49-411: A blacksmith is a metalsmith who creates objects primarily from wrought iron or steel , but sometimes from other metals , by forging the metal , using tools to hammer, bend, and cut (cf. tinsmith ). Blacksmiths produce objects such as gates, grilles, railings, light fixtures, furniture, sculpture, tools, agricultural implements, decorative and religious items, cooking utensils, and weapons. There
98-503: A bellows ) to superheat the inside, allowing for efficient melting, soldering and annealing of metals. Today, this tool is still widely used by blacksmiths as it was traditionally. The term, metalsmith , often refers to artisans and craftpersons who practice their craft in many different metals, including gold, copper and silver. Jewelers often refer to their craft as metalsmithing , and many universities offer degree programs in metalsmithing, jewelry, enameling and blacksmithing under
147-475: A common occupational surname (German Schmidt or Schmied , Portuguese Ferreiro , Ferreira , French Lefèvre , Spanish Herrero , Italian Fabbri , Ferrari , Ferrero , Ukrainian Koval etc.). As a suffix , -smith connotes a meaning of a specialized craftsperson—for example, wordsmith and tunesmith are nouns synonymous with writer or songwriter, respectively. In pre-industrialized times, smiths held high or special social standing since they supplied
196-406: A heavy bar or rod for the hammer handle. Punching is not limited to depressions and holes. It also includes cutting, slitting, and drifting—all done with a chisel. The five basic forging processes are often combined to produce and refine the shapes necessary for finished products. For example, to fashion a cross-peen hammer head, a smith would start with a bar roughly the diameter of the hammer face:
245-405: A very low carbon content, and also included up to 5% of glassy iron silicate slag in the form of numerous very fine stringers. This slag content made the iron very tough, gave it considerable resistance to rusting, and allowed it to be more easily "forge welded," a process in which the blacksmith permanently joins two pieces of iron, or a piece of iron and a piece of steel, by heating them nearly to
294-436: A white heat and hammering them together. Forge welding is more difficult with modern mild steel, because it welds in a narrower temperature band. The fibrous nature of wrought iron required knowledge and skill to properly form any tool which would be subject to stress. Modern steel is produced using either the blast furnace or arc furnaces. Wrought iron was produced by a labor-intensive process called puddling , so this material
343-430: Is smelted into usable metal, a certain amount of carbon is usually alloyed with the iron. (Charcoal is almost pure carbon.) The amount of carbon significantly affects the properties of the metal. If the carbon content is over 2%, the metal is called cast iron , because it has a relatively low melting point and is easily cast. It is quite brittle, however, and cannot be forged so therefore not used for blacksmithing. If
392-459: Is a heroic blacksmith in Germanic mythology. The Poetic Edda states that he forged beautiful gold rings set with wonderful gems. He was captured by king Níðuðr , who cruelly hamstrung him and imprisoned him on an island. Völundr eventually had his revenge by killing Níðuðr's sons and fashioning goblets from their skulls, jewels from their eyes and a brooch from their teeth. He then raped
441-472: Is an alloy of copper and zinc . Each material responds differently under the hammer and must be separately studied by the blacksmith. Steel with less than 0.6% carbon content cannot be hardened enough by simple heat-treatment to make useful hardened-steel tools. Hence, in what follows, wrought-iron, low-carbon-steel, and other soft unhardenable iron varieties are referred to indiscriminately as just iron . In Hindu mythology, Tvastar also known as Vishvakarma
490-433: Is important for indicating the temperature and workability of the metal. As iron heats to higher temperatures, it first glows red, then orange, yellow, and finally white. The ideal heat for most forging is the bright yellow-orange color that indicates forging heat . Because they must be able to see the glowing color of the metal, some blacksmiths work in dim, low-light conditions, but most work in well-lit conditions. The key
539-488: Is lengthened or "drawn out." As an example of drawing, a smith making a chisel might flatten a square bar of steel, lengthening the metal, reducing its depth but keeping its width consistent. Drawing does not have to be uniform. A taper can result as in making a wedge or a woodworking chisel blade. If tapered in two dimensions, a point results. Drawing can be accomplished with a variety of tools and methods. Two typical methods using only hammer and anvil would be hammering on
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#1732779977158588-439: Is likely to have them crack and break apart. This is a problem for some blade-making steels, which must be worked carefully to avoid developing hidden cracks that would cause failure in the future. Though rarely hand-worked, titanium is notably hot short. Even such common smithing processes as decoratively twisting a bar are impossible with it. Upsetting is the process of making metal thicker in one dimension through shortening in
637-430: Is now a difficult-to-find specialty product. Modern blacksmiths generally substitute mild steel for making objects traditionally of wrought iron. Sometimes they use electrolytic-process pure iron. Many blacksmiths also incorporate materials such as bronze , copper , or brass in artistic products. Aluminum and titanium may also be forged by the blacksmith's process. Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin , while brass
686-462: Is one of the pantheon of Orisha traditionally worshipped by the Yoruba people of Nigeria . Gold , silver , and copper all occur in nature in their native states , as reasonably pure metals – humans probably worked these metals first. These metals are all quite malleable , and humans' initial development of hammering techniques was undoubtedly applied to these metals. During
735-400: Is sufficiently corrosion-resistant that artifacts of bronze may last thousands of years relatively unscathed. Accordingly, museums frequently preserve more examples of Bronze Age metal-work than examples of artifacts from the much younger Iron Age . Buried iron artifacts may completely rust away in less than 100 years. Examples of ancient iron work still extant are very much the exception to
784-472: Is the archetypical component of smithing. Often the hammering is done while the metal is hot, having been heated in a forge . Smithing can also involve the other aspects of metalworking , such as refining metals from their ores (traditionally done by smelting ), casting it into shapes ( founding ), and filing to shape and size. The prevalence of metalworking in the culture of recent centuries has led Smith and its equivalents in various languages to be
833-509: Is the blacksmith of the devas . The earliest references of Tvastar can be found in the Rigveda . Hephaestus (Latin: Vulcan ) was the blacksmith of the gods in Greek and Roman mythology . A supremely skilled artisan whose forge was a volcano, he constructed most of the weapons of the gods, as well as beautiful assistants for his smithy and a metal fishing-net of astonishing intricacy. He
882-510: Is to have consistent lighting, but not too bright. Direct sunlight obscures the colors. The techniques of smithing can be roughly divided into forging (sometimes called "sculpting"), welding, heat-treating, and finishing. Forging —the process smiths use to shape metal by hammering—differs from machining in that forging does not remove material. Instead, the smith hammers the iron into shape. Even punching and cutting operations (except when trimming waste) by smiths usually re-arrange metal around
931-587: The Chalcolithic era and the Bronze Age , humans in the Mideast learned how to smelt , melt , cast , rivet , and (to a limited extent) forge copper and bronze. Bronze is an alloy of copper and approximately 10% to 20% Tin . Bronze is superior to just copper, by being harder, being more resistant to corrosion, and by having a lower melting point (thereby requiring less fuel to melt and cast). Much of
980-594: The Proto-Germanic *smiþaz meaning "skilled worker". Blacksmiths work by heating pieces of wrought iron or steel until the metal becomes soft enough for shaping with hand tools, such as a hammer, an anvil and a chisel . Heating generally takes place in a forge fueled by propane, natural gas, coal, charcoal, coke , or oil. Some modern blacksmiths may also employ an oxyacetylene or similar blowtorch for more localized heating. Induction heating methods are gaining popularity among modern blacksmiths. Color
1029-475: The anvil horn, and hammering on the anvil face using the cross peen of a hammer. Another method for drawing is to use a tool called a fuller , or the peen of the hammer, to hasten the drawing out of a thick piece of metal. (The technique is called fullering from the tool.) Fullering consists of hammering a series of indentations with corresponding ridges, perpendicular to the long section of the piece being drawn. The resulting effect looks somewhat like waves along
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#17327799771581078-418: The appearance of the piece. An experienced smith selects the finish based on the metal and on the intended use of the item. Finishes include (among others): paint, varnish, bluing , browning , oil, and wax. A blacksmith's striker is an assistant (frequently an apprentice ) whose job is to swing a large sledgehammer in heavy forging operations, as directed by the blacksmith. In practice, the blacksmith holds
1127-459: The blacksmith had a general knowledge of how to make and repair many things, from the most complex of weapons and armor to simple things like nails or lengths of chain. The "black" in "blacksmith" refers to the black firescale , a layer of oxides that forms on the surface of the metal during heating. The origin of smith is the Old English word smið meaning "blacksmith", originating from
1176-418: The carbon content is between 0.25% and 2%, the resulting metal is tool steel , which can be heat treated as discussed above. When the carbon content is below 0.25%, the metal is either " wrought iron (wrought iron is not smelted and cannot come from this process) " or "mild steel." The terms are never interchangeable. In preindustrial times, the material of choice for blacksmiths was wrought iron. This iron had
1225-447: The center of the weld connects first and the connection spreads outward under the hammer blows, pushing out the flux (if used) and foreign material. The dressed metal goes back in the fire, is brought near to welding heat, removed from the fire, and brushed. Flux is sometimes applied, which prevents oxygen from reaching and burning the metal during forging, and it is returned to the fire. The smith now watches carefully to avoid overheating
1274-596: The copper used by the Mediterranean World came from the island of Cyprus . Most of the tin came from the Cornwall region of the island of Great Britain , transported by sea-borne Phoenician and Greek traders. Copper and bronze cannot be hardened by heat-treatment, they can only be hardened by cold working . To accomplish this, a piece of bronze is lightly hammered for a long period of time. The localized stress-cycling causes work hardening by changing
1323-404: The ends of the stock down into the bend, 'upsetting' it at the point of the bend. They would then dress the bend by drawing the sides of the bend to keep the correct thickness. The hammering would continue—upsetting and then drawing—until the curve had been properly shaped. In the primary operation was the bend, but the drawing and upsetting are done to refine the shape. Welding is the joining of
1372-583: The hammer over the horn or edge of the anvil or by inserting a bending fork into the hardy hole (the square hole in the top of the anvil), placing the work piece between the tines of the fork, and bending the material to the desired angle. Bends can be dressed and tightened, or widened, by hammering them over the appropriately shaped part of the anvil. Some metals are "hot short", meaning they lose their tensile strength when heated. They become like Plasticine : although they may still be manipulated by squeezing, an attempt to stretch them, even by bending or twisting,
1421-450: The handle hole would be punched and drifted (widened by inserting or passing a larger tool through it), the head would be cut (punched, but with a wedge), the peen would be drawn to a wedge, and the face would be dressed by upsetting. As with making a chisel, since it is lengthened by drawing it would also tend to spread in width. A smith would therefore frequently turn the chisel-to-be on its side and hammer it back down—upsetting it—to check
1470-580: The hero known to the Ossetians as Kurdalægon and the Circassians as Tlepsh is a blacksmith and skilled craftsman whose exploits exhibit shamanic features, sometimes bearing comparison to those of the Scandinavian deity Odin . One of his greatest feats is acting as a type of male midwife to the hero Xamyc , who has been made the carrier of the embryo of his son Batraz by his dying wife
1519-403: The hole, rather than drilling it out as swarf . Forging uses seven basic operations or techniques: These operations generally require at least a hammer and anvil , but smiths also use other tools and techniques to accommodate odd-sized or repetitive jobs. Drawing lengthens the metal by reducing one or both of the other two dimensions. As the depth is reduced, or the width narrowed, the piece
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1568-419: The hot iron at the anvil (with tongs) in one hand, and indicates where to strike the iron by tapping it with a small hammer in the other hand. The striker then delivers a heavy blow to the indicated spot with a sledgehammer. During the 20th century and into the 21st century, this role has become increasingly unnecessary and automated through the use of trip hammers or reciprocating power hammers. When iron ore
1617-642: The king's daughter, after drugging her with strong beer, and escaped, laughing, on wings of his own making, boasting that he had fathered a child upon her. Seppo Ilmarinen , the Eternal Hammerer, blacksmith and inventor in the Kalevala , is an archetypal artificer from Finnish mythology. Tubal-Cain is mentioned in the book of Genesis of the Torah as the original smith. Ogun , the god of blacksmiths, warriors, hunters and others who work with iron
1666-532: The metal glows an intense yellow or white. At this temperature the steel is near molten. Any foreign material in the weld, such as the oxides or "scale" that typically form in the fire, can weaken it and cause it to fail. Thus the mating surfaces to be joined must be kept clean. To this end a smith makes sure the fire is a reducing fire: a fire where, at the heart, there is a great deal of heat and very little oxygen. The smith also carefully shapes mating faces so that as they come together foreign material squeezes out as
1715-460: The metal in the fire so he can see it without letting surrounding air contact the surface. (Note that smiths don't always use flux, especially in the UK.) Now the smith moves with rapid purpose, quickly taking the metal from the fire to the anvil and bringing the mating faces together. A few light hammer taps bring the mating faces into complete contact and squeeze out the flux—and finally, the smith returns
1764-412: The metal is joined. To clean the faces, protect them from oxidation, and provide a medium to carry foreign material out of the weld, the smith sometimes uses flux—typically powdered borax, silica sand, or both. The smith first cleans parts to be joined with a wire brush, then puts them in the fire to heat. With a mix of drawing and upsetting the smith shapes the faces so that when finally brought together,
1813-412: The metal tools needed for farming (especially the plough ) and warfare . More details on the history can be found in the article blacksmith . A metalsmith is one who works with or has the knowledge and the capacity of working with "all" metals. Types of smiths include: The ancient traditional tool of the smith is a forge or smithy , which is a furnace designed to allow compressed air (through
1862-455: The metal. There is some challenge to this because, to see the color of the metal, the smith must remove it from the fire—exposing it to air, which can rapidly oxidize it. So the smith might probe into the fire with a bit of steel wire, prodding lightly at the mating faces. When the end of the wire sticks on to the metal, it is at the right temperature (a small weld forms where the wire touches the mating face, so it sticks). The smith commonly places
1911-622: The norm. Concurrent with the advent of alphabetic characters in the Iron Age , humans became aware of the metal iron . However, in earlier ages, iron's qualities, in contrast to those of bronze, were not generally understood. Iron artifacts , composed of meteoric iron , have the chemical composition containing up to 40% nickel . As this source of this iron is extremely rare and fortuitous, little development of smithing skills peculiar to iron can be assumed to have occurred. That we still possess any such artifacts of meteoric iron may be ascribed to
1960-408: The other. One form is to heat the end of a rod and then hammer on it as one would drive a nail: the rod gets shorter, and the hot part widens. An alternative to hammering on the hot end is to place the hot end on the anvil and hammer on the cold end. Punching may be done to create a decorative pattern, or to make a hole. For example, in preparation for making a hammerhead, a smith would punch a hole in
2009-442: The same or similar kind of metal. A modern blacksmith has a range of options and tools to accomplish this. The basic types of welding commonly employed in a modern workshop include traditional forge welding as well as modern methods, including oxyacetylene and arc welding . In forge welding, the pieces to join are heated to what is generally referred to as welding heat . For mild steel most smiths judge this temperature by color:
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2058-454: The size and shape of the metal's crystals . The hardened bronze can then be ground to sharpen it to make edged tools. Clocksmiths as recently as the 19th century used work hardening techniques to harden the teeth of brass gears and ratchets . Tapping on just the teeth produced harder teeth, with superior wear-resistance. By contrast, the rest of the gear was left in a softer and tougher state, more capable of resisting cracking. Bronze
2107-407: The spread and keep the metal at the correct width. Or, if a smith needed to put a 90-degree bend in a bar and wanted a sharp corner on the outside of the bend, they would begin by hammering an unsupported end to make the curved bend. Then, to "fatten up" the outside radius of the bend, one or both arms of the bend would need to be pushed back to fill the outer radius of the curve. So they would hammer
2156-437: The top of the piece. Then the smith turns the hammer over to use the flat face to hammer the tops of the ridges down level with the bottoms of the indentations. This forces the metal to grow in length (and width if left unchecked) much faster than just hammering with the flat face of the hammer. Heating iron to a "forging heat" allows bending as if it were a soft, ductile metal, like copper or silver. Bending can be done with
2205-417: The vagaries of climate, and the increased corrosion-resistance conferred on iron by the presence of nickel. Metalsmith A metalsmith or simply smith is a craftsperson fashioning useful items (for example, tools, kitchenware , tableware , jewelry , armor and weapons ) out of various metals . Smithing is one of the oldest metalworking occupations . Shaping metal with a hammer ( forging )
2254-491: The water-sprite Lady Isp, who spits it between his shoulder blades, where it forms a womb-like cyst. Kurdalaegon prepares a type of tower or scaffold above a quenching bath for Xamyc, and, when the time is right, lances the cyst to liberate the infant hero Batraz as a newborn babe of white-hot steel , whom Kurdalægon then quenches like a newly forged sword. The Anglo-Saxon Wayland Smith , known in Old Norse as Völundr ,
2303-417: The work to the fire. The weld begins with the taps, but often the joint is weak and incomplete, so the smith reheats the joint to welding temperature and works the weld with light blows to "set" the weld and finally to dress it to the shape. Depending on the intended use of the piece, a blacksmith may finish it in a number of ways: A range of treatments and finishes can inhibit oxidation and enhance or change
2352-437: Was a historical distinction between the heavy work of the blacksmith and the more delicate operations of a whitesmith , who usually worked in gold , silver , pewter , or the finishing steps of fine steel. The place where a blacksmith works is variously called a smithy , a forge , or a blacksmith's shop . While there are many professions who work with metal, such as farriers , wheelwrights , and armorers , in former times
2401-634: Was the god of metalworking, fire, and craftsmen. In Celtic mythology , the role of Smith is held by eponymous (their names do mean 'smith') characters : Goibhniu (Irish myths of the Tuatha Dé Danann cycle) or Gofannon (Welsh myths/ the Mabinogion ). Brigid or Brigit, an Irish goddess , is sometimes described as the patroness of blacksmiths. In the Nart mythology of the Caucasus
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