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

Description

The Everyday Blacksmith is your essential reference for learning how to make items you’ll use everyday: tools, hardware, utensils, decorative objects, and more. Get great techniques and tips for hand forging, and discover projects contributed by leading blacksmiths from around the world, each featuring plenty of opportunity for variation. Modern smiths can use the first section of The Everyday Blacksmith as a reference for shop basics: safety tips, equipment, and techniques like spreading, using a chisel, twisting, and finishing pieces. These basics are incorporated through a series of distinctive projects that include a bookmark, spoon, and leaf fob. The second section of the book features a diverse array of essential step-by-step blacksmith projects , which are arranged by category and difficulty. Projects include accessible techniques, functional designs, and diverse styles. Among the techniques and projects you’ll discover are: How to heat treat high-carbon steels Methods for making curved bookends Instructions for creating decorative functional pieces such as a towel rack and napkin rings How to make unique jewelry and jewelry display items Ideas for creating basic hardware, including latches and hinges For centuries, blacksmiths were the craftsmen and artists who worked society’s most important material—iron. Blacksmiths were not only a fixture in their community, they helped shape that community through their particular methods of making the hinges, hooks, brackets, and tools their neighbors used every day. Blacksmithing today is enjoying a resurgence. No amount of technical perfection replaces the feeling of picking up a hand-forged object, knowing that it was shaped by someone’s creativity and physical effort. Celebrate that individuality with The Everyday Blacksmith . Review: Strongly Recommend!! - Awesome book, shows introduction/beginner steps like tapers and ranks projects according to difficulty. I would strongly recommend to any beginner and honestly anyone that has an interest in metal work. Produced greatly with pictures and step by step instructions. The only con is, they haven't came out with a 2nd edition that I'm aware of. Strongly recommend to anyone. Review: Great Projects! - Excellent book for the experienced and the not so experienced. Something for everybody. Plus tips on beginning a blacksmith shop including needed tools.