Details forging techniques from the start to finish, beginning with the building of your own forge to making tools and elaborate door knockers.

This is a new corrected and revised printing of Master Blacksmith Randy MacDaniel's introductory book which has sold over 35,000 copies to date. Virtually every task beginning and intermediate blacksmiths must master is presented in this excellent book. Over 400 detailed drawings help increase comprehension levels. This is a reference manual that will be found lying open on the workbench more often than found on the bookshelf and is highly recommended to anyone swinging a hammer to shape hot metal. This is an excellent introduction to this glorious craft and an excellent resource for advancing your knowledge, skills, and vision for blacksmithing. --Randy McDaniel

The tenet of this book is provide a tool for artists/blacksmiths and metalworkers. It tells 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. It explains the process of design, how to use the computer in metal design, how to set up a business and how to manage it. Providing an inspiration for all blacksmiths are 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.

The Backyard Blacksmith takes the mystery out of blacksmithing, but not the magic... There is an increasing interest and revival in the art of blacksmithing as a hobby and art, and both men and women are becoming at-home blacksmiths. Blacksmithing is a simple, rewarding craft anyone can enjoy in their backyard or home workshop -- even beginners can produce useful and beautiful projects on their first try. The Backyard Blacksmith shows you how blacksmithing can be easy to learn, and a rewarding hobby, with some patience and a working knowledge of metals, basic tools, and techniques. Through instructions and illustrations, readers will learn to make simple tools and useful items, such as nails, hinges, and handles, and also an interesting mix of artful projects, such letter openers, door knockers and botanical ornaments.

With The Everyday Blacksmith, learn to make hooks, spoons, and tools of all sorts. This essential blacksmith's reference includes many projects contributed by leading blacksmiths from around the world, each featuring plenty of opportunity for variation. For centuries, blacksmiths were the craftsmen and artists that worked society's most important material—iron. Blacksmiths were not only a fixture in their community, they helped shape that community through their particular method of making the hinges, hooks, brackets, and tools their neighbors used every day. Blacksmithing today is enjoying a resurgence. Our modern society has discovered that no amount of technical perfection replaces the feeling of picking up a hand-forged object, knowing that it was shaped by an individual's creativity and physical effort. Modern smiths can use the first section of The Everyday Blacksmith as a reference for shop basics: safety, equipment, and techniques. These basic techniques are illustrated through a series of projects. It also covers methods for finishing pieces. In the second section of the book, you'll find a step-by-step guide to a diverse range of essential blacksmith projects. Projects are structured by category and difficulty. The emphasis is on the accessibility of techniques, functionality of projects, and diversity of design. The Everyday Blacksmith is sure to become every shop's go-to reference.

The Art and Craft of the Blacksmith is a visually stunning introduction to the tools, techniques, and traditions every modern smith needs to know.