forum I know quite a bit about various types of smithing if you're interested.
Started by @Yamatsu
tune

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@Yamatsu

First tidbit: BLADE SMITHING AND BLACKSMITHING ARE DIFFERENT. Blacksmithing involves working with iron and steel, specifically. Bladesmithing is working with those metals to make weapons.

Second tidbit: Most workshops have a whole lot of different smiths depending on what metals they're working with. Goldsmiths, Silversmiths, Tinsmiths, and a few people that may be good with leather or wood.

I also know a few different ways to make blades and what's the best to use for whatever weapon you're making. I also know some gunsmithing, if anyone's interested.

Deleted user

smacks down the door

HI YAMATSU I AM HERE TO ASSIST

I frickin love researching the different types of smithing.

^-^

@Yamatsu

I have a character that Earthbends, but he makes the excuse that you can't simply shift metal into its right position, there's a whole lot more process to that. Also, I think nothing beats a personally-crafted sword. Mass production's great if you've got an army to supply, but the sign of a true craftsman is when he can make a sword that lasts longer than they do!

@ninja_violinist

*slides in with next to no knowledge about smithing
Please teach me your ways
(here are a few questions but please tell me anything you know)
How specific are the different fields of smithing? Like for example, if a character was a blacksmith what would the scope of their work be/what sort of items would they be making? How likely is it for one kind of smith to switch over to a different kind?
What about smithing lingo? If I wanted to write a smith realistically (like probably a more old-age medieval kind of smith) what sort of terminology would I need to understand and be able to use naturally?

@Yamatsu

Smithing gets as specific as the metal you're working with and what you're doing with it. Blacksmiths work with iron and steel, and the others are pretty self-explanatory (Goldsmiths, Silversmiths, Tinsmiths, etc.). Bladesmiths exclusively forge cutting implements, and Blacksmiths can do the same. Blacksmiths can switch between blades and other stuff because they are the more "general" field.

Blacksmiths make anything from coat hangers to doorknobs to farming equipment, Gold- and Silversmiths work with jewelry, but Silversmiths can make a whole bunch of stuff like silverware and little fixtures for furniture. Tinsmiths make stuff out of tin like cups and lanterns. Bladesmiths work with a bunch of metals as long as they are being used to make a weapon, iron, steel, bronze, etc.

Some useful blacksmithing lingo includes:
–Critical temperature: The point at which metal is JUST under its melting point.
–Tempering: The process of heating a metal evenly to make it stronger. It relaxes the crystal structure of the metal, thereby making it less brittle and likely to snap.
–Hardening: Heating metal to critical temperature and dipping it in a liquid. There are two types of liquids used, standard water and oil. Water and oil can make the blade bend in a certain way, so its useful to either straighten in with a vice or just grind excess off to make the blade even on both sides. "Oil" doesn't mean any old oil, they mostly use canola oil or something similar. Don't ask me which is better, though.
–Scale: If you're heating metal up in a propane forge, burning propane creates water. The water reacts with the iron, creating a thin layer of rust called scale. Most smiths use Borax or scrape it off with a wire brush.
–Wet Forging: Hammering out metal on a wet anvil. Blasts the scale right off with the temperature difference.
–Tennessee Wet Forging: Same deal as wet forging, but you use whiskey instead!
–Brassing: A favorite technique of mine, heating up the metal slightly with a blowtorch and using a brass wire wheel that you'd put on a Dremel or something to deposit the brass color onto the metal. It looks SO COOL.

You're probably going to have to look up blade anatomy if you're Blacksmith is going to be forging swords. Look up the tools they would use in a period forge, while you're at it.

I may be forgetting stuff, so tell me if I missed anything that you may need!

@ninja_violinist

BLESS YOU
THANK YOU SO MUCH
THIS MAKES SO MUCH SENSE
(you should write Wikipedia articles or something because this was informative and actually fun to read)

@Becfromthedead group

I'm just gonna hold onto this information for later… I have a character who is just starting an apprenticeship with a blacksmith (I didn't really think about how many things they do!), probably more oriented towards making weapons.
What are the easiest things to do starting out? How does an absolute beginner start smithing?

@Yamatsu

I have absolutely no idea. I love watching people forge weapons, but I have never done it myself. My guess would be to either buy or make yourself a forge, get some hammers and protective gear, and just go nuts on trying to learn techniques. Just make things.

Unless this was for a character, in which case they would probably become an apprentice and start doing the most menial tasks, sweeping, cleaning out the forge, all of the safer tasks that lower the risk of injury. There's fire, molten metal, and a lot of crushy-grindy bits that will maim or kill an inexperienced smithy. Once they know how to use the tools and equipment, they will start doing smaller forging or building projects like creating handles, pommels, or small knives and such.

@Yamatsu

(I'm feelin' lonely and I want to help someone. This is a "just in case" bump for anyone who needs me)

@Yamatsu

GASPS
SOMEONE NEEDS ME! I FEEL WANTED AGAIN!

Ahem.

Japanese katanas have to be forged special because Japan is an island. Despite all of their mountainous terrain, the iron there sucks. It's all full of impurities and whatnot and if you tried to make a blade out of it, if it even remained a whole piece when you were done, it wouldn't even be good enough to pick your teeth with it.

However, Japanese bladesmiths figured out some pretty ingenious ways to make it work for them. Taking their iron, they would first build a temporary furnace called a Tatara, a clay pipe big enough to fit any iron chunks and iron sand they had along with a lot of charcoal. They would smelt the iron into one big chunk of sparkly jewel steel called tamahagane, and that would be what they used to create a katana. However, jewel steel is still impure, so they would heat it, hammer it into a bar, and fold it over, bringing it back to the forge to do it again.

Folding the steel makes pattern-welded steel, named for the squiggly pattern you'd get from folding it over so many times. Doing this would consolidate the steel, making it denser and easier to mess with. There are two kinds of steels, low-carbon, and high-carbon. Carbon is what turns iron into steel, and the more iron there is, the harder the steel is. This means that bladesmiths would take the low-carbon steel, forge it into a V-shape, place the high-carbon steel inside like a hotdog, and forge-weld the whole thing together. Once they turned that into the blade, the hard steel would become the edge and the soft steel would become the spine, making it bend easier so it wouldn't shatter.

Then again, most smiths only had the one steel they made to work with, so instead, they used differential tempering to solve their issues. Tempering is the process of slowly heating and cooling the sword so that the crystalline structure within the steel relaxes. If you don't temper after quenching the blade in water and try to use it, your blade will shatter like glass. Japanese smiths spread a slurry of clay across the back and spine of the blade to protect it in the quench following the tempering process. The spine won't cool down quickly, keeping it relatively soft, while the exposed edge becomes extremely hard and retains its edge for a very long time.

Usually, the Japanese smith would hammer in the edge before quenching it, sharpening it, tempering it, and then giving the blade one last polish to make sure it's sharp. When hammering, they keep the blade flat on the anvil and strike at an angle, pushing the metal inwards rather than pulling it out. This hardens the blade slightly and makes it easier to put a sharp edge on when the profile of the blade has already been made. They would sharpen with polishing stones (whetstones) and it would take WEEKS. Then again, if the person polishing knew what they were doing, the blade would outlast them. Otherwise, a bad polish could ruin an otherwise perfect blade.

That's just the blade portion, we haven't even gotten to the handle, the guard (tsuba), and the fancy decorations! I'd recommend watching Man at Arms on YouTube and seeing their katana builds like the one they did for Kill Bill. They have visuals to explain what they're doing. Happy writing!

@Young-Dusty-the-Monarch-of-Dusteria group

Hello! I have some oddly specific questions for a dystopian story I'm working on. They may not be quite in the category of smithing, but this was the best thread I could find ^^;
How important is it to use certain metals for certain tools? Like for example, in my story people are starting to re-learn smithing so they can make arrow points, blades, bullets, etc., but quality metal is hard to come by and they might be forced to use whatever they can find. Are their easy ways to identify the type and quality of a piece of metal? Also how many times can, say, steel get reshaped/reforged before it's useless? Is there a limit?
I may have more questions once I sort out what I actually need to know for my story X'D

@Yamatsu

Steel comes in a lot of forms, sometimes it's high carbon, low carbon, an alloy like stainless steel, and all of it can be used indefinitely if it's forged right. Lots of garden tools and car parts rely on special steels that can be made into pretty much anything. The steels, in particular, are called tool steel and spring steel (for obvious reasons, steel suspension springs can make a lot of good stuff). In terms of what steel is important, it relies on what the tool is used for.

Pickaxes have hardened tips to pierce rock and soft backs so that they don't snap if they hit something hard. Soil knives usually aren't very hard unless the manufacturer specifically designs them for rocky soil that can scratch the blade.

Some steels, if they're still in the warehouse, will have numbers and names on them that denote their composition. I'd look at Wikipedia to get the full definition, but some standard steels that are very common in things like manufacturing are 4140, 1045, 15N20, etc. These steels are mostly alloys, 15N20 specifically having nickel in it to make it easier to work with and etch brighter. You can find a lot of good steels, especially in construction sites and railroads. Railroad tracks, forklift tines, excavator buckets, a lot can be repurposed and reforged to make tools and weapons.

Also, for the most part, you can't forge bullets. You can roll the brass casings and make melt down the lead into bullet-shaped molds, but you're not hammering them to shape.