World Steel Association

If you stop to think about the vast number of uses for steel, it's overwhelming. The World Steel Association's website provides an excellent overview of the steel industry worldwide, including current issues such as climate change and sustainability. worldsteel is a non-profit organization headquartered in Brussels, Belgium whose members produce 85% of the world's steel.





www.worldsteel.org

New Video

Here is my latest video. It demonstrates how I make a top for one of my forged boxes. Mortise and tenon joinery is one of the methods for joining metals that was used before the days of the electric welder. Welding is a lot easier, but it doesn't look as cool and it's not as much fun!

Mortise and Tenon Video

Featured on a Blog

My buckles are being featured on Scoutie Girl, a really nice blog about handmade crafts:

http://www.scoutiegirl.com/2009/01/link-mini-steel-belt-buckles.html

Ornamental Wrought Iron Videos

I found this great series of videos on Youtube. The first time I saw this video was at my very first blacksmithing class with David Norrie a couple of years ago. This video shows David and several other talented blacksmiths making a reproduction of a beautiful iron gate designed by the great Samuel Yellin.

The video provides an excellent overview of blacksmithing techniques. It's also really exciting to see so many smiths working together under the supervision of the late Francis Whitaker, one of America's most famous blacksmiths. Make sure to check out all six of the videos!

Ornamental Wrought Iron Part 1

Basic Forging: Drawing Out

Forging hot iron is the core of blacksmithing. When iron is hot, it becomes soft and malleable, like a piece of clay.

One of the first techniques most blacksmiths learn is “drawing out.” Drawing out means to lengthen a piece of steel by heating it in a forge and hammer it on the anvil.

Here are some pictures and a video of me drawing out a piece of ½” square mild steel.

This is the 1/2" bar stock:


Once it's hot, the steel is hammered at an angle to draw it out:


For this example, I kept the square shape and drew it out to a point:


Here's the video:

The Winter Garden

We had our first real snowfall of the season today. I snapped a picture of the garden gate and fence in my backyard collecting snow. It's hard to believe that only a month and a half ago, you could barely see the fence at all because the tomatoes were so huge.


I built this gate and fence using no modern welding. Not that there's anything wrong with welding, I just really enjoy doing things the old fashioned way when I can. I needed a gate and fence to keep our dog out of the garden, but I also wanted to create a garden fencing system that could be easily installed by a customer.

Old Time Blacksmith Shops

Check out these cool pictures I found of blacksmith shops from the old days. As you can see, not that much has changed except that most of us now use gas forges and power tools: