The Everyday Blacksmith: Learn to forge 55 simple projects you'll use every day, with multiple variations for styles and finishes

The Everyday Blacksmith

Blacksmithing Today

A village blacksmith from the 1800s walking into today’s blacksmith shop would find many familiar sights. The anvil, forge, hammers, tongs, and vise in the modern shop may even have been made during his time. He would see a kindred spirit in his modern counterpart, hunched over the anvil bringing a piece of hot iron to life with rhythmic blows of the hammer. What our village smith would not recognize would be the power tools—welders, drills, grinders, and power hammers that save the modern smith both time and sweat. Most of all, he might be surprised by the products of our modern smith and the blacksmith’s evolving role in his—or her! community.

I’ve restored axes, designed custom gates, rebuilt truck beds, forged hand tools, furnished homes with hardware, created garden sculptures, and welded broken tractors parts.

Many of these requests were things I didn’t know could even be needed until a neighbor would call up and ask the always enchanting question that starts with “can you make…?”

The beauty of blacksmithing is that answer, more often than not, is yes. For the world of steel is our domain. So let us return to our 1800s village blacksmith and ask this question: Is the part we play in our community today so different?

We may not be repairing hammers or making nails for the local carpenter (actually, see the hardware chapter), but we blacksmiths continue to serve our community with the products of our craft.

Honoring that tradition, I hope this book helps you—like our blacksmithing forebears—continue to shape our world with unique pieces for yourselves, friends, neighbors, and community to use and enjoy every day.

Book Structure

This book is divided into two parts.

Part I is a reference of shop basics: safety, equipment, and techniques. Basic techniques are illustrated through a series of projects. It also covers methods for finishing pieces.

Part II, the majority of this book, provides a step-by-step guide to a diverse range of blacksmith projects. Projects are structured by category and difficulty.

The emphasis of this book is on the accessibility of techniques, functionality of projects, and diversity of design. The projects selected for this book were ones that can be made, used, and enjoyed by folks in a variety of settings. With care, someone with only basic tools and equipment will be able to make every piece in this text. New techniques are explained the first time they appear in a project and are indexed for reference in the back of the book. There are many approaches to projects, influenced by available time, materials, tools, techniques, and one’s aesthetics, and these pages represent only one of many ways to do things.

Treat project steps as suggestions rather than scripture, and find out what works best for you.

I’ve tried to account for the great diversity in our craft today by featuring projects by a range of smiths from several countries, up and coming and established, traditional and modern. Their stories are often as inspiring as their work. Look them up. As you will soon see, there are many exciting projects waiting for you to explore in the following pages.

For newer smiths, I hope this book both teaches and motivates you as you continue on your journey in blacksmithing.

For established smiths, I hope this book provides ideas, a launching pad, and timesaving when designing your own new products.

What are you waiting for? Get smithing!