Artist Blacksmith E-Book

Peter Parkinson

• Herausgeber: Crowood
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

The Artist Blacksmith is the essential handbook for anyone interested in bringing a creative, contemporary approach to this ancient craft, and for those already hooked who want to improve and expand their skills.Topics covered include: the range and use of tools and materials; fundamental blacksmithing processes; working at the anvil, drawing down, bending, upsetting and spreading, hot cutting, punching, and finally, twisting and joining. Illustrated with over 200 diagrams and photographs, The Artist Blacksmith will provide an introduction to the beginner and valuable information for the more experienced smith looking to expand their workshop.

Leseprobe

TheArtist Blacksmith

Design and Techniques

Peter Parkinson

First published in 2001 by The Crowood Press Ltd Ramsbury, Marlborough Wiltshire SN8 2HR

www.crowood.com

This impression 2014

This e-book first published in 2014

© Peter Parkinson 2001

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 84797 783 0

Dedication

I would like to thank all those blacksmiths who have generously lent me illustrations and countless more whose advice and enthusiasm, whether they know it or not, has contributed to this book.

Photographic Acknowledgements

All photographs by the author with the exception of those credited otherwise, and the following: Peter Hill 76 (bottom); Andrew Lee 83; Ian Macaulay 84, 85 (top), 101 (top); Paul Taylor 89 (top).

Line drawings by the author.

PREVIOUS PAGE: containers and forged mild steel twigs by the author. Containers made from mild steel angle section, cut and hot folded to trap the base in slots, with cut and punched decoration.

Please Note

I have tried where possible throughout this book to use gender neutral words, in the knowledge that blacksmithing is by no means a male preserve. I have nevertheless used 'he' and 'his', because to add 'she' and 'hers' every time would become unbearably tedious. If this still rankles, I can only apologize and emphasize that 'he' is simply a pronoun, and not intended as an opinion.

CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1 Workshop and Equipment

Chapter 2 Materials

Chapter 3 Health and Safety

Chapter 4 Working at the Anvil

Chapter 5 Drawing Down

Chapter 6 Bending

Chapter 7 Upsetting and Spreading

Chapter 8 Hot Cutting

Chapter 9 Punching

Chapter 10 Twisting

Chapter 11 Joining Processes

Chapter 12 Working with a Striker

Chapter 13 Design

Chapter 14 Jigs and Tools

Chapter 15 More Tools

Chapter 16 Assembly and Finishing

Further Reading

Glossary

Index

INTRODUCTION

Blacksmithing has come a long way in the last twenty years. In 1979 I was invited as a guest to the Crafts Council Forging Iron Conference and Workshop at Hereford, organized with the intention of revitalizing an apparently dying craft. The main participants were fourteen blacksmiths from all over Britain, many of whom had never met before and had been under the impression that they were the last real blacksmith in the country.

Since that time the craft has expanded dramatically, developed artistically, embraced new technologies and found new applications. Blacksmithing has been taught in a number of Art Colleges since 1982. The British Artist Blacksmiths Association – BABA – founded in 1978, now has some 600 members, amateur and professional, and a thriving annual programme of events. Perhaps surprisingly there is also a significant international dimension to the craft, providing a very active and fertile network between smiths in America, Europe, Russia, Japan and Australia.

Typical BABA blacksmithing event.

Despite its increasing sophistication, blacksmithing has not forgotten its roots. The heart of modern blacksmithing is still the fire, the anvil and the hammer. You heat the metal and shape it with a hammer. The core activity of the smith today would be easily recognized and understood by a smith transported, for example, from medieval times.

On my shelf is a book published to accompany the 1980 British Museum exhibition, ‘The Vikings’, that includes a photograph of a group of tools left in the grave of a tenth-century Norwegian weapon-smith. The tongs, hammers and chisels are virtually identical to tools I use in my workshop today, a whole millennium later.

At that time iron was an expensive metal, difficult to produce in any quantity and valued for its use in tools and weaponry, implements and even jewellery. The smith made his own tools and would save and rework metal, welding small pieces together to make a larger bar if necessary.

This kind of economy of working has persisted. The metal is no longer valuable, but smiths still habitually save odd pieces in the scrap pile, to provide the material for a particular job or special tool. There is a powerful appeal in having an excuse to forage in scrapyards for handy bits, and if you can’t exactly forge a sword into a ploughshare, you might at least make a candleholder out of an old piece of pipe.

The intrinsic self-sufficiency of smithing is of great benefit to the amateur and professional alike. You can begin with very little equipment and make what you need as time goes by.

Sculptural piece by Alan Evans, gas cut from steel tube, heated and shaped.

Blacksmithing offers a way of working metal that gives rise to forms and qualities that are far more personal than the products of our machine-made environment. There is a freedom and spontaneity in shaping hot metal with a hammer. Every blow leaves its mark and contributes to the result. Each smith will hit the metal in his own way and leave a characteristic ‘fingerprint’ of hammer marks. You don’t have to search for this, it will come to you.

So what kind of objects do blacksmiths make today? The answer is an almost embarrassingly long list, from small items such as hooks, paperknives and candleholders through light fittings, curtain rails and furniture, to pieces of architectural metalwork such as screens, railings and gates and large pieces of public art. The point is, the choice is yours. The craft encompasses all these things but the processes used to make them are essentially the same.

This book looks at processes as the basic building blocks through which you can realize and develop your own projects and ideas. The challenge, the fun – and indeed the magic – lies in playing with fire and transforming a rather unprepossessing material into something with a quality and life of its own.

Finally, the techniques and processes that I describe are those that from my experience have proved to be the most effective. They are not necessarily the way these things should be done. When I started smithing I learnt a great deal by spending a day a week in a well-established forge that employed a number of blacksmiths. I had a forge to myself, would spend half a day struggling to do something until someone took pity and showed me how to do it. Problem solved. Until later another smith would wander over and say ‘If I were you I wouldn’t do it like that – what I would do is this....’. It was the best lesson of all. In the end there is no definitive way, only the way that works for you.

Tool rack for hammers, fullers, hot chisels and punches.

1 WORKSHOP AND EQUIPMENT

THE WORKSPACE

Setting up your own workshop is a crucial step and there are a number of important points to be taken into account when considering the use of a particular building or space. The essential requirements are size, accessibility and an electric power supply.

To begin blacksmithing the nature of the space is more important than the size. My first workshop was only 2.4m (8ft) long by 2m (6ft 3in) wide, but it did have the virtue of a concrete floor and a high ceiling. If there is room for a forge and anvil, and enough space to move comfortably around the anvil, you have a potential forging workshop; minimal but viable. This said, a bigger space is clearly desirable, allowing more equipment to be fitted and space to lay out and construct larger projects. But if a small space is all you have, do not be discouraged.

A concrete floor is very desirable but not as essential as a ceiling high enough to allow you to swing a hammer at full stretch – 2.4m (8ft) is a minimum. Do not forget that light fittings are usually lower than the ceiling itself. It is remarkably easy to remove lights with a careless swing of a hammer, even when you thought you knew where they were. Ceiling lights should be placed high up and out of reach. A large workspace is no good if the roof is too low.

Access is a major consideration. Moving equipment, metal, fuel and so on into the building requires a reasonably easy access. Steps, for example, are a real problem. A level access and a wide door – preferably double doors – are a great advantage. It is so easy to put together a large piece of work, and forget that it has to be taken out of the workshop when it is finished.