A great book
Jan 12, 2008 22:42:19 GMT
Post by Matt993f.o.d on Jan 12, 2008 22:42:19 GMT
I've been looking for books to help teach me more about blacksmithing, so that oneday I may be able to break into blademaking.
I found a great book called "Basic Blacksmithing", by David Harries and Bernhard Heer. It is a book about toolmaking from readily available scrap steel.
It has a couple of chapters on the essentials, such as key terms, hammer technique, tools and how to use them, and basic techniques you will need. It then has a list of blueprints, in order of difficulty for a complete set of things to make. First it covers the making of your own tools, and then goes on to show how to make a few simple products which you can sell, including simple knife making and axe-head making.
The authors collected these blueprints in Africa, where the local smiths have no choice but to use scrap steel. This is especially useful over here as the sorts of steel he recommends to use are easily available from scrapyards. For example, he recommends finding mild steels in old bits of vehicle chassis, medium carbon steels from plough discs and vehicle half shafts, and high carbon steels from coil and leaf springs. These are only a few examples, and there is a huge list of potential steel sources for each item.
There is also a large table showing the best temperatures for working various steels, and shows you how to judge this by their colour. Accompanying this is a great chapter on heat treating, and the various processes involved in each stage.
This is a great book for me, as it covers exactly the area of smithing I am interested in, and contains tons of great information and how-tos. I thoroughly recommend this for any other would-be smiths.
Now all I need to do is practice what I've read here...
I found a great book called "Basic Blacksmithing", by David Harries and Bernhard Heer. It is a book about toolmaking from readily available scrap steel.
It has a couple of chapters on the essentials, such as key terms, hammer technique, tools and how to use them, and basic techniques you will need. It then has a list of blueprints, in order of difficulty for a complete set of things to make. First it covers the making of your own tools, and then goes on to show how to make a few simple products which you can sell, including simple knife making and axe-head making.
The authors collected these blueprints in Africa, where the local smiths have no choice but to use scrap steel. This is especially useful over here as the sorts of steel he recommends to use are easily available from scrapyards. For example, he recommends finding mild steels in old bits of vehicle chassis, medium carbon steels from plough discs and vehicle half shafts, and high carbon steels from coil and leaf springs. These are only a few examples, and there is a huge list of potential steel sources for each item.
There is also a large table showing the best temperatures for working various steels, and shows you how to judge this by their colour. Accompanying this is a great chapter on heat treating, and the various processes involved in each stage.
This is a great book for me, as it covers exactly the area of smithing I am interested in, and contains tons of great information and how-tos. I thoroughly recommend this for any other would-be smiths.
Now all I need to do is practice what I've read here...