Blacksmithing For Beginners

Whew… we almost didn’t catch you. The rampant misinformation on the internet has unfortunately led to the dismay and discouragement of many a new blacksmith. For that reason, we wanted to make this separate page to hopefully get your ear before you spend money on something that will leave you high or dry. We’ll go into further detail at a later date on some of these topics, with a much more specific level of details.  Typically, we’d be inclined to throw in a cheeky “Thank us later”, but we’ll be perfectly happy if you show this to any other newcomer blacksmiths. Here goes:

1. The Dreaded Soup Can Forge

   If you can avoid the temptation that sounds like a good excuse to run up to Home Depot and drop $40 (or however much one of these pieces of crap costs to slap together) on parts, you’re better off for it and already a leg up on everyone else. These stupid things got a lot of attention in 2011 or 2012 (Hell, I can’t really remember) and while the entire internet raved about them, the few people who went out and tried to replicate the build were left with a few pipe fittings, a plumber’s torch, some sand, and tears. Unless you plan to forge arc welding rod, you’re not going to be happy going down this road. You will not forge ANYTHING with this godforbidden heap of crap. The “refractory” mortar is a mixture of sand and plaster of paris, and while offering no ACTUAL refractory properties, it actually acts as a heat sink, too. Does that set off some red flags? Heatsink in a forge = a big no no. I will be happy if I’ve saved one persons time with this blurb.

2. Harbor Freight’s “ASO” anvil

   
   I never understand why people defend these things so vehemently, but check out the review on Amazon for the Grizzly (just sold under a different name) 55 pounder. The “most useful” 5-star post lists a way to modify the hunk of trash with a thick steel plate welded to the top. Does that really seem helpful? Should a 5-star quality item have to modified with steel plate, a welder, and your own welding skills before the first time you use it?

   Even worse, the depraved jerks on eBay buy them and sell them as real anvils with tool steel tops. That’s just not how it works. The tops are, like the body, cast iron. Cast iron does not respond well to forging. Even people who say they are just going to be doing “light forging” (almost sounds like an oxymoron) are just fooling themselves. One errant blow and you have a nicely dinged top — guaranteed or your money back!

3. Railroad track

   

   This isn’t a crime as heinous as the aforementioned, but I will tell you this right now: you will be wondering why forging hot steel over a piece of railroad track mounted to a stump isn’t as fun as you think. I’m sad to say that I learned this one the hard way. I spent a year or so thinking “Well, this will probably be more fun when I get my hammer control down…” Moving up to a real anvil was the best thing I never did (but not even necessary, as I’ll explain in a later post.) The most important thing is that you are hammering your work over something with much greater central mass than what a piece of railroad track can offer. Maybe handy for the non-blacksmith tinkerer (and worth it if it spares a poor anvil from being used as a cutting table), but not for us. Nope. We need mass.

4. An anvil

   Well this is awkward, huh? Nah, just kidding, I love anvils. I buy ANYTHING that’s $3/lb or less, and sometimes I don’t even get a good deal. “So what’s your beef with anvils?” No beef, friend. I just want to let you know that before you drop a bunch of money on an anvil, you don’t need to. If you’re just getting started, there are much better options. Especially if you find out you aren’t really as interested in blacksmithing as you thought (on that note, call me and I’ll come remove your anvil…) or if funds are tight. I’ll go into this one in a little more detail in a future post.

So hopefully this brought some attention to the virus of misinformation that world-renowned “Keyboard Blacksmiths” of the world are poisoning the ever-growing crop of new blacksmiths. There are some other things that burn my ass a little, as far as the kind of stuff that is stuck in prospective blacksmiths’ heads, but we’ll go over all that later.

Until then: work with what ya got!