Blacksmithing is alive and well in Kentucky
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
You can put a few mm thick piece of steel on top of the hob and then set your copper pan on that, as a workaround.
As an example, induction heating is a commonly used method in zone melting for Si-purification [0].
The effect is more pronounced in ferromagnetic materials because a larger flux is induced.
The place I used to go had a gas furnace to heat the metal. A pitty I didn't find time to go there for ages now... Only downside of gas furnace, closed on on end, is the limited length of the stuff you can put in. I have an idea I want to try to forge longer things, but again, it is months now I didn't have time to get back to it...
But yeah, I just realized the last time I was there was last year before christmas... Good thing anout this is: the day I retire I will definitely not be bored at all!
DIY induction heater**: https://youtu.be/wKFnk4R54ZQ
* Unsafe because it depends on combustion and creates nanofines/ultrafines
** Unsafe because there's no current limiting, no temperature limiting, no grounding, and no crucible confinement
Don't do your own rigging or wiring, and you'll probably be fine. I do much of my own on both and I'm still ok.
Watch the tommy bar on your vise, and mind your marking knife. The apparently harmless things will get you because you pay them less mind.
Source: am a furniture maker. I still have 10 fingers. Haven't died of respiratory illness yet. Nor have I burned my shit down or crushed myself moving machinery. I have definitely made an unplanned trip for super glue after slicing myself with a marking knife.
But that made me giggle like a schoolgirl.
I've heard more people are hurt each year by angle grinders than any other tool.
I've only been hurt by two power tools: one was a drill, it slipped off the screw and made the pad of my finger into hamburger.
The other was my table saw, twice. Both kickback events that threw wood at my abdomen. I'm a pretty careful user, definitely not a cowboy. Mistakes are easy to make. I'm very careful with my fingers, at least!
Angle grinders are used a lot on jobsites by jabronis who like to remove the guard and suchlike.
In the workshop I'd be most careful around the bandsaw to be honest. It's slow moving and doesn't make much noise, but will cut through three fingers before you notice the pain. At least table saws and friends have a tendency to bounce off of bone so you don't tend to end up with full on amputations.
Kickback is somewhat nonintuitive though, so watch for that!
And homeowners putting sawblades on them. Eek!
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3022661/husband-killed-when-he...
How does a handheld danger that can move around or be dropped compare to a heavy, stationary danger that's in a predictable location?
How does one big danger rank against several smaller dangers? What about a clearly obvious danger vs a less obvious one?
Which safety procedures can you assume to be followed? Welders wear a mask and gloves at all times, but not everyone using a table saw uses a pushing stick.
How much experience and skill should you expect the users have? Users who are expecting a tool to buck or bind will be ready for it - does it matter that inexperienced users might not be ready?
If two tools are equally dangerous in a spacious workshop, but one can also be used up ladders and upside-down in crawlspaces, is it more dangerous because of that?
Do you just rank classic tools like hammers and drills, or do you have a broader definition? Is a ladder a tool, for purposes of the ranking? Is a car?
Ah yes, simply don't make any mistakes ever ;-P
Fair enough though. I suppose the thing that makes table saws / routers / etc seem safer -- to me at least -- is because they look and sound scary. An untrained novice is much more likely to be careless around a band saw than around a table saw.
None of them sound like the router though. It's a banshee from a nightmare. I don't even like using it when it's mounted.
The router, even when you do all the above, it can jump, it can throw material off, it keeps spinning for a surprisingly long time after you power it off. All these characteristics make it less predictable. You need to understand it at a somewhat deeper level, how much can you cut, what direction to go, what direction is the grain going. You need to hold/brace it understanding that it can be unexpected and has a lot more power than you think. That's what makes it a more dangerous tool. Ofcourse properly used - it's fine.
No, but it was an unfortunate incident involving some nails.
And I promise, I'll try to scale to my sarcasm.
Yep. It's indeed possible.
Some best practices I recall growing up with:
Eyes, ears, feet, and lung protection.
Loose hair, jewelry, clothing anti-snag policy.
Keep body out of the kill line of potential RUDs.
Keep dust contained.
Keep fresh air moving toward you.
Push sticks, finger boards, and keep your tender bits out of the business end.
For circular saws, there is SawStop. https://www.sawstop.com/why-sawstop/the-technology/
Don't rush or work tired.
---
As blue collar guys, there are some risks my dad and grandfather didn't account for such as dipping their hands in and breathing carcinogenic solvents. In general, it's wiser to overdo PPE than play hard tough guy and shortening one's life for nothing. Safety regs are written in blood, but only after the fact.
I've been swimming in all sorts automotive and manufacturing fluids and fumes and forces for years and it hasn't caught up to me yet. I know a shitload of people that have done it for decades without a scratch, and a lot of them didn't even try to be safe about it.
I'm mindful of my finishing materials and proper ventilation and downright religious about hearing protection because the damage is cumulative. I know a bunch of guys I have to half shout at to have a conversation with. I'd rather not be one in 15 years.
Though on the other hand perhaps I take it too far by wearing ear protection when hammering in nails or using the vacuum cleaner.
I don't know much about the subject you're talking about, and am definitely not trying to argue that it has the same risk as smoking 20 a day - just making the point that research rather than anecdotes is the best way to judge these things.
Woodworking can be hazardous when using power tools... but you can always go with hand tools only and that should be mostly risk free excluding possibility of minor cuts and bruises - but you can get these even when preparing food.
I do a lot of stuff around the house myself (renovation, making/adapting stuff, preparing my own wood for house heating, small electrical repairs, etc) and the only thing I am afraid of is the chainsaw. That thing can do significant damage even slightest mistake when being used, anything else is manageable given the usual precautions (protective gear, doublecheck that electric switches, wires, etc are not hot when working on them, etc...).
> What exactly you think are hazards in 3D printing? And low-voltage electronics?
Fire (have your dry powder/kitchen fire blanket handy). Minor burns (hot-end, molten plastic, soldering iron, solder itself, hot components or PCBs). Not really more dangerous than cooking - I'd consider leaving a 3D printer unattended but if you leave a deep fat fryer unattended that can go very badly wrong.
Snipping off through-hole leads produces annoying metal fragments; if you're not already wearing glasses, wear eye protection.
This is exactly what they are saying though. I wouldn't have expected the cookie dough forge to be particularly dangerous but apparently it is because of nanofines/ultrafines - i don't even know what they are
Fire and fumes. Even low voltage can start fire or create some toxic fumes if it melts the wrong stuff and when you have a cold and smell little, you might inhale enough to poison yourself, before you notice.
And I am rather afraid of electricity, than the chainsaw. Because when the chainsaw is running, it is obvious it is dangerous. But a broken electronic component with an open circuit can be hard to spot.
After you carefully read the instructions, wear 9-layer wraparound chaps, cut-retardant shirt, forestry helmet, and chainsaw gloves, and you pay attention like as if you are on a gun range, you will have reasonably mitigated the risks. Most accidents happen when people grow complacent and don't take what they are doing seriously; even with all the PPE you can still screw up in a serious way if you aren't careful, deliberate and paying attention. I encourage anyone who is scared of chainsaws to read the literature. Even occasional users can make it a safe activity with some diligence.
I would say that it's good to have some fear and respect for the tools and machinery that can do you great harm. Fortunately, there's a lot of good (and bad) videos on youtube. When I need to learn to use a new tool that is dangerous I always watch multiple videos and also search for web sites that discuss how to use that tool safely.
You can't know every risk. You can be paralyzed by fear and never grow. Life is a calculated risk. Do dirty things in a seperate space from your living. Wear PPE. As others have said the risks for hobbies and work are different. Hell we may all be having mesothelioma from the atmosphere in 30 years.
And sitting at indoor hobbies will also kill you from heart disease etc.
You are not getting out of here alive.
Traditionally it required a fire, yes, but that doesn't make it essential. I use silverware which is not made of silverware.
As a point of definition, in general use, a forge is not an "open fire". Eg, https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/open+fire defines "open fire" as "A fire not contained by a fireplace or stove" and https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/open-... defines it as "a fire that you light outside, for example to cook on, or a fire in a space in a wall of a building, with a chimney to take the smoke away".
As I understand it, blacksmithing is typically not done outside, where it can be too bright to use the color of the metal to judge the temperature, and the fire in the forge requires some sort of forced air (eg, a foot-powered bellows forcing air through a tuyere into a constrained fire). This means the forge is not an open fire.
TIL blacksmithing has its own definition for "open fire", which is distinct from "stock fire". See http://www.faadooengineers.com/online-study/post/first-year/... . This means a blacksmith wouldn't say they only use an open fire.
At least I didn't say elven blacksmith, working in the fires of Mt. Doom.
Medieval blacksmiths did not use an open fire.
I follow a blacksmith who uses a propane-heated forge to make knives and other small items. Here is a picture of the new forge in his workshop: https://ranum.com/badger_forge/2023/05/19/the-new-forge/ Here is a picture of the old forge in use: https://ranum.com/badger_forge/2019/06/04/silver-in-the-forg... . Using coal/charcoal would not make it more bad ass.
My logical side tells me that after a few months of that I'd be pining for a "cushy desk job."
But man.
Doing something physical and tangible. You just don't get that very often in the tech world.
If you want a tactile hobby, actually build something— make some shelves for your basement or garage, put up a bike shed, make a deck, redo your kitchen floor, weld together a teardrop camper, dig up a tree stump, whatever.
Or if it can be physical without needing to be back-breaking, do partner dancing or an endurance sport like distance swimming or road cycling.
In "physical" work there's an inherent satisfaction. You look at the pile of leaves you raked. You see the plate of food you prepared. You see the wall you built. Etc.
Code can be equally satisfying, but I think generally I need to be more in touch with the actual users to feel that satisfaction. In my last few roles I've been way too distant from users. Luckily in my next role I think I'm going to be able to remedy that.
That's really cool about the knife. Could see myself really digging that.
I worked in a restaurant as a kid/teen. It was a lot of fun, in a way, even though it was dirty and hard. Nasty dead-end jobs were kinda fun back then because we were kids and we had the luxury of being on the way "up" in life, or at least we assumed we were. We had college and/or careers ahead and weren't going to be busboys and dishwashers and grill cooks forever.
I felt like I'd be a dishwasher forever, that'd be tough. Not that there is anything wrong with washing dishes. I don't think that it is more or less dignified than being a fancy software engineer. But the money is crap and it's tough to have much of a life on dishwasher money.
I think the so-called "skilled trades" could be a different story. Plumbing or HVAC or whatever. Hard-ass work for sure. Always wonder how I would have fared.
I bought a laundromat 5 years ago. Learned to fix mechanical issues, troubleshoot electrical issues. Learned to use tools to pull bearings out, using heat torches to remove worn out sleeves from a shaft, understanding how water valves, solenoids works. Learnt a lot.
While it is not as crazy as building something new, it is the closest I could get to with my software engineer career. My friends thought I was nuts.
Can I ask how it's been as a money maker? I'm curious whether it's a bit of extra change here and there as a nice side-benefit to all the learning it's given you, or if it actually pulls in decent profits? (And to contextualise the answer, in which country?)
That said, the desk job is probably the better bargain of the two since you can always do your moving around outside of work hours, however you can't rest more to make up for overworking yourself physically.
A key aspect of physical hobbies is that there is no backspace key.
If you've been working on a piece of wood for an hour, and you muck up and make a cut where it shouldn't be, or split the wood due to hand holding it on the router table instead of clamping to a jig, you're going to experience an unparalleled level of frustration.
After a while, by osmosis, you will develop a "measure twice and cut once" style of working that is more efficient (for wood working anyway).
I believe that attitude trickles into and benefits your coding. Of course you do have a backspace key, so it's not efficient to be measuring everything twice, but somehow that extra level of care pays off on the keyboard as well.
It somewhat flies directly opposite to one of my main attractions to coding and computing in general - there IS a backspace key, metaphorically and literally.
And yet, I dunno. I think I'm feeling what you're saying.
I get the impression that each hammer blow can only do a little bit, so perhaps you wouldn't wish for a backspace key for smithing.
With things like woodworking: to cut is to choose. You can't go back, so you've also cut away a huge part of the decision tree looming behind you.
I suppose the biggest difference is that thanks to the backspace key most mind-changing in development doesn't have to be as major as rewriting in a new language, you so always have the option to undo the last cut rather than throw it away to start again. So maybe my argument is less against there being a significant difference and more against "rewriting in a new language" being a relevant example.
Getting a hobby lathe has taught me this VERY well. Something about running a machine that removes a lot of metal very quickly but where your end goal is to be precise to 0.05mm makes you really double check your next move. Bumping a hand wheel is enough to ruin hours or possibly days of work.
try something out and do it for fun
I made a leather jacket in the last 7 months. I really like it. Welding, etc. Community college is fun when you're employed.
https://www.craigkaviarforge.com/
Work in progress gallery: https://www.craigkaviarforge.com/work-in-progress
The iron pineapple might be my favorite: https://static.wixstatic.com/media/6a655b_d413aa154f0f4702ab...
The hobby can be very technical, or very artistic, depending on what you find interesting and focus on.
For CA: https://www.calsmith.org/
https://www.amazon.com/Artist-Blacksmith-Design-Techniques/d...
I gave away most of my blacksmithing equipment, but until I die I'll keep the wonderful feeling of shaping metal.
I highly recommend one of those pairs be parallel pliers.
> I’ll keep the wonderful feeling of shaping metal.
Could you expand on that please? I connect with those words on some level but would love to hear more about what’s special about it. One of my grandfathers was a blacksmith unfortunately he died before I got old enough to ask about the philosophy of it
> The industrial revolution rendered a lot of traditional blacksmith work — making hammers, nails, axes, shovels and more — obsolete. But blacksmiths like Mr. Kaviar, 69, have found success creating so-called “functional art.” Mr. Kaviar, for instance, is regionally known for making handrails forged with leaves and birds that have a rough-hewed, borderline macabre design evocative of the work of sculptors like Louise Bourgeois.
You explicitly mention "horsehoes and nails", but I don't think that's a reasonable thing to expect: Especially for nails, I don't think many people would spend money on something that isn't really going to be visible. (I don't know enough about the farrier trade to say the same for horseshoes.) By contrast, a handrail is something that can be very visible.
Ref: https://blog.lostartpress.com/2015/07/30/forged-forged-nails...
https://www.bradfords.co.uk/ironmongery-fixings-adhesives/na...
https://www.heritage-store.co.uk/traditional-nails/2043-cut-...
very likely the hand-made ones are for restoration projects where you need to be as faithful to the original as possible.
or, more commonly in timber framing, rectangular profile.
Hammered in thin dimension between the grain, long dimension with the grain, maximising wood|metal surface area, minimising splitting|cracking forces.
So give they are using more or less the same methods of a blacksmith of yore and the etymology works, they would seem to be a blacksmith to me.
Black ~> iron smith, Green ~> copper smith, White ~> silver smith
My totally unreserved guess is that there are not very many on a per capita basis, but there are probably about 10-50 working smith's per state. They do architectural work, historical pieces, education, sculpture, and all sorts of other stuff, if you include farriers (who deal with shoeing horses, but it's really a more technical trade that deals with horses gaits and health).
Nails are a whole 'nother kettle of fish: authentic forged nails are in (limited) demand for reproduction work. Cut nails and die forged nails (Tremont and Rivierre, respectively) are much loved at a more affordable price where absolute authenticity is a lesser requirement.
Incidentally, the surname Naylor is an occupational surname for a nail maker.
One common definition is that you're doing craftwork if the object is functional, artwork if it is functionally useless. I don't blacksmith, but I do machine things as a hobby. I consider most of what I do to be closer to the art end of the spectrum because I'm usually making it to explore the shapes, although there are frequently functional aspects.
Is an overcomplicated umbrella stand of copper and bronze art or something else? Personally I'm still not sure.
Not to mention there's a whole bunch of functional-practical middle ground. The sword/knife people produce objects with usable blades but aesthetic qualities. Then there's literal gatekeeping: wrought-iron gates and fencing are both practical and aesthetic. Traditional in the UK although a lot got unnecessarily scavenged during the war.
However this guy also turns functional items into useless decorative garden tools that no one will ever use, so it's not that surprising that he keeps trying to press a drift out with a sharp pointed tool that will never get a purchase on the work piece.
The machine is probably a power hammer. The pointy tool is a punch, used for making holes in the workpiece and often followed by a drift, used to widen and shape the hole.
I understand some people use lubricants when drifting/punching hence the WD40. The v-shaped piece that is supposed to hold the workpiece is probably held there by a square shaft underneath that fits into a square hole on the work surface called a "hardy hole". It isn't unsecured ... but it doesn't seem to have a very fine fit so it moves a bit.
The WD40 is just going to flash off as well, there probably would have been better lubricants even used motor oil. Just seemed like a sloppy bit of work for what was such a lauded blacksmith.
The spraying wd40 ... some just want to watch the world burn ... more seriously, the soot,oil & paraffin will act as a lubricant and discourage the tool from getting stuck (or welded) in the piece, although I must confess I have never witnessed the particular technique demonstrated in this flamboyant demonstration.
In general, I see a lot less flying fire in the shop than seen on the tubes.
Edit to suggest why; Like a hammer, the tool he seems to be working on has a handle and just as you need a hole in a hammer head to stick the handle in this tool needs a hole for a handle and the clip could be an early step in that process.
I long for something tangible to do after writing code all day and his channel has really inspired me.
Something I love about blacksmithing is that it feels similar to software engineering in that sometimes to make something you first have to smith tools to help you smith the thing you want to make. Like creating dev tooling or making helper functions to tackle a larger problem. Tickles the same engineering part of the brain but with the constraints of the physical world that really changes the dynamics and makes it fun!
https://www.arbortechtools.com/us/who-we-are/our-story
Scary beginnings aside Arbortech make amazing woodcarving tools.
There's probably a continuous history in the united states as farriers have continued making horse shoes for a very long time.
In fact, Colonial Williamsburg Blacksmiths - Forging Links with the Past http://thehouseandhomemagazine.com/culture/colonial-williams... discusses Aislinn Lewis's path to becoming a smithy at Colonial Williamsburg. I learned about Aislinn when I worked at Rice's Hotel/Heathsville Tavern.
There are quite a few hobbyist/artist blacksmiths around, and occasionally do displays. This guys name always comes up as he inspired and thought most of them.
There is also the Artist Blacksmith Association of North America, and other ABANA chapters all over the country.
Adam Savage has done some nice videos recently that he's posted on YouTube for his Tested channel where he visits the Metropolitan Museum in NYC, specifically the guys who maintain all the metal weapons and armor.
Blacksmithing is alive and well all over this country, and the entire world.
Our local one is Santa Barbara Forge and they have nice series of carbon steel pans: https://sbforge.com/
he is also a developer or contributor to bcrypt and openssh
Meet the developers writing code by hand, as it was done before the great AI boom of the 2030s...