Day Two of my Beginning Blacksmithing class. Last night I went to bed worried about how I’d ever manage to forge the wreath hanger. But here it is, on the left, voila. In the picture below, I’m hammering that top piece flat. We used a jig to make the big dipper, so no problem. And making that little twist — that’s a gas. You heat up the middle of the stick, put it in a vise, use a wrench to grip the exposed metal about 4 inches down, and rotate one full turn. Easy peasy. 
No, my comeuppance was the weight of my hammer. I had to get a lighter one. Or was it my new gloves — there are holes in them already, and they didn’t protect my arms from searing when I cut in chase lines. Or was it when I spilled my can of water, all my hot metal, and my punches and chisels besides, trying to fit a rivet into my 3/8″ punch holes? Or maybe my comeuppance was when I finally got the glowing hot rivet pounded in, only to discover my pieces were facing the wrong direction, so the rivet had to be cut out so I could start over. (Of course I couldn’t figure it out, and Tim had to help me.) No, that wasn’t it. Whatever the reason, thank God Tim turned off the forges when he did or I would have started to weep.
Learnings of the day: If you want to be a blacksmith, it helps to have manual dexterity, and just a smidge of coordination. If you want to be a blacksmith, it helps to be quick. If you want to be a blacksmith, it helps to have a knack for bending molten metal to your will.
All that agony and pounding, pounding, pounding. But look, Ma, I made a scroll thingie and a wreath hanger, and a fireplace poker.
5 responses to “I could have wept”