Learning
The reading list: books worth the shelf space
Four or five titles do most of the work. The rest of the shelf is optional, and some of it is decorative.
People arrive at this craft sideways: a demonstration at a county fair, a television series, a family rumor of a great-grandparent at the anvil. The tool question settles fast, four objects doing the essential work: tongs, a hammer, a forge and an anvil. The book question takes longer. What follows maps that shelf, volume by volume, and the job each one does.
What the first book has to cover
A beginner’s volume has one obligation: it must present the moves in the order the iron demands them. Heating, drawing out, upsetting, cutting, punching, joining: a finished object, hook or grille, is a short sequence of those operations done at the right heat and in the right order. Track anvils and locking pliers stand in for the real things in many first shops, and many smiths now known by name started exactly there, upgrading when the work asked for it. A book that assumes a fully equipped forge on page one is writing for a reader who does not exist.
Three volumes that follow the hand
Mark Aspery’s The Skills of a Blacksmith is the backbone of the modern shelf. Mastering the Fundamentals of Blacksmithing appeared in 2007 at 304 pages, Mastering the Fundamentals of Leaf-Work followed in 2009 at 300, and Mastering the Fundamentals of Traditional Joinery closed the set in 2013 at 368. Volume one covers the basic operations, volume two the leaf forms that carry most of the decorative vocabulary, volume three the joints that turn separate bars into a gate. Aspery also teaches the material: ABANA identifies him as a certified National Curriculum instructor, shown teaching it to members of the Great Basin Blacksmith Guild.
A curriculum behind the shelf
The series did not appear in a vacuum. The Artist-Blacksmith’s Association of North America, ABANA, maintains a National Curriculum: a self-paced program in three levels, Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced, open to anyone. Members can go further and have their projects evaluated by certified instructors, toward recognition as a blacksmith or an instructor. ABANA’s getting started page sets the three Aspery volumes on its suggested reading list, next to a run of 26 articles on controlled hand forging and a channel of recorded lectures and tutorials.
The shelf for a home shop
Two titles aim at the reader with a garage and a modest budget. The Backyard Blacksmith by Lorelei Sims first appeared from Quarry Books in 2006; a 2009 Crestline edition runs 174 pages. Randy McDaniel’s A Blacksmithing Primer, a course in basic and intermediate work, dates from 1998 and has gone through six editions. Jack Andrews’s New Edge of the Anvil, from 1994, about 250 pages from Skipjack Press, rounds out the practical end. The ABANA list also credits Blacksmith’s Craft: An Introduction to Smithing for Apprentices & Craftsmen to COSIRA, and adds Robert Thomas’s The Art and Craft of the Blacksmith; for those two, the page gives a title and an author, nothing more.
Does a book from 1888 still teach the moves?
The older shelf holds up. M. T. Richardson’s Practical Blacksmithing first appeared in 1888, and the combined Part One, back in print, runs about 528 pages of shop practice. Alex W. Bealer’s The Art of Blacksmithing, from 1969, carries some 440 pages across six editions, and Bealer belongs to the history of the organized craft itself: he hosted the 1973 Blacksmiths’ Convention at Westville, the Georgia restoration village where ABANA was founded, and became its first president.
| Title | Author | Year | Pages |
|---|---|---|---|
| Practical Blacksmithing, Part One | M. T. Richardson | 1888 | 528 |
| The Blacksmith | Aldren Watson | 1968 | 171 |
| The Art of Blacksmithing | Alex W. Bealer | 1969 | 440 |
| New Edge of the Anvil | Jack Andrews | 1994 | 250 |
| The Complete Modern Blacksmith | Alexander Weygers | 1997 | 300 |
| A Blacksmithing Primer | Randy McDaniel | 1998 | 174 |
| The Backyard Blacksmith | Lorelei Sims | 2006 | 174 |
| The Skills of a Blacksmith, vol. I | Mark Aspery | 2007 | 304 |
Counts are edition medians; the Sims figure is from the 2009 Crestline printing.
Why read an excavation report?
One volume on this shelf is not a manual. The Mästermyr Find, by Greta Arwidsson and Gosta Berg, documents a Viking Age tool chest found in October 1936 by the farmer Hugo Kraft, on the Swedish island of Gotland. The chest is oak with a wrought-iron lock, 90 cm (35 in) long, 26 cm (10 in) wide and 24 cm (9.4 in) high, and it held more than 200 tools and works in progress, the largest tool find of its era in Europe. Its owner seems to have been a travelling smith and carpenter with some knowledge of locks, coppersmithing and coopering. The Swedish study appeared in 1983 at 56 pages; a 2000 Larson edition runs 90. The chest is displayed at the Swedish History Museum in Stockholm, and the Mastermyr chest has a longer article in these pages.
Which book comes home first
Do not buy the shelf. Name the next object honestly: a first taper calls for Aspery’s volume one, leaf work for volume two, a gate for volume three, a steady home course for McDaniel or Sims, an evening of context for Bealer. Take that single volume and read it beside a cold bench, then see whether the author’s hand suits the reader’s eye. The rest of the row arrives the way tools do, when a piece of work asks for it.
The association behind the list
ABANA is a 501(c)(3) non-profit founded in 1973 at Westville, Georgia, by 27 founding members. It describes itself as North America’s largest blacksmithing community and counts more than 90 affiliates around the world. Its site carries the three-level National Curriculum, a suggested reading list, grants, member discounts and a find-a-blacksmith directory, and it holds a biennial conference in a different part of the country each time.