[TheForge] Re: Book Recommendations

[Jerry Frost]

From: "J Keller" <j.keller at sasktel.net>


> Thanks everyone for your suggestions and comments on 
> books for me to look at.  I realize that this is not 
> the best way to learn, and I have been in contact 
> with members of my local organization, and will be 
> attending some meetings to do some serious hands-on 
> learning.
>
> In the mean time, I figure I might as well do some 
> reading until the snow starts to melt.
>
> Justin
>

Reading never hurts Justin. Well, almost never. <grin>

At demos I spend a lot of time telling people there is 
no magic to blacksmithing; if you have the basic hand 
skills necessary, it's just knowledge and practice. No 
more, no less.

I went at learning the craft from the opposite 
direction, I just started building fires and beating 
iron when I was maybe 10-11. Father discouraged 
blacksmithing as a dead profession but that was 
depression survival talking. I rarely found another 
smith to talk to, let alone teach me, there were 
farriers but at the time there was a different mind 
set.

It wasn't till a local book store made a mistake and 
ordered a dozen copies of Bealer's "Art of 
Blacksmithing" that I discovered there were books on 
the subject. Yeah, I know I just didn't think about it. 
Stupid of me. <sigh> Anyway it was the gateway, it told 
me a number of whys. Why some things I tried didn't 
work, why some things happened instead of what I 
thought should happen and a lot of how tos.

While I agree, "The Art of Blacksmithing" isn't the 
best primer for learning but it still holds a special 
place in my heart. A number of excellent books have 
been recommended already so I won't pitch my favorites. 
I was well past the basics when I found my first one so 
maybe I'm not a great judge anyway. What I discovered 
compiling my library of smithing books is a lot of them 
are essentially the same right down to the 
illustrations. Oddly enough "The Art of Blacksmithing" 
has about the most complete set of these all too common 
drawings and explanations.

There is an alternative to going to the library and 
having them "order" your books. Following are some URLs 
to online smithing manuals. Dave also has quite a few 
on the LAMA site.

http://www.metalwebnews.com/howto/blacksmith/farmshop.html

Sorry about the huge URL, it's a search result. I 
checked to see if this URL is still live but didn't 
check the titles listed.

http://chla.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?type=simple&c=chla&cc=chla&sid=abe1ac5c5f1149279e9a782130d78d33&rgn=title&q1=blacksmithing&Submit=Search&cite1=&cite1restrict=title&cite2=&cite2restrict=title

Enter blacksmithing in the search engine on this site 
and you'll get several more publications.

http://www.countryside.gov.uk/NewEnterprise/Economies/craftpublications.asp

I have (or had) more but can't locate them and it's 
getting late. I'll look again tomorrow.

Enjoy the addiction. <evil grin>

Frosty
-------------------------------
If it ain't forged
it ain't real.
Wrought iron is.
The FrostWorks

Meadow Lakes, AK.

http://www.artmetalradio.com/