Chapter XX: Blacksmithing and Tools

Let's go to the blacksmith's shop and tell the blacksmith what we have done. You see I've shown you all he taught me about copper, brass, and silver. I promised to take you there when we got through. Come on. Here we are! This is his shop. Mr. Blacksmith, this is my friend. I've shown him how to do work in metal and he can do all that you taught me. We both want to learn how to make things out of steel and iron. Are you ready to take us on?

Yes, boys, you are just in time to help me out. And while you are lending a hand I can show you how to make many things that every boy can learn to do with iron and steel. Come into the shop. First I'll tell you about the blacksmith shop equipment. This is my forge and bellows, with the coal heap at the side; here is the anvil and here are my tools. You see it doesn't take a blacksmith long to name the things he needs to equip his shop. But you must know how each thing is used and what it is used for. Let me draw you a picture of the forge on this board and explain to you how it is built.

_A_ is the chimney. You see it has an opening in the bottom to let the smoke go up. _B_ is a leather bellows. It is placed back of the chimney out of the way of sparks from the forge fire. The nozzle of the bellows goes through a hole ending on the hearth of the forge. _C_ is the hearth where the coal is placed. _D_ is a nest in the centre of the hearth, called a tuyere. Through this opening the blast from the bellows enters the coal heap.

The whole forge is built of brick and mortar. Modern forges are made of iron and steel and have a sheet iron hood in place of a brick chimney. But the principle of the tuyere, where the blast enters the forge, is the same as we blacksmiths have always used. Now I'll build the fire in the forge. Here in this box are some shavings. I save all my shavings and put them here to start my fire with. Place the shavings over the tuyere and light them. Let them burn for a little while, then cover the whole with this soft bituminous coal. This kind of coal is free from sulphur and phosphorus, and it cokes very nicely when the gas and tar are burnt out. Now it's time to use the bellows. You can take hold of this handle and pull down. The weights on the bottom pull the handle up again. Sometimes weights are placed on the top board. This helps to increase the air pressure. Notice that the bellows hang in a frame and the centre axis is fastened to the upright, allowing the upper and lower half to rise and fall. When the lower half falls it sucks the air in through a little trap door on the bottom, and when raised the trap door closes and the air is forced through the nozzle into the tuyere on the forge. This alternates, first taking the air in and then forcing the air out. Pump gently at first, then the coal will not smother the fire. That volume of smoke coming up is mostly from the burning shavings and it goes right up the flue. This blue flame that you see now shows that the gases are burning in the coal. When they are burnt out the coals give a red glow. Now the bright fire is shown through the coal. Put your poker into the coal heap and raise it gently. The opening made on the top is a vent for the heat to escape and prevents the fire blowing into the shop. An opening like this should always be left at the top, on account of the oxygen which is being pumped in constantly. Sprinkle a little water on the coal around the outside of the fire. This helps to pack the coal down tight and keep the fire in a confined space, for it is apt to spread and use up much more coal than is needed.

You see, boys, this is an old-fashioned blacksmith shop. Most of the work done here is horseshoeing, though we have many complex things brought in for us to repair, none of which can be turned away. All these shoes hanging on the rafters are for horses and mules. The mule's shoe, you see, is a different shape from the horse's shoe. I make these in my spare moments and we call them stock shoes. Notice that the stock shoes have no heels or toes on them. These are put on when the shoe is made to fit the horse's foot.

Shoes are now made by machinery and I buy them when I haven't time to make them. But they, too, must be fitted to the foot, for they come only in stock form.

Now I'm going to show you how to make a horseshoe. I'll make it out of this piece of steel tire from a wagon wheel. We use all this kind of scrap to make the stock shoes. That's why our made shoes can be sold cheaper than the manufactured shoes, if we have the time to make them. Steel is being used in place of iron in all branches of industry. A steel shoe weighing half a pound will wear as long as an iron shoe weighing one pound.

This piece of steel tire which I am using is 1 in. wide and 1/2 in. thick. I want to keep the thickness 1/2 in., but reduce the width to 3/4 in. To do this the end of the piece of metal is put into the forge fire. As soon as it is hot enough, I take it out and place it, edge up, on the anvil, and with the hand hammer draw it out any length I wish. You see that driving down on the edge of the hot bar thickens it. Now turn it over and drive on the flat side. You must keep driving first on the edge and then on the side until it is the right size. This is called stretching the metal out. Now the bar is long enough to bend in the shape of a letter U. Heat about 6 ins. of this bar and then place it on the largest part of the anvil horn. Strike on the projecting end with a hand hammer. It bends easily into the shape.

Take the chisel-shaped tool. The edge of this tool makes the groove to fit the nail heads. Every horseshoe has eight rectangular holes for nails, four on each side. These are punched through with this punch, and are made just large enough to fit the horseshoe nail heads. Now you see a stock shoe, and it is just like the dozens I have hanging on the rafters. But before the shoe is placed on the horse's foot it must have the front piece, called the toe calk, welded on and the ends of the shoe turned up for heels. To make the toe calk I take a piece of iron or steel about 2 × 3/4 × 1/2 in. The end of this piece is prepared like this:

The little projection is made very sharp so that it can stick into the hot iron. In this way it is kept in place during the process of welding. When the calk is made I heat the shoe and place the calk in the proper position. The calk is cold and the little projecting point is easily driven into the hot iron. Now that it is held in place it must be welded on. Iron and steel are welded together only by the use of a flux. There are many kinds of fluxes used. For this I shall use _borax_. I buy it by the pound and it comes in boxes like this. Sprinkle a little on the calk, heat it in the fire, watch the fire. When the metal is hot enough to weld you will notice a brown smoke coming from the fire. That tells you the borax is burning. There, see the smoke! Now I must take the shoe out quickly and place it on the anvil. A few quick, light blows upon the calk and the welding is done! The hammering must be done quickly after the shoe has been taken out of the fire, or the cold air will lower the temperature and prevent the metal from uniting. There, it's welded! Now I shape it and fit it to the horse's foot. The heels can't be bent up until I know just how long the horse's foot is. I measure by placing it on the hoof. Then the two ends of the shoe are bent and driven down so that the height of the heels equals the height of the calk. Now, boys, this is a hand made shoe. When you know how to use the fire and the tools it is an easy problem to make a horseshoe.

So it is with all blacksmiths' work. There is not anything about it you can't do. Any boy can build his own blacksmith shop if he has a shed or shelter large enough to keep the rain from a forge, anvil, and some tools. You needn't have the big, old-fashioned brick forge like mine. Here is a picture of a portable forge that I can recommend. It can be bought at almost any store that deals in hardware supplies. It is small and handy and can be easily taken from place to place. You can buy any size anvil you wish. They come in all sizes, weighing from five pounds to five hundred pounds. Here is a list of tools which will do all the work, both ornamental and plain, which you may wish to do. Get this equipment, then build your shop.

BLACKSMITHS' TOOLS

Some of these tools you have used in your copper, brass, and silver work. You will need your vise, files, your various punches, dividers, hand cold chisel, and square. In addition, you should have the following:

_Hand hammer:_ A hand hammer is used more than any other tool in the shop. The flat face is used for shaping material and the round plain for riveting, etc. The top and bottom fullers are used for making depressions in iron and steel. This process is called fullering. The top and bottom swages are used for rounding square iron or steel or reducing large sizes to smaller ones. Hot and cold chisels are both used for cutting iron. As the name shows, one is used for hot iron and one for cold iron. Gouges are for cutting ornamental shapes on sheet iron or steel, hot or cold. Calipers are used for measuring diameters. The broad flat surface of the flatter smoothes rough places. The set hammer is used to make square shoulders. It is a small hammer and does the work in narrow places which larger tools cannot reach. This sledge weighs about eight pounds. It is used where heavy hammering or driving is needed, and in conjunction with such tools as swages, fullers, set hammers, etc. The hardie is a sharp cutting tool used to cut small pieces of iron and soft steel while hot or cold. Tongs are of all sizes. Those most called into use have the following shapes: The shovel for the fire must be small and strong so the clinker formed on the bottom can be shoveled out without carrying too much coal with it. A poker, rake, and dipper also are needed for use about the fire.

You know now all the tools needed to equip a shop. I want to tell you about the fuels, such as coal and charcoal, which you will use, and something about pig iron and wrought iron which I think you ought to know.

The smoke is the most troublesome thing in a blacksmith's shop. The old-fashioned forge is perhaps the best made to draw the gases and smoke out, except when exhaust fans are used for that purpose. Hoods are fitted to pull down over the fire, completely covering the smoke area, and the suction made by the fan will draw all the smoke from the fire. This, of course, is possible only in modern equipped shops. The portable forges that we use have none of this drawing-out system, except through a natural draft chimney, made either of bricks or by extending an iron pipe from the hood through the side of the shed or through the roof. The down-draft system is a hood placed to one side of the fire. It falls over the fire by means of a hinge placed on the hood. This is not as effective as the overhead system on account of the smallness of the hood. The pipes are all underground, otherwise the system is the same as the overhead system.

_Danger of explosion:_ Coal gases leak into the tuyere when the blast is shut off. When the blast is put on these gases are blown up into the hot fire and they explode from the heat. They do no harm, except the noise made by the explosion.

_Fuels:_ The coal used in a blacksmiths' shop is a soft coal called bituminous coal. It is supposed to have less phosphorus and sulphur than any other kind of coal. Coal containing either of these ingredients should not be used. Sulphur makes iron hot short and phosphorus makes the iron cold short that is, the iron is made brittle while hot by means of the sulphur, and brittle when cold through the effect of the phosphorus. When this soft coal is heated the coal tar is burned out and the coal burns into a coke.

_Charcoal:_ Charcoal is a solid fuel and the very best fuel for heating purposes. It is free from the impurities mentioned here. It is made by burning hard wood in a closed oven or kiln. This kiln in turn burns the wood into lumps of charcoal. The cost makes the only real objection to the use of charcoal as fuel.

PIG IRON

Iron ore is an oxide of iron containing from 35 per cent. to 65 per cent. iron. The rest is oxygen, phosphorus, sulphur, silica, and other impurities. Iron ore is charged into a blast furnace, mixed with limestone as a flux, and melted down, with coke as fuel. The metal which results from this melting is known as commercial pig iron.

WROUGHT IRON

Wrought iron is made from pig iron. The pig iron is remelted in a so-called puddling furnace by charging about half a ton at one time into the furnace. While in a molten state it is stirred up with large iron hooks by the puddler. It is kept boiling so as to expose every part of the iron bath to the action of the flame in order to burn out the carbon. The other impurities will separate from the iron and run out of the furnace as slag.

The temperature in the puddling furnace is high enough to melt pig iron but not high enough to keep wrought iron in a liquid state. So, as soon as the small particles of iron become purified the partially congealed portion forms a spongy mass, in which small globules of iron ore are in a semi-plastic state. These are gathered up by the puddler and his helper and are formed into a ball on the bottom of the furnace by means of long rabble bars used for this purpose. The ball is about 150 to 200 pounds in weight. These lumps of iron are taken to a large hammer or squeezer.

There they are shaped into long blooms to fit the rolls. They are taken right from the squeezer to the rolling mill and rolled out into bars 4 ins. or 5 ins. wide and 3/4 in. thick. These bars are called muck bars owing to their spongy-like appearance and the large quantity of cinders which they contain. The muck bars are now cut into lengths of 3 ft. and 4 ft. and are piled on top of each other in blocks of 200 lbs. The blocks are put into a heating furnace and heated to a welding heat. While at this heat they are put through the rolls, thus welding the whole mass together, at the same time reducing the pile to sizes required by the market. When cold these are cut into lengths for use. This is the iron used in most blacksmiths' shops.