Sunday,October 23, 2022
Had the most amazing opportunity to try my hands at blacksmithing with a friend, Bill!! Bill graciously offered to let me play in his smithy and show me how it's done!
I came prepared with two pieces of rebar - about 16 inches long each, gloves, water, and the remains of my coffee. Well prepared. I also wore leather, steel-toed boots, and all cotton clothes for safety. I should have considered sunscreen..
Bill showed me everything from start to finish. We used a coal forge with a manual crank blower - something folks tend to complain about, but I found to be very manageable. He showed me it wasn't really that hard to get the coal lit. We used wood shavings left over from past projects and a small butane torch to get those lit. Once the wood started burning we covered the flames with coal, and cranked the blower. Within a few minutes the coal was lit and the forge was basically ready! A thing to note - when the coal first lights up, all the sulfur burns off with a sickly yellow smoke. Stay out of it - especially if you have asthma like I do. It doesn't take too long to burn off, and once it does, the coal burns unexpectedly clean. I had thought there would be loads of black smoke, and there really wasn't!
I decided my first project goal was to create a usable fire poker. It's a simple enough design but allows for multiple techniques to be learned and used. I stuck my rebar in and started heating it up. We were working outside in the sun, so keeping my shadow on the forge to watch the metal color was essential to see when it was red-hot and ready to be pounded. Once it looked about right (I've watched way too much Forged in Fire, but actually found some of that useful!) I moved to the anvil and started pounding on it. I started the day off with a 3lb hammer, but later on switched to something a little smaller so my stamina and accuracy was better - it's not just size that counts. I was pleasantly surprised at how fast the metal moved, and really grateful for my years of manual labor that gave me the experience and practice to have accurate aim with the hammer.
As we went I got more confident with both heating the rebar hot enough (but not so hot it burned and blistered), and with more powerful hammer strokes. The first thing I did was stretch the length a bit, flatten a little, then use a hardy tool* to start splitting the end to create two points. This proved to be an interesting challenge as the rebar liked to bounce, and lining up the dents was a bit tricky. Bill taught me the idea was to start scoring the metal on each side, trying to line up the scores the best you can. You get about three or four hits in before the metal needs to be reheated. Ideally, you get about 90% of the way through on each of the sides, then line it up the long way to the edge of the chisel starts to split the metal as you hit the end of it. This was also interestingly challenging since the metal not only wants to split, but also bends. However, I had success! It wasn't the smoothest split, but it did the job. Next step was using the horn of the anvil to bend one of the splits into a hook shape. After that, hammering the ends into points - this was more about accuracy rather than power. Once the end of the poker was established, the focus was then on stretching the metal to make it longer. This was interesting as you can only work with a small section at a time, so it was good lesson in concentrating the heat from the forge to where you need it and working fast to utilize as much heat as possible. Keeping the poker straight was tricky, and took some practice, mostly paying attention and reshaping. I found turning the rebar as I hammered worked well for keeping the round shape, and allowed for ease of correcting bends in the metal. I will say it did require turning your hands, arms, elbow, and body in awkward ways, especially because at this point I had started using tongs to hold the rebar.
Tongs - these are useful, but weird to use at first. There are different styles, shapes, and lengths to choose from. I chose a longer set that has curved grip that were about the same diameter as the rebar, making gripping it fairly easy. However, remembering to keep a tight grip with my left hand while hammering with my right as I was also turning the metal was a bit of an adventure. The goal being not to drop the rebar because not only it is hot enough to set things on fire, it will also burn through clothes (and flesh) if it hits them, plus once you drop it, you'll probably lose all your heat, and it needs to go back into the fire.
About one and a half hours in I was having quite a bit of success stretching the metal until I got a little over-confident with the heat, and the unhammered section of rebar fell off. Bill said there are several reasons this could have happened - Yes, it may have gotten over-heated in the fire - but it's also possible there was a bad spot in the rebar that heated differently and simply broke. Rebar is fairly notorious for being an unpredictable metal due to impurities. It is also not made of hardenable steel, so it's not a good candidate for anything require a sharp edge. Therefore, the day's lesson did not include any quenching.
I was bummed the metal broke, but stretched what was left as much as I could - still getting a few more inches out of it. Bill suggested I could flatten the handle end, and once it was cooled he'd show me how to put a finished handle on it! I give a lot of credit to knife makers - flattening an end even, in any shape, AND in the direction you want it VERY hard. I was not as successful as I had hope, BUT I did get something done we decided we could work with. I set this aside to cool and started on rebar piece number two.
I opted to make a second poker and see if it went better than the first. It certainly went faster, and my poker stayed straighter this time. At some point my hands stopped working correctly, and I had to stop, but I still was able to create a finished piece I was happy with. This one I opted to leave the handle portion the raw rebar, rather than try to flatten and put a wood handle on it. Though I wish it had turned out longer and thinner, I was, overall, pleased with the poker! I also forgave my hands since I realized I'd been hammering away for something like 4.5 - 5 hours without any real break! It's very easy to get "in the zone". Very Zen.
At this point, poker 1 was cool, so Bill showed me how to use the belt sander to smooth out any burrs or sharp bits, as well as finesse the over all shape. We then marked and drilled the holes for the pins to hold the handle, and traced the shape onto some maple he had around. Using a bandsaw, I cut the rough shape of the handles out, we drilled those holes, then used 5 min (actually more like 20 min) epoxy to glue the handles to the poker. While that was curing I worked on poker 2 at the belt sander. I rounded and smoothed the raw end of the rebar, sanded off any burrs or sharp bits, shaped my points, and then did a rough sand on the whole thing to add texture. This shined up the outer parts of the poker, leaving the indents a matte dark color, giving the overall look a really lovely rustic texture.
Once this was finished, the epoxy was determined to be cured enough, I went about shaping the handle of Poker 1. It was really really neat watching the handle take a nice rounded shape from the blocks it had been!!
When all was said and done - after a total of about 7 hours I had two functional fire pokers I was happy with, especially being my first time doing anything like this!! Bill was so knowledgeable and patient, and allowed me to do pretty much everything, mostly just talking me through it! It was so great!!!
Now.. I need my own forge...
*Hardy Tool - An insert for the anvil. There are a variety of them for different uses, generally used to split metal or punch holes through metal. Another option for this purpose would be a chisel - though I didn't use one.