, blacksmith equipment for sale and fellowship. The outing was meant to be a fun time for him, but his allergies at that time of the year were so bad, we had to leave. I went back the next year, and the next, and soon found a course in blacksmithing at the New England School of Metalwork in Auburn, Maine. I took two week long courses there and a couple more at the (much closer) Conner Prairie in Noblesville. I also soon found that welding skill is needed if you want to make it easier to put things together, so I took two (semester) courses at Ivy Tech to learn general and TIG welding. And a special thanks to my friend and mentor Kurt Fehrenbach owner of Custom Blacksmithing in Atlanta,IN. He is a wonderful man and a diamond of a blacksmith.
Of course modern manufacturing is much more precise and versatile for making metal things, but this is a craft that started it all and is very rewarding.,............................I think a valid comparison could be made with playing the piano or guitar to make music vs. downloading it from iTunes or Amazon music.
These two machines were fabricated (that's the word that tradesmen used to describe that they made this from basic materials by forging, cutting, welding, drilling, etc. ) I went to a course at the John C. Campbell Folk Art School in the North Carolina Appalachians and took a course in 'chasing' which is very similar to carving or imprinting metal. Chasing is most often combined with 'repousse' which is pounding from the back of the piece to make it 3 dimensional. During this course we used a treadle hammer (the orange machine) which, in this design, has 100 pounds of lead in the vertical hammer arm that can be brought down at will (reproducing the effect of pounding with a blacksmith's hammer) onto a small flat surface (the anvil) by pressing down on a foot pedal (the circular grid area in this photo). By doing the hammering with one's foot, it frees up a hand to hold a carving tool/chisel to make whatever type of impression or groove you want on the workpiece which is sitting on the anvil. As a blacksmith, the various tools that are needed for a specific design/imprint are custom made (viz. by yourself). I found that making such tools brings me some of the greatest pleasure in this vanishing craft.
The yellow machine is for spot heating . When you make some larger pieces , heat is only needed at a specific area in order to make a bend or some type of forging (shaping by applying heat and then pressure to that area). And the piece may be too big or shaped irregularly to get inside your forge. The advantage of this machine over a hand held heating torch (acetylene or propane mixed with oxygen) is that the flame can be started and stopped by pressing on a foot lever - this frees up both hands to hold and manipulate the work piece. Otherwise, you have to fix the workpiece in a vise , light up the torch, apply it to the spot that needs heated, turn the flame down and lay the torch somewhere safe while it's still on, do your forging action, pick up the torch when the piece cools down too much to work it easily, adjust the gas knobs again to get it hot and repeat until you get the metal where you want it.
This is a gate I made for the Community Garden (now on the grounds of IVY Tech). The vines have leaves (shaped like boston ivy - I had to look that up) and the curves spell out letters for the three agencies that made the garden possible. See if you can spot the letters for PU (Purdue University Extension ), HCMG (Howard county Master Gardeners who worked the fields, and IVY (Ivy Tech). I imprinted the initials of workers who had donated > 50 hours in the garden on the leaves.
This is an analemmatic sundial I donated to IU Kokomo, located near the observatory building. (first photo is at my property, second is on site at IUK)
Pair of candle holders for my daughter.
A blue rack for holding folding chairs, a shelf frame and a large and a small heavy duty work table
This is a rose in steel and painted.
This is one of the very few items I made which I did for a commission. It is a chandelier made mostly of springs (at the owner's request). I had the family members write their names on paper and I copied these in the metal of the main band.
diamond pattern , monogrammed and wizard beer bottle openers and a letter opener.
Decorative garden pot holder
candle holders
Christmas ornaments made from horseshoe nails . Note: I do not do farrier work!
This is a kindling splitter. You put the small log into the circle at the top, resting on the blade and whack it with a big hammer (sledge or axe is better than my demo hammer)
These are two examples of custom posts made for the 25 plates we made as signposts for trail marking.
Dancers made from scrap yard stuff - these are about 6' tall .
simple wine rack , with custom glass plate
"Amorus" hands made from railroad spikes, face(s) approx 3 x 4' , boulder about 300 pounds.
'Flight'. another heavy piece made from junk. Its about 5' tall. The pole on the left is just a bystander.
mailbox with ivy leaves. Nov '23
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