Prospect Hill Forge

t’s gonna take a lot of oxalic acid.

An upcoming class at the smithy, Saturday January 17, morning and afternoon.
No class pre-requisites, you don’t need a beard, burliness, a belly, or a Y chromosome. The hammers for this class are light.

Metal Roses, Copper and Steel- PHF Over the centuries roses have symbolized love, friendship, and even alliances in war. This class will use the familiar rose shape as an introduction to smithing skills and tools.

I learned a thing.

The material here was a torsion-style garage door spring. The ends are welded, the middle is not.
I water-quenched just the outer bar fully and then the rest of it, wanting to make sure that the outer bar got really really hard (it did and it sparks nicely).
This was a mistake.
The outer bar was also very brittle, and when I quenched the other two they shrank and snapped the outer bar.

Quench the whole thing at once, temper as needed.

Better short notice than none…?

Eighteenth Birthday- PHF According to our files we've had 4,600+ students in that time. That's a lot of S-hooks, a lot of bottle openers... a lot of smithing.

One of only four spaces left. Starting this Saturday!
(it -was- full but there was a medical cancellation)
West Metro Boston Massachusetts
Bi-weekly on Saturdays and Sundays:
October 19-20
November 2-3
November 16-17
10:00am to 5:00pm - with lunch break

Beth Holmberg will give you a solid start in blacksmithing, no prior experience required.
More info and registration link:

Skills for the Grille- PHF Goals: •Hands-on learning of all the key skills for the ABANA Level IIa grille. -4-6 different hand-turned scrolls -Upset square corners -Mortise and tenon joints (punched holes) -C-scrolls to measure (jig use) -Hot Collaring •Building intermediate blacksmithing skills, including self-critique a...

Ho Lee Cow!
I've been draw-filing knives for many years.
Last night I did it using a dreadnought file.
Find the correct angle, and that's some serious stock removal!

Second try at a belt hook.
I was trying for speed, but had to stop to make the 1.25" x .25" belt-hole drift and didn't have a happy-on-this-anvil top-and-bottom swage. Once again I failed to really nail down the tip of the forge-weld, and spent too much time trying to fix it, and I'm not thrilled with the detail on the blocks.
1 hour 19 minutes.
I think the weld-tip-problem might find solution in making the weld a bit longer, so the tip can be "hidden" in the middle block and not get worked too cold too soon in the swage.
Proper tools and proper approach, I hope to get this down to an hour.