Practical Blacksmithing

M. T. Richardson

Reviewed by:

John Manners

I purchased a copy of Practical Blacksmithing Vols. 1-4 in one volume shortly after it was published in 1978 at a time when a lot of old trade journals were being reproduced.

I certainly found it very informative but a lot of space was taken up by its 19th Century contributors riding their hobby horses concerning such things as the preferred constituents of their cooling liquids and it contains a plethora of opinionated "only way to do things" information and a lot of advice, some good, some suspect, concerning how to tweak the last ounce of productive advantage out of smithies which were highly professional for their times and extensive in any event.

That said, thoughtful reading of its contents soon enables one to distinguish the wheat from the chaff and the practical from the fanciful and to recognize a fairly reasonable, standard approach to the undertaking of various items of work. However, most of the contributors appeared to work in well-established, extensive and complex enterprises conducted commercially where, say, the existence of large brick forges and plentiful supplies of air was taken for granted. They were the close precursors to modern engineering shops. All this could appear a bit intimidating to one who seeks only to construct his own wheel-hub forge or to acquire an old farmer's forge or the like to do bits and pieces of blacksmithing as the occasion requires. But, if one wishes to forge an axe or a pick or to temper any such item or simply to beat a piece of steel to a desired shape by taking best advantage of the anvil's designed properties this certainly is the book to turn to for instruction as to how to go about it, even if the instruction so gained must be modified to suit one's own circumstances.