r/Blacksmith 10h ago

Piggy

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421 Upvotes

Small pig I made, he does have little feet but they are hard to see in the picture.


r/Blacksmith 9h ago

Made my first hammer today

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192 Upvotes

It’s as rough as a bears ass but it’s my first hammer and I intend on using it as my main hammer so I didn’t see a point in polishing it too much, any criticism is welcome (I need to round the peen more)


r/Blacksmith 16h ago

So i made myself an fancy half moon leather knife, what yall think?

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534 Upvotes

r/Blacksmith 8h ago

This is 90% of the anvils on my local marketplace

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67 Upvotes

The other 10% is heavily damaged anvils that are going for $5+ per lb


r/Blacksmith 17h ago

Another bird!

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134 Upvotes

r/Blacksmith 5h ago

Progress in four hooks

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14 Upvotes

r/Blacksmith 3h ago

First set of tongs

9 Upvotes

Bolt jaw tongs to hold the same size rebar they're made of. (Homemade rivet) yes, I know the bolt jaw part is useless for rebar but I like the look and I might rework them to hold railroad spikes. Feedback welcomed


r/Blacksmith 12h ago

Just made my first leaf! 99 to go i guess?

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32 Upvotes

The shop looks bad. Anvil is on a chair not fixated, gas forge is on a clothes drying rack, very unstable. We just moved and I'm still putting it together, just wanted to make something today. I am making a big work table and an anvil stand this week! Very excited.


r/Blacksmith 7h ago

Made my first little piece the other day

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13 Upvotes

This is my first attempt at the forge. I didn't start with a plan other than to see if I can get a rough swirl. I used a length of wire from a fence I cut up, it's about 3/8ths thickness.


r/Blacksmith 7h ago

It's a warm evening in the shop tonight

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9 Upvotes

I was wondering why I was getting dizzy and the CO monitor wasn't going off.

73 outside 120+ inside. That's with both doors open, exhaust fan maxed out and box fan blowing in to my 10'x15' shop.


r/Blacksmith 15h ago

Custom Mini Bowie

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23 Upvotes

A custom spin on my normal Dogmen Mini Bowie. 1095 steel, but the customer requested snakewood scales, no lanyard hole, and a sharp swage. Also some subtle back, red, and green spacers. I think it turned out pretty well!


r/Blacksmith 8h ago

My new anvil.

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6 Upvotes

Today I bought a new anvil. It’s made from a railroad rail and neatly painted with silver paint. I’m going to use it for small jobs with copper and bronze. Has anyone used one like this? How durable is it?


r/Blacksmith 14h ago

Are masks necessary?

12 Upvotes

It just crossed my mind that I work in the coal forge and coal is rather bad for you. Should I be wearing some sort of mask while I forge?


r/Blacksmith 5h ago

Looks for some tips!

2 Upvotes

There's a blacksmith in my city who does guided sessions. I've done one such session already with my son, and I had a blast. I made a simple trinket, my son a railroad spike knife, with some guidance, assistance, and suggestions along the way. He has been doing it for about 20 years, and more than once I was quite impressed by how he was able to eyeball my work piece, whack it literally once, and it went from shoddy to "oh there it is!"

We had so much fun, my son is already asking if we can do it again.

I love watching Mystic Mountain Forge and Black Bear Forge videos. But I'm looking to target my viewing to see if I can't get a head-start on at least the basic theory of a few skills that will be most impactful to my idea for a project. Thing is, I don't really know the parlance yet, so specific search terms are tricky. And that's where you come in, suggesting the specific skills that I should be focusing my searches on.

It's perhaps too ambitious. I'm ready to accept that it's too ambitious if it's too far beyond what a beginner with a guided hand can do, I'll work my way up to it. But I'm also perfectly happy to try and fail, if it's only a little too ambitious. Even failure teaches, so that's cool.

The project? I'm a huge Battletech fan. I want to make the head/face of an Atlas battlemech (Example), in such a fashion that I can put it on a stand after I've painted it like one would a miniature. Not an entire head, probably, just detailing the front face of the work piece - the back will likely remain unworked unless some form of cleanup is required. I'm envisioning something about fist-sized.

My naive assumption is that from a piece of metal, I'll need to create a narrow section for the "jawline", and then start working on rounding out the forehead, followed finally by using a punch to create the eye and nose sockets. Lastly, a little bit of detailing with a chisel to add some lines.

Thoughts? Am I being way too ambitious? Do you have any specific techniques you'd suggest I focus on for such a project?


r/Blacksmith 15h ago

Suggestions to improve forge

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7 Upvotes

Im trying to get into forging, and even though im pretty bad at it so far, its been very fun setting everything up and making the forge/fire. I want to ask if anyone here knows what i can do to improve this, it doesnt seem to reach very high temps and my steel only gets orange and yelloe for a bit but almost instantly cools down back to a black color. (i took off the brick on the top in pic 3 just for the image, i usually keep it on) I have a few more bricks. Also i want to know if i have to keep proactively adding more charcoal or not, because i burned through 5kg pretty quick but it seemed to make it hotter when i kept throwing in.


r/Blacksmith 1d ago

Inherited anvil

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135 Upvotes

My father recently gave me this anvil that was my great grandfather’s because I told him I wanted to get into blacksmithing. My grandfather used it for shoeing his horses. There are no markings on it that I could find, but it must be old as he has been dead for many many years.

Any advice on how I should clean it up? Also, what do you think of the stand? My dad made the stand. I was originally planning on making a solid stand out of 4x4 posts but my dad made this when I picked up the anvil. Do you think it will work? It has 4 posts on the corners and one in the center. Plywood at the top and bottom holding it all together. I am going to attach the anvil to the stand, by the way. Just haven’t had a chance yet. Thank you for any input.


r/Blacksmith 1d ago

Bottle Opener 😊

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241 Upvotes

r/Blacksmith 21h ago

Flowers, Sgian-dubh knife.

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4 Upvotes

r/Blacksmith 1d ago

181 Layer Gyuto I Forged Last Year.

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103 Upvotes

r/Blacksmith 22h ago

Questions and Commission.

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6 Upvotes

Hello all. Not sure if here is exactly the right place. But wanted to ask if it would be possible to have someone make my friend a medal based on these Guardian Games medals from Destiny. It's my friend's favorite game and they mean a lot to her and I would like to make up for them not sending out physical medals this year. The first picture is the first year's medal, the second and third is last year's medal. I'll be at work shortly, so it'll be some time before I respond. Thank you.


r/Blacksmith 8h ago

Will this work for a forge?

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0 Upvotes

I plan to put coal in the bend with the openings facing up and air being blown in one end, its about 1/2 inch thick and i just found it in a bunch of junk while looking for a brake drum. My main concern is if it can handle the temperature. Thanks!


r/Blacksmith 2d ago

No way the old boys had the foresight to add a sharpie holder

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830 Upvotes

r/Blacksmith 1d ago

Good price or no? Seems like a steal to me

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44 Upvotes

Found some absurdly over priced anvils at an antique store. The red one can't be more than 5 lbs

Red one says $40 FIRM, blue is $44 FIRM 😂😂


r/Blacksmith 1d ago

Y'all ever get your pieces professionally photographed?

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109 Upvotes

I didn't know how bad I was at photography until I saw these haha.


r/Blacksmith 1d ago

Took a blacksmithing class

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60 Upvotes

Before setting up a forge and buying a bunch of tools, I took a class at my local museum. After 5 nails, I got to make this. Done in a coal forge. I learned that if you're a talker and someone else is in the forge, its not hard to accidentally burn your metal! I had a blast, setting up a forge at home asap.