I luuurve crafts. I especially luuuurve historical crafts. So it was only natural that when I saw an advertisement for historic blacksmithing classes two days ago that I started freaking out and hyperventilating with excitement. So first thing yesterday morning, I logged onto the website of Prospect Hill Forge in Waltham, MA and spent the next hour perusing their pages.
What do you know, but they were offering a 3-hour introductory class THAT VERY EVENING!!! It was fate. I yelled across the kitchen table to my brother, who is currently visiting for the holidays, and we very quickly booked two places in the class. As it turns out, my brother has always wanted to try his hand at blacksmithing since he was a small boy being dragged to historic site after historic site by our parents.
There were a total of three of us in the class, and coincidentally we each had a degree in mechanical engineering (Although our classmate, David, was the only currently working in industry). The task was to make an "S" hook out of 3/8" square iron rod. The instructor gave us a demonstration, and as soon as that was complete we were each assigned a forge and an anvil and set to work. I was assigned to the one forge whose ventilation system was run by hand-crank instead of an electric fan. This actually turned out to be an advantage because I was less likely to overheat and oxidize my iron. Plus it was kinda fun to turn the hand crank.
We started by heating the center of the rod to twist it. We then made a taper on one end, chamfered the square corners, and and curled the point of the taper. The first half of the S-curve was completed by making the hook. After that, we cut the stock to a symmetrical size and repeated the process to complete the S-shape.
The results speak for themselves:
GUESS WHAT?!!?! I MADE THAT!!!!
A closer view can show the distinct improvement in my tapering technique between the first hook and the second. It was amazing to see the progress that I was able to make in the course of only a couple of hours! The dents were due to bad hammering, the blemishes were either from overheating or not brushing the oxidized iron off enough.
Here are Eric's and my hooks upon completion. Eric is going to use his to hang his bicycle in the garage when he gets home. I will be hanging mine somewhere as a decorative piece, likely without any function to it. We'll see where it ends up!
Eric and I returned home with filthy hands, smudged faces, sore muscles, and an amazing sense of accomplishing the same task that our ancestors have been doing for thousands of years.
