Blacksmithing Books and Manuals

Blacksmithing Books, Manuals and Reports

• Complete Modern Blacksmith
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-Alexander G. Weygers, Peter Partch / Paperback 304 pages / Published March 1997
This is truly an unusual and unique resource, this extremely hands-on book brings together popular but long-out-of-print classics (The Modern Blacksmith, The Recycling, Use, and Repair of Tools, and The Making of Tools), essential resource for anyone interested in the making, repair, maintenance of tools. An essential volume in any serious craftsman's library, this book covers setting up a smithy (anvil, forge, hammer, tongs, and all), and manufacturing everything from stonecarving chisels to decorative wallhooks.
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The Contemporary Blacksmith
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-Dona Z. Meilach / Hardcover 256 pages / Published July 2000
Meilach, an author of more than 40 books on art-craft related topics, brings together over 500 works by about 200 artist-craftsmen from 16 countries to illustrate the unprecedented activity in modern ironwork and metal crafts.
By reaching into historical background, this book covers the men and women who are fascinated by smithing, describes several techniques, and shows how metal work has blossomed into a serious art form over the past 25 years.
Provides background in each chapter for the types of objects shown, and concludes with a section of statements from almost all the artists showcased.
Beautifully illustrated with color illustrations of unique objects.
Provides little instruction, but is rich in ideas.
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Practical Blacksmithing and Metalworking
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-Percy W. W. Blandford / Paperback 360 pages / Published July 1988
This book is a comprehensive guide to many of the useful tricks of metalworking, from the basics of metals, alloys, and necessary metal working process in completing projects. Blacksmithing and metalworking can be easier than you would imagine. This book shows you how—with some patience and a working knowledge of metals, tools, and techniques—blacksmithing can be a rewarding, inexpensive hobby. Using simple instructions and first-rate, detailed illustrations, Blandford makes it easy for the novice to learn this craft, while offering project variations complex enough to challenge even the experienced blacksmith or metalworker. You'll learn how to: * use forges and anvils, bellows, swage blocks and mandrels, tongs, and a host of other tools * work with sheet alloys, iron and steel, zinc, brass, tin, bronze, lead, aluminum, copper, and precious metals * cut, shape, form, bend, solder, braze, weld, rivet, harden, anneal, flatten, punch, draw, twist split, loop, scroll, saw, shear, file, drill, hollow-out, planish, mold, and cast all types of metals * make chains and hardware such as nails, catches, bolts, handles, hinges, hooks and latches * create tools like punches, spikes, chisels, crowbars, tongs, hammers, sets, fullers, swages, stakes * make built-up assemblies * apply geometry to the construction of trays, funnels, boxes, cylinders, and more!
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Blacksmith: Ironworker and Farrier
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-Aldren A. Watson / Paperback 192 pages / Published May 2000
This book covers the New England blacksmith of the late 1800s. Part history and part craft record. this book describes the tools and technique of the blacksmith, paying tribute to the skill and ingenuity of this versatile nineteenth-century American craftsman. The blacksmith's roles as hardware maker, farrier, and village handy-man are vividly portrayed in this lively text with illustrations.
Chapters include Wrought Iron: Its Properties and Manufacture;
The Blacksmith Shop and Forge Fire; Working at the Forge; Hardware and Harness; Shoeing a Horse; Wagons, Buggies, and Sleds; and The Blacksmith in His World.
For those who would like a forge and bellows of their own, Watson offers suggestions for laying out a blacksmith shop and constructing a leather bellows and a forge. Also covers methods for fullering, upsetting, and welding wrought iron are clearly explained, as well as the construction of latches, ice tongs, chains, and a wealth of iron fittings.
This book is an important record and a valuable source for all who are interested in the role that the blacksmithing played in the ironworking industry.
Includes some 160 of the author's exceptional drawings.
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The Blacksmith's Craft: A Primer of Tools and Methods
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-Charles McRaven / Paperback 256 pages / Published May 2005
Blacksmithing is one of the traditional "lost arts" deserving re-discovery by anyone interested in do-it-yourself building and crafting. This book belongs in the reference library of everyone interested in traditional American building crafts and culture, as well as those practical folks who want to make and repair their own metal tools, household items, hardware, or farm equipment.
Originally published as Country Blacksmithing in 1981, this practical guide begins with some background on pioneer blacksmiths, and then presents step-by-step instructions on how to build a simple forge, tools and materials needed to set up shop, and techniques of shaping iron, tempering steel, and forge welding. Simple and clear instructions, supplemented by step-by-step photography, show how to build a forge, how to make and/or acquire tools, and how to use those tools to create items of lasting beauty and durability.
Other topics include instructions on making tools for building, house hardware, homestead tools & repairs, and shoeing a horse, as well as making income from your forge. Includes instructional diagrams, charts, and black & white photographs
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New Edge of the Anvil: A Resource Book for the Blacksmith
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-Jack Andrews / Paperback 256 pages / Published September 1994
This comprehensive and easy to read manual is what you need to get started as a blacksmith. The New Edge of the Anvil is a revised and expanded edition of Andrews' earlier and most successful book. This book is a tool for blacksmiths, and metalworkers and artists. Covers how to work metal: heating it, cutting it, upsetting it, drawing it out, twisting it, forge welding it and shaping and assembling it. It tells about metallurgy and tool making, metal finishes and corrosion, sources of information and supplies, charts and guidelines for many tasks. Explains the process of design, how to use the computer in metal design, how to set up a business and how to manage it.
The new sections providing an inspiration for all blacksmiths by including outstanding pictures of historical ironwork.
Including the portfolios of the wrought iron work of Martin Rose and Samuel Yellin, two of America's premier metalworkers of the past. To further inspire and to show the new focus of blacksmithing in the metal arts, six contemporary metalworkers show a series of demonstration pieces of their iron work.
This 256 page book is bound with an improved binding system (Otabind) that allows the pages to lay flat.
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Foxfire 5 : Ironmaking, Blacksmithing, Flintlock Rifles, Bear Hunting, and Other Affairs of Plain Living
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-Eliot Wigginton (Editor) / Paperback 511 pages / Published May 1979
Ironmaking, Blacksmithing, Flintlock Rifles, Bear Hunting, and Other Affairs of Plain Living
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The Art of Blacksmithing
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-Alex W. Bealer / Hardcover 438 pages / Published April 1995
This book describing and illustrating the art of working iron by hand. Learn how an 18th-century iron hinge was made, how an intricate trivet was formed, and how a muzzle-loading rifle barrel was welded. in this Covers equipment and techniques developed over more than 6,000 years of iron working. Explains how blacksmiths worked their craft in yesteryear. Creating a respect for the world of the smithy and his little-known craft.
Includes over 500 illustrations showing how they made everything from knives to horsehoes, from iron grills to rifle barrels and barrel hoops.
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Basic Blacksmithing: An Introduction to Toolmaking
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-David Harries, Bernhard Heer / Paperback 125 pages / Published December 1993
This book covers the basics of the blacksmithing craft. With clear instructions this book gives step by step instructions on basic blacksmithing.
Beginning with only an anvil, a forge, and a few basic tools, nearly all the tools needed by a blacksmith can be made from commonly found materials.
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Decorative and Sculptural Ironwork: Tools, Techniques, Inspiration
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-Dona Z. Meilach, Mel Meilach, Dona Meilach (Photographers)
Hardcover 328 pages / Published December 1993

This book presents covers a short history of ironworking, the ironworking shop, forge and tools, including anvils, vises, hammers, tongs, punches, centrifugal blowers and machine tools. Covers information on building, lighting, and maintaining a fire. Forging procedures are explicitly shown. Including drawing out, flattening, bending, upsetting, twisting, splitting, punching and drifting, hot cutting on a hardy, and joining and finishing techniques. With the help of this unique book, all the fascinating properties of iron and other metals can be creatively explored.
Includes 52 color plates and 717 black and white photos and drawings. Plus a suppliers list and information sources on the Internet.
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Art of the Blacksmith
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-Peter Hubert Parkin / Hardcover 160 pages / Published November 2001
This blacksmithing handbook offers a wealth of material that will be appreciated by aspiring blacksmiths of all skill levels. In addition it is for anyone interested in bringing a creative, contemporary approach to the ancient craft of blacksmithing, and especially for those craftsmen who want to improve and expand their skills.
Coveres the range and use of tools and materials, equipment needed by blacksmiths, the fundamental blacksmithing processes, working at the anvil, drawing down, bending, upsetting and spreading, hot cutting, punching, and also, twisting and joining.
This book would be a welcome addition to any applied art and craft collections.
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Farm Blacksmithing: Practical Hints for Handy-Men
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-James M. Drew, Foreword by Denis Boyles / Paperback 90 pages / Published June 2000
This book is one of a series of turn-of-the-century handbooks published by the Lyons Press, including Handy Farm Devices, Homestead Building, Farm Machinery, Farm Conveniences, and more. This complete, no-nonsense guide, dispenses invaluable information on both the history and craft of the blacksmithing tradition.
Begins with the basics, including how to set up a blacksmith shop, identify and use various essential tools, and select materials with which to work. He then goes on to give a complete education in the most essential techniques any good blacksmith must master. Covers step-by-step instructions hrough a course in forging a wide variety of useful and often attractive items from cutlery, candlesticks, and lanterns to horseshoes and handy farm devices.
Farm Blacksmithing is more than a practical book on craftsmanship and technique. With dozens of illustrations throughout, this fascinating slice of Americana captures the history of a highly valued trade—one that laid important groundwork for modern industrialized metalworking.
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Professional Smithing: Traditional Techniques for Decorative Ironwork, Whitesmithing, Hardware, Toolmaking, and Locksmithing
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-Donald Streeter / Paperback 133 pages / Published April 1995
This excellent manual is written by a recognized professional smith, with over 50 years experience, and whose work appears in hundreds of restorations throughout the country. Traditional smithing techniques are presented in clear, step-by-step text and photographs, enabling the reader to produce high-quality, hand-forged small iron work. Including detailed descriptions of work space layout, specialized tools and techniques, whitesmithing, toolmaking, and locksmithing. The author demonstrates special emphasis on the crafting of early high-quality, handforged kitchen utensils, fireplace tools, locks, keys, and decorative ironware. Including hinges, hasps, latches, bolts, hooks, springs, and more. Students and professional blacksmiths will find this manual of great practical value, as will collectors of early American ironwork, owners of colonial houses, historians, preservationists, restorationists, and anyone interested in knowing how these early products were made.
Includes 257 illustrations.
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Practical Blacksmithing: Vol One, A Collection of Articles
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-M. T. Richardson (Editor) / Paperback 262 pages / Published April 1998
This is Volumes I of a two-part reprint of a classic text on blacksmithing as they originally appeared over a century ago. Both volumes were complied from a collection of articles pertaining to the skill, practices, and art of blacksmithing that were contributed by skilled workmen over a period of time to the columns of "The Blacksmith and Wheel". Coverage includes tools and equipment, shop plans, techniques, materials, and basic processes. Includes original line drawings and a new foreword.
They are interesting reading and would be of much interest to present day blacksmiths of all levels of skill and experience.
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Practical Blacksmithing: Vol Two, A Collection of Articles
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-M. T. Richardson (Editor) / Paperback 276 pages / Published April 1998
This is Volumes II of a two-part reprint of a classic text on blacksmithing as they originally appeared over a century ago. Both volumes were complied from a collection of articles pertaining to the skill, practices, and art of blacksmithing that were contributed by skilled workmen over a period of time to the columns of "The Blacksmith and Wheel". Coverage includes tools and equipment, shop plans, techniques, materials, and basic processes. Includes original line drawings and a new foreword.
They are interesting reading and would be of much interest to present day blacksmiths of all levels of skill and experience.
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Blacksmithing Primer: A Course in Basic and Intermediate Blacksmithing
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-Randy McDaniel / Paperback 269 pages / Published December 2003
This well written book details the process of blacksmithing with beginning with the setting up a work area. Beginning with the building of your own forge to making tools and even some elaborate door knockers. This is all written in a very easy to understand and easy to read style. This book is quite useful for beginning and intermediate blacksmiths.
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Blacksmithing Made Easy
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-International Correspondence Schools Staff / Paperback 110 pages / Published December 1991
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Blacksmithing Instructors' Guide
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-David Harries, Bernhard Heer (Illustrator) / Paperback 69 pages / Published May 1993
This guide is designed to help skilled blacksmiths who have little or no teaching experience to train others in basic forge work techniques. Covers using easily obtainable equipment and scrap metal to produce useful tools such as hoes, sickles, hammers and axes.
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Cowboy Spurs and Their Makers, Vol. 37
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-Jane Pattie, Donald Emmet Worcester, / Foreword by Don Worcester, B. Byron Price (Introduction)
Hardcover 192 pages / Published February 1991
This book covers the history and art of spurs and spur-making, including interviews with many old-time spur-makers. The informative and quite interesting text includes period and modern photographs, 12 in full color, of the most artful spurs and their makers. The introduction is by B. Byron Price of the National Cowboy Hall of Fame.
Includes an appendix listing artisans, past and present, with the locations of their shops and the identifying characteristics of their products.
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