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Comment by opwieurposiu | Hacker News Reader

I randomly found an anvil on sale for cheap and now our family has the blacksmithing bug. One of our favorite things to do is take a couple anvils and a small forge down to the park and let the kids smash red hot nails into "mini-swords". We have also started selling the swords on his lemonade cart, People actually buy them!

You would think this would be a dangerous activity but it turns out to be petty tame. About 1/20 kids burns a finger, and when they finish yelling they inevitably tough up and get back to work because they are having so much fun.

So anyway, scrounge up plumbing torch and some nails and let the kids make "mini-swords." You can use a sledge hammer or any big chunk of metal as your anvil.

If you want to see what the "swords" look like my kid has pictures on his site: https://lemonsword.com/

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This is just too awesome for words. Those kids will come away with memories that they couldn't have made any other way.

More memories; fewer eyes

You're not wrong. Our family safety glasses compliance rate is about 50%, def something we could improve on. When supervising other people's kids I get that rate up into 90s.

I will ensure we have at least have glasses on the next time we take photos for the website lol.

This is really fantastic. But now that you've posted it, you'd better get that up to 100% or get a good lawyer. :)

I did a festivle where I set up a portable blacksmith shop, and was swarmed by kids,talking to the old time smiths, kids in shops, was the norm, given hammers as soon as they could get a good swing, it's something that never needs to be encouraged, like puppys, bicycles, and all the rest, now with video games and I got my start when I was 8....letting myself in anywhere the big doors were open. It is a known fact that making nails and small chain was a task that fell to women and children in historical times. And I must say that I am quite angry and disapointed by the archiologists who decided to send 5 tons of good ancient nails to be melted down as scrap,last paragraph in the article, as it demonstrates a very strong indication that the entire proffesion needs to be better educated and regulated.....the old times would say * " theys spoilt you, used to sucking from the front tit!"* * agricultural reference to the hiarcical order of piglets maintaining there positions when nursing over time.

They look great! Double-headed nails make great mini swords. I use them to show that I can make a sword in one heat. Smash it flat, file some small tapers and you're set. Plus, it fits in the hand of a lego person :P

That’s really sweet! What do you mean by a “small forge”? My son is interested in blacksmithing.

We just got the cheapest single burner propane forge eBay/Amazon. Working great so far. Looks like this https://www.ebay.com/itm/176573538859

Note that a forge produces big noisy flame and burns a lot of gas. If all you want to do is heat a nail a plumbing torch will suffice. But if you want to make a knife you will need some sort of forge.

Looks like an Ooni pizza oven!

Thank you!

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