Blacksmithing for Beginners - Basic Hammering Techniques. This video covers all the basic hammering techniques needed to forge metal in the blacksmith shop
I just found your channel, I am a fairly new blacksmith, just over 200 hours. I learned this techniques the hard way.. But this information just helped refine my skills! Looking forward to more videos. Thank you for your knowledge!!
I'm really grateful for your precise, clear, articulate teaching style. Many know their subject and can "do" , but not teach. I really appreciate the instruction in step by step format, without repeating the same things over and over, or saying "um" every three words. You make it clearly understandable, it all relates, and it's not condescending or shouting or filled with ego. How refreshing! Your video has helped me incredibly. Thank you so much!
I've just started forging and welding as a part of a basic metalworking class. From my limited experience I've got to say your hammer strikes are incredibly precise and I can only hope to reach that level of control.
a very nicely done video, with excellent voice, and none of that do-irritating music; indeed, the sound of forging is its own music! I took a blackmithinh course in Sweden (Gränsfors Bruk, the well-known axe makers), 2x4-day sessions, and learned a lot, even made some "keepers", and you have done a great job of compressing the core techniques into a clear and amazingly-short video.
If you are not having any trouble with a regular cross peen then I would not feel the need to switch. There is certainly nothing wrong with using them - I think it's just personal preference . That's actually based on a saw straightening hammer. The combination of straight peen, cross peen and diagonal peen allowed them to hammer in any direction in the centre of a large circular saw
Thanks Dennis. You are like having a shop teacher here at home. I am still in the information gathering stage, but hope to be putting together all the elements together soon to start blacksmithing as a hobby. I live in the Bahamas and there are no local resources to draw from. Your videos are great in the way you not only show what you're doing, but also the how and why.
On my channel I just did a sponsored product review on a forge and attempted to forge a part…NO EXPERIENCE…sure wish I had seen this video….just subscribed
....thank YOU sooooo much for all this very interessting instructions !! YOU are such e friendli instructor !!! Kinde regards from a totali befinner !!!
I know this is an old video but tips are helpful regardless. A small note is to try not to upset by just holding it and hitting it towards yourself, really hard on your body in the long run and not super efficient. Use you thigh as a brace for smaller stuff, and something more solid (and preferably not attached to yourself) for heavier stuff.
For using the Cross-Peening method of hammering, that is using the backside of the mallet to make the metal wider instead of longer, what would I use if I had to use like say, a regular hammer to metalwork with? Is there any substitute that can be used to do this?
Both of us being Left Handed files all seem to be for right handed people .... I have no choice but to file right handed or file towards me left handed.. Maybe yu have a third trick besides hunting down left handed files
You don't need to get that discouraged by this video. Ill still be explaining the whole process. All I was getting at was that you will notice a definite pattern developing as you gain more experience.
Thanks a lot it helped me a lot getting started. Also great job on the sound, it's not like a lot of smithing vidéo where you can barely hear the guy talking because of the hammering and the fan of the forge.
"this is the day 1 for just about anybody" my day 1 was going from struggling to get a fire going to struggling not to burn the steel meanwhile avoiding shrapnel since we decided to forge outside at the time of a storm.
This is an AMAZING tutorial for beginning smiths and even experienced smiths, because it can help us to better articulate the ideas to apprentices. Thank you so much!
HI Dennis, another very informative video. One thing you might want to clarify is that although you clearly show it in the video, you should also emphasize in the voiceover that forging a point is done at the far edge of the anvil, not in the middle. This is a pretty common mistake that beginners make and probably accounts as many divots in the anvil surface as misses do. You might also want to discuss the shape of the cross pein because, as you know, most commercially made hammers have too narrow and too rounded of a pein. It is also worth mentioning that drawing out can also be done using just the edge of the anvil and the face of the hammer, assuming a proper radius on the edge. That is the way I usually do it.
Thanks Scott. I know I made it sound like I wasn't going any further with this subject ( so I really appreciate your concern) but that isn't the case. This video was just meant to quickly explain the techniques that I use in my videos and the way the hammer and anvil work together. That way people will hopefully be able to better understand the process as there watching me work. I will be expanding and reinforcing this information in latter project videos because I feel it is very important but I just wanted something to act as a foundation that can be referred back to. I think I covered the cross peen shape in the hammer reshaping video - did I not? As for hammering over the edge to draw out - I don't like doing that because it is real easy to loose track of what you are doing and forge too thin. You can see when I created the offset that I was checking the depth with every hammer blow to make sure I wasn't going too far. Good to hear from you again
Always a pleasure to see someone battling (peacefully) against the plethora of bad blacksmithing information on youtube, Dennis. Even thought I am probably more advanced than many of those watching your videos (I've been a hobbiest for 25 years) I still watch pretty much every one of your videos because I still pick up info that I had not been exposed to before. Keep up the good work.
You make this look so easy. I have never tried hammering metal (plan to very soon -- just got my first forge), and I imagine I will appreciate this even more once I do, but even with no experience it's amazing what you do with that hammer. It's almost magical watching a carefully curved and shaped piece appear.
Thank you for the time you take speaking to the theory of what you doing, for me, that is an immense help. I like to know the 'why', as that sticks for me. Thank you again!
Your video is great, I'm learning so many activities since this lockdown, one month and I got to play piano and guitar and now blacksmith but I don't have the tools though......
Hello Dennis, great video sir. I have a question. When it comes to making square bar into round bar, I tend to get “valleys”, or cold shuts along my stock, caused by my hammer blows to the corners as I’m attempting to round them out. After a while these valleys appear and I usually have to lay down some power in order to correct them, but unfortunately they just seem to shift to another surface area. Any thoughts or tricks to help me correct this issue? Thank you sir.
Thank you so much. Im 13 and im trying to start up blacksmithing as a hobby and maybe one day nake a bit of money off of it. This video is really helping me in the learning stage.
Feels very "it all boils down to these," reminds me of when I learned most tricks for skateboarding are combinations or variations of ollies, kickflips, or shove its
That's right. It's all about the fundamentals and your understanding of them. The good news about blacksmithing of course, is that you don't need much spacial awareness, split-second timing or a super-human sense of balance.
The only specialized hammer that I use is the cross pean. The three I use most are 2.5, 3 & 4 lbs each. Of those three the one I use most is the 3 lb. I have a regular 4lb sledge that i use for forging or driving punched and a lot of ball peen hammers because they are the easiest to get in a lot of different sizes. But if i had to start over with only one hammer it would be the 3 lb cross pens that i use in almost all my videos.
