Says a private master gunsmith. How to make money making knives with your own hands
This summer I was lucky to work as a blacksmith's apprentice. It all started with the thought that it would be necessary to work with my hands, and not just with my head, and I did not know which area to choose. After much deliberation and prompting, I decided to work as a blacksmith. There used to be a sea of \u200b\u200bcousins in Yoburg, but now they are left "the cat cried" and everyone needs ready-made blacksmiths, or with artistic skills, which I do not have. And when he arrived in Zlatoust, he talked with a friend and he offered to try himself at their forge. Do not make super-duper expectations, because It's hard for everyone right now, but you can try.
I agreed to this. Thus began my little epic work as a blacksmith's "apprentice".
Why do I emphasize that I am a student? Because I myself did not do completely independent work from beginning to end, and the training time was only a month.
I talked with the blacksmith, came to the forge, there was a standard "technical mess", but I have a Soviet past and a steel plant with a railway behind me - there were even worse views. :)
The blacksmith looked at me and waited for a reaction. I'm "modern office plankton." I thought, probably, that I would be "scared", but I said that I was "ready for work and defense."
He told me that I needed clothes, leggings, steel-toed boots, and an apron if possible. I went to collect and buy everything. A friend helped a lot and I only had to buy leggings. The right apron is too expensive, did not buy.
Came and started studying. He worked a working day (from 8 to 11 and from 13 to 16) and a week with two days off.
I will make a reservation that I will use excerpts and videos with the participation of Leonid Arkhangelsky in those places where there is no own video.
They begin to teach with the forging of braces, which are not spiritual, but for fastening the beams, at least Boris Vasilyevich said so.
But I was forced to forge a strip of the required width and thickness of 7 mm from a ShKh15 steel cylinder. The length of the cylinder is about one and a half meters and you can’t heat it all at once. I learned to forge in the right size only towards the end of the work as a student. You need to get used to working with an air hammer, which was hard for me. There are two variables - the heating of the steel and the force of the hammer. You heat it up a lot, steel, like plasticine, is forged easily and bends under its own weight also easily. In this case, it is often necessary to observe the thickness and width, using a caliper.
You can’t overheat it, otherwise you’ll have to throw it away, and if you don’t heat it up and start forging, it will burst. Capricious steel should be heated to a light yellow color.
In general, I got used to work for about a week and a half. Then they began to prepare for forging knives.
Disclaimer: In the Internet, everything is on forging and Turkish Damascus, I will not announce anything new!
General view of the forge.
First of all, upon arrival, you need to prepare a forge for ignition. Horn on coke. First you clean the air duct, then you sift the coke from slag and small particles. Then you light a fire to heat the coke, start the blower and heat up the coke. This is how the horn is prepared for the next work.
When the bugle was launched, we begin to work ...
A small introductory: Damascus and damask steel, what is their difference?
Bulat is made from one high-carbon steel, while Damascus is made from several steels.
Cast damask steel (or damask steel) is patterned steel in the historical sense familiar to us, obtained by foundry and forging methods.
Welded damask steel (or Damascus) is a patterned steel obtained mainly by blacksmithing methods.
Who cares - article BULAT AND DAMASK: HISTORY AND MODERNITY
Turkish damascus, aka twisted damascus, is created from twisted rods. It was used as a "flexible" basis for a "hard" cutting edge, which was welded together again by forging.
We made Damascus from two steels 65G (aka spring) and ShKh15 (aka ball-bearing).
First, a package of 7 alternating layers was folded. We pre-grind the blanks on the machine to remove oxides from the surfaces. It's like cheating, because. in ordinary forges, I use borax for this.
We completely weld all the seams in this package and begin to forge. In order for welding to occur normally, the package needs to be warmed up well and strongly. It seems to us that the thermal conductivity of steel is large, but in fact it takes enough time and you should not rush. It is necessary that the package is fully heated.
Here it is partially brewed, because. Leonid uses borax.
Here he warmed up 
Now let's weld
When cooked, again thoroughly warm up the package and make a square twig measuring one and a half by one and a half centimeters. 
We cut it into several parts, which we will twist. The length of the parts will determine the size of the future blade.
Now you need to warm them up well and twist them in different directions: clockwise and counterclockwise.
And forge. You need to forge a little so that the square remains, but I forged them much harder and they turned into small bars.
We grind them
We collect them in a package alternating the bars in twist (clockwise - counterclockwise - clockwise, etc.) this allows you to compensate for the deformation after quenching and tempering.
Again, we heat it up very strongly, almost to the point of burning, and first we weld it with a hammer and only then under the hammer, forming everything that is needed for the knife.
The metal must not be allowed to overheat!!! Everything has to be done all over again! It looks like this:
It turns out this:
Now we grind again and dip in a 5% nitrogen solution and see the pattern
And the fact that I made a mistake with the side for forging into a blade, because of this, such a pattern turned out.
Those two that were done correctly turned out like this: 
Grinding by 0.1 mm, you can change the pattern. You grind and look, if you like, you stop.
Then you make descents, polish, harden, release, polish, etch and make a handle! Ready! :)))
I haven’t done this yet and I don’t have any ready-made knives. :)
This is such an interesting job, dreary, but interesting. I figured out how to apply this to engravings, although I was told that making a plate in this way is much more "fun" than a knife. :)
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Interest in blacksmithing is constantly growing, but the educational literature, which would describe the technological foundations of forging, is clearly not enough. We hope that this material will to some extent fill the gap and help novice blacksmiths learn the basics of forging, as well as introduce them to the restless and creative brotherhood of blacksmith-artists.BASIC INFORMATION ABOUT METAL
When forging products, craftsmen have to deal with materials (steels of various grades, non-ferrous metals, alloys) that have a wide variety of physical, mechanical and technological properties.
The most widely used in blacksmithing is steel - an alloy of iron and carbon. Depending on the amount of carbon, steels are divided into low-carbon (up to 0.25% C), medium-carbon (0.25-0.6% C) and high-carbon (0.6-2% C). Increasing the carbon content increases the hardness and hardenability of the steel, but reduces the thermal conductivity and ductility.
From non-ferrous metals in blacksmithing, mainly copper and aluminum are used, as well as their alloys, such as brass (L90, L80, L68, L62, etc.), bronze (BrOTs4-3, etc.).
All metals and alloys have a polycrystalline structure, that is, they consist of individual metal grains firmly intergrown with each other, between which non-metallic inclusions of oxides, carbides and other compounds are located in the form of thin layers. The grains, in turn, also have a crystalline structure, their dimensions are 0.01-0.1 mm.
During forging, the deformation proceeds mainly due to the sliding of the grains relative to each other, since the bond between them is weaker than the strength of the grains themselves.
As a result of forging, metal grains are elongated in the direction of metal flow, which leads to the formation of a fine-grained line structure (the finer the metal grains, the stronger it is). At the same time, non-metallic inclusions are drawn out, which can be observed even with the naked eye.
The grain size, and hence the strength properties of the metal, is largely determined by the temperature regime of forging. Therefore, metal should be forged in a certain temperature range, so that the grains crushed during deformation do not then grow again under the influence of a high residual temperature. Each blacksmith, in order to obtain a quality product from steel and give it the appropriate properties using heat treatment, must understand the iron-carbon state diagram. Let us consider fragments of the diagram, in which the temperature of the alloy is plotted along the ordinate axis, and the carbon content in percent is plotted along the abscissa axis (Fig. 1).
Fig.1. Iron - carbon state diagram
Above the GS line, all steels have the structure of augtenite - a homogeneous solid metal consisting of grains of the same composition and structure.
When carbon steels are heated to a temperature below the critical line PS=723 degrees C, no structural changes occur in them.
Heating of workpieces. This is an important and responsible operation, on which the quality of the product and tool life depend. Forging, as a rule, is carried out by heating the metal to the so-called forging temperature in order to increase its ductility and reduce its resistance to deformation. The temperature range of forging depends on the chemical composition and structure of the metal being processed.
It should also be taken into account that when carbon steels are heated, carbon burns out from the surface layer of the product to a depth of 2-4 mm, leading to a decrease in the strength and hardness of the steel, to a deterioration in its hardenability.
The workpiece should be forged only when it warms up evenly. Each steel grade has its own forging temperature range, that is, the temperatures of the beginning of forging Tn and its end Tk are determined. As a result of heating the metal slightly above the temperature Tn, the metal acquires a coarse-grained structure, its ductility decreases. Heating the metal to an even higher temperature leads to an irreparable marriage - burnout, as a result of which the metal is destroyed during forging.
When forging blanks heated below the temperature Tn, cracks may form. Therefore, when forging, one should remember the proverb: "Strike while the iron is hot." That is, it is necessary to forge metal in the temperature regime Tn-Tk (shaded zone on the iron-carbon state diagram). The temperature of the heated metal can be determined by the colors of heat and tint, and the steel grades can be determined by the spark (Tables 1-3).
Fuel. Blacksmiths use various types of fuel to heat workpieces: solid, liquid and gaseous.
Most often, coal is used to heat blanks in forges. Moreover, it is desirable that the coal be black, shiny, the size of its pieces should approximately correspond to the size of a walnut. Blacksmiths call such coal - a nut. Often used and coke, which has a high combustion temperature. You can also use hardwood firewood (oak, ash, birch, etc.). However, the best fuel is charcoal, which was the main blacksmith fuel until the middle of the 18th century.
At present, electric furnaces and furnaces operating on liquid or gaseous fuels are widely used in forge shops.
Furnaces and ovens. The basis of a stationary forge is a table where a hearth is arranged for heating blanks. In a forge, the forge is usually placed in the center of the wall opposite the entrance (the main wall). The height of the hearth table is determined by the height of the blacksmith, the convenience of transferring the workpiece from the hearth to the anvil and is taken equal to 700-800 mm; the usual dimensions of the table surface are 1 × 1.5 or 1.5 × 2 m. If it is intended to manufacture large objects, such as gates, gratings, then the forge is installed at some distance from the wall and the table is made larger. The surface of the hearth table is laid out of brick, sawn stone, reinforced concrete. The pedestal is made in the form of a box, the walls of which are made of logs, boards, bricks or stone, and the inside is filled with broken small stones, sand, clay, burnt earth.
Table 1. Dependence of the hot color of the workpiece on the heating temperature
Table 2. Determining the heating temperature by tint colors
Table 3. Determination of steel grades by spark
The central place of the table is occupied by a hearth, or a mountain nest (sometimes two hearths are provided). A forge intended for artistic forging is usually made with a central location of the hearth. The dimensions of the nest are determined by the purpose of the hearth and the dimensions of the heated blanks. The central nest has a round or square shape in plan, 200×200 or 400×400 mm in size and 100-150 mm deep.
Fig.2. Tuyere device
Let us consider the device and principle of operation of a conventional bottom blast lance (Fig. 2). Air (from a fan or bellows) is supplied through a branch pipe to the body of the lance and enters the combustion zone through a cast-iron grate. The amount of air supplied is controlled by a damper. The bottom cover is designed to clean the body of the lance from ash and other combustion waste.
To create a flame of various types, grates are used with certain shapes of holes for the passage of air. So, evenly spaced round holes contribute to the formation of a cylindrical torch flame, slotted holes - narrow and elongated.
An exhaust hood is installed above the stationary hearth to collect and remove smoke and gases from the forge. The dimensions of the lower inlet of the umbrella usually correspond to the dimensions of the forge table. Umbrellas, as a rule, are made of sheet iron with a thickness of 0.5 - 1.5 mm.
Fig.3. Equipment for heating blanks: stationary metal hearth (left): 1-exhaust pipe; 2 umbrella; 3-tank with water for tool cooling; 4-lever for regulation of air supply; 5-air duct; 6 damper; 7-conical tip; 8-tuyere; 9-cast table; 10-hearth; types of umbrellas (on the right): a, b-chimney in the wall; in-external side chimney; d-outer central chimney
As a rule, umbrellas are fixed above the mountain at a height of 500-600 mm from the table (Fig. 3). However, not always such a height of the umbrella location contributes to the maximum removal of exhaust gases. Therefore, in order to better capture the smoke, the height of the umbrella has to be determined empirically, taking into account the features of the hearth, for example, the force of the blast.
In some cases, umbrellas are equipped with drop wings. The disadvantage of metal umbrellas is their quick burnout.
Fig.4. Stationary horn with a brick umbrella (left): 1-tank with water; 2-water-cooled lance; mine gas horn (right)
More reliable and durable umbrellas made of refractory bricks (Fig. 4). However, such umbrellas are much heavier than metal ones, and their construction requires a metal frame made of corners or channels, and sometimes additional supports in the corners.
Portable furnaces are used for heating small workpieces. A portable hearth consists of a metal frame, on which a table with a hearth and a fan for air supply is mounted on top. The fan is driven by a foot pedal. It is possible to use a blowtorch to heat the blanks, which is placed in a small hole, and a refractory brick stove is placed next to it (Fig. 5).
Fig.5. Portable forges with a blowtorch
The blanks are laid in the gap between the bricks. Or the bricks are placed on the end, a grate is placed on them, and a stove of four bricks is placed on it, into which coal is poured. Below is a blowtorch with a pipe.
Fig.6. Portable forge with vacuum cleaner
The design of a light portable hearth with a household vacuum cleaner is shown in fig. 6. The pedestal of the forge is welded from corners, and the upper part of the table is lined with refractory bricks. A lance with an ash pan is placed on the upper horizontal corners. At a distance of 150 mm from the lance, a branch pipe with an inner diameter of 30 mm is welded to the ash pan, which is connected to the vacuum cleaner hose. In this case, it must be borne in mind that in this case the hose is inserted not into the lower, but into the upper (injection) socket of the vacuum cleaner. The lower cup of the vacuum cleaner with the filter is removed, and the vacuum cleaner is placed on the stand. In cases where there is no electricity to drive the fan, bellows can be used.
Double-acting wedge bellows give a calm blowing, as a result of which an even flame is created and the workpieces are heated evenly (Fig. 7).
Fig.7. Wedge bellows
In modern forges, various electric fans are used for blowing.
WORKPLACE OF THE BLACKGER, EQUIPMENT, TOOLS AND DEVICES
Blacksmithing requires a wide variety of tools and fixtures. The main supporting blacksmith tool is an anvil (Fig. 8).
Rice. 8. Anvils and shperaks: a - hornless, one-horned and two-horned anvils (1 - face; 2 - square hole; 3 - tail; 4 - brackets; 5 - chair; 6 - paws; 7 - conical horn; 8 - unhardened platform; 9 - round hole); 6 - shperaks (1 - inserted into the anvil; 2 - driven into the ground; 3 - for small work); c - portable anvil; g - anvil mounted on a chair
Modern anvils are made of steel 45L by casting weighing from 10 to 270 kg. Anvils are of different types: hornless, one-horned, two-horned. The most convenient and versatile in work is the so-called two-horned anvil, shown in Fig. 8a (right). The upper horizontal polished plane at the anvil is called the face, or casing, on which all the main blacksmithing work is performed. The lateral faces of the anvil form an angle of 90° with the front surface; the edges of the anvil should be quite sharp, without chips and jams. On the ribs, bending and distribution of material, as well as some auxiliary operations, are carried out.
The conical horn of the anvil is designed for radius bending of strips and bars, as well as for rolling and welding of ring blanks.
On the opposite side of the horn is a tail used for bending and straightening closed rectangular products. In the area of the tail there is a square hole measuring 35 × 35 mm, which is used to install a backing tool - bottoms. Near the horn there is a round hole with a diameter of 15-25 mm for punching holes in blanks.
At the bottom of the anvil are the paws necessary for attaching the anvil (using brackets) to a wooden chair or a metal stand. As a chair, a massive block or stump (oak, maple, birch) with a diameter of 500-600 mm is usually used. When it is not possible to pick up the necessary block, they take a metal or wooden barrel, stuff it with sand, clay, earth, ram it well, put a thick wooden gasket on top, on which the anvil is attached.
Lightweight portable (camping) anvils have special legs.
Anvils are sold in hardware stores. If it was not possible to buy an anvil, then for the first time it can be replaced with a piece of rail or a massive rectangular metal bar.
Great attention should be paid to the installation of the chair, which should stand upright and not vibrate. To do this, the chair is buried to a depth of at least 0.5 m, and the ground around it is well tamped. The height of the chair depends on the height of the blacksmith and is usually 600-700 mm. The most convenient height for work is when the blacksmith, standing next to the anvil, without bending down, reaches the casing with slightly bent fingers.
A quality anvil produces a high and clear sound when lightly struck with a hammer, and the hammer rebounds with a ringing sound.
For small work, blacksmiths use small anvils or special anvils - shperaks (Fig. 8, b). Some shperaks are installed with their tetrahedral shanks in
the square hole of the anvil, others, having an elongated vertical stand, are driven with a pointed end into a wooden block or into the ground.
Rice. 9. Percussion tool: 1-with a ball back; 2.4-with a wedge-shaped one-sided back; 3.6-with a double-sided longitudinal back; 5-with double-sided transverse back
Percussion tools include hand hammers, war hammers and sledgehammers (Fig. 9). The handbrake is the blacksmith's main tool, with which he forges small items or controls the forging process with hammers.
Usually handbrakes have a mass of 0.5-2 kg, but often blacksmiths also use heavier hammers weighing up to 4-5 kg. Handbrake handles are made from hardwood (hornbeam, maple, dogwood, birch, mountain ash, ash). The handles should be smooth, without cracks, lie comfortably in the hand, their length is 350-600 mm.
War hammers are heavy hammers weighing 10-12 kg, with which hammerers work with two hands. War hammer heads come with a one-sided wedge-shaped back, as well as with a two-sided back (longitudinal or transverse). The lower working surface of the head (chip) is intended for basic forging, and the upper wedge-shaped back is for dispersing the metal along or across the axis of the workpiece. The hammer handle is made from the same tree species as the handbrake; the length of the handle is selected depending on the mass of the hammer head, the height of the hammer and reaches 70-95 cm.
Sledgehammer - a heavy (up to 16 kg) hammer with flat heads is used for heavy forging work, where a large impact force is required.
All percussion instruments must be as reliable as possible, with particular attention paid to the fastening of the handle with the head. The shape of the hole in the hammer head - the hole where the handle is inserted - is made elliptical and has a two-sided slope of 1:10 from the middle to the side faces. This facilitates the insertion of the handle into the hammer head and ensures that it is securely fastened after driving the wedge. It has been established by practice that the most reliable are metal pointed wedges, which enter to a depth equal to 2/3 of the width of the hammer head and are hammered at an angle to the longitudinal axis of the sledgehammer (hammer).
When working with war hammers, three types of blows are used: light (elbow), medium, or shoulder (shoulder strike), strong (mounted), when the hammer describes a full circle in the air. Hammerers work with hanging blows when forging large mass workpieces and when forge welding massive parts (Fig. 10).
To improve the quality of manufactured products and increase productivity, blacksmiths often use various backing tools installed under the hammer or on the anvil. To work under the hammer, simple and shaped blacksmith chisels, punches, trowels and rolling are used (Fig. 11). Undercuts, conical mandrels, bending forks, nailers, various brackets and devices for special types of forging are installed on the anvil.
Rice. 11. Backing tool: a-chisels (1 - for transverse cutting of cold metal; 2 - for transverse cutting of hot metal; 3 - for longitudinal cutting; 4 - for cutting along the radius; 5 - for shaped cutting); b-punch (made with round, square and other sections of the beard); in-piercing (1-conical; 2-cylindrical); g-strokers; d-rolling
A paired backing tool is also used, which includes crimps, punchers, nailers with hat hammers, special stamps for figured products.
The handles of the backing tool are made of wood, thick wire or elastic cable. Handle length 500-600 mm. Wooden handles drive the heads into the seat without wedging. This is done so that vibration and shock are not transmitted through the handle. The wire handle is twisted around the head in a hot state, and the cable handle is wedged and soldered in the seat.
Consider some of the features of the backing tool ..
Let's start with the backing tool under the hammer. Blacksmith chisels are subdivided into chisels for cutting heated and cold workpieces. Chisels for cold cutting are made more massive, with a knife sharpening angle of 60 °, knives for hot chisels are made thinner, with a sharpening angle of 30 ° (Fig. 11, a).
The shape of the knife for artistic forging chisels is made either straight or with curvature in one plane (or even in two planes).
Chisels with a straight knife are made for both transverse and longitudinal cutting, with one-sided sharpening or two-sided. The chisel knife for transverse cutting is parallel to the axis of the handle, and the chisel knife for longitudinal cutting is perpendicular to the handle. One-sided sharpening of the chisel is used when it is required to obtain a cut with a perpendicular end, and if the product has an inclined end or a chamfer is needed, then chisels with double-sided sharpening are needed. Chisels with a blunt knife are used to apply various ornaments to products.
Chisels with a knife curvature in a horizontal plane are used to cut out various curvilinear elements from sheet material, such as flowers, acanthus leaves.
Shaped chisels with a double curvature of the knife are used for cutting out any elements from bulk workpieces.
When working with a chisel, blacksmiths must keep in mind the following: so that the knife does not dull, it is necessary to place a gasket under the workpiece (iron or copper sheet). By the way, the gasket will protect the face of the anvil from damage.
When cutting off a part from a workpiece, certain rules must be observed. So, the initial and final blows to the chisel must be applied very carefully: at the beginning - so that the chisel correctly cuts into the workpiece, at the end - so that the cut off part does not fly away and injure someone. The place where the cut is made must be fenced with a net.
Punches are designed for punching holes, various recesses in relatively thin workpieces and for ornamenting products. Depending on the shape of the punched holes, the section of the beard (the working part of the punch) can be round, oval, square, rectangular or shaped (Fig. 11, 6).
For punching holes in thick workpieces, piercings and special punches are used, which differ from punches in that they do not have handles and are held with tongs (Fig. 11, c).
It is known from blacksmithing practice that, in order to facilitate the removal of the piercing from the punched hole, a little fine coal is poured into the previously marked recess (during the piercing process, the gases formed from the coal contribute to the ejection of the tool).
The trowels are used to smooth out irregularities on the surface of the forging after it has been hammered. Smoothers come with flat and cylindrical working surfaces of various sizes and shapes. For leveling large planes, trowels with a working surface of 100 × 100 mm are usually used, for leveling small surfaces - trowels with a size of 50 × 50 mm. Smoothers with a cylindrical surface are necessary for leveling fillets and radius surfaces (Fig. 11, d.).
Rolling is intended to accelerate the expansion (elongation) of metal along and across the axis of the workpieces, as well as to knock out cylindrical grooves on workpieces and to decorate products (Fig. 11, e).
Let's get acquainted with the backing tool installed on the anvil. Such a tool is equipped with a square shank, which is inserted into the corresponding socket in the anvil (Fig. 12).
Rice. 12. Backing tool installed on the anvil: 1-notches; 2-cone mandrels; 3-fork; 4-6 mandrels
Undercuts are used for cutting workpieces with a handbrake. The workpiece is placed on the cutting blade and, hitting it with a handbrake, cut off the necessary part. The angle of sharpening the cutting edge is 60°. It should be remembered that the cutting of the workpiece cannot be completed to the end, so as not to spoil the cutting blade. First, a deep hemming of the workpiece is carried out, and the final separation of a part of the workpiece is carried out at the edge of the anvil with a light stroke of the handbrake.
Tapered mandrels are used to enlarge holes in a forging, expand rings and perform bending operations.
Forks are used for bending and curling workpieces. In addition, backing tools include various mandrels for slope forging, bending and forge welding of chain links.
Rice. 13. Paired backing tool: a-crimps (1-3) and tamper (4); b-devices for landing nails, bolts, rivets
The paired backing tool includes a lower tool (lower ones), which is inserted into the anvil hole with a square shank, and an upper tool (upper tool), which has a handle for holding (Fig. 13, a).
This group includes crimps (to give the pre-forged workpiece the correct cylindrical, rectangular or polyhedral shape) and tamps (for longitudinal or transverse distribution of metal). For special artworks, special stamps with reliefs such as leaves, peaks, rosettes, etc. are used.
A nailing plate with special through holes of various sizes for landing nail heads, bolts and fasteners can also be attributed to the backing tool (Fig. 13, b).
To give the head of a nail, bolt or rivet the required shape (sphere, prism, square, hexagon), special hat hammers are used.
A massive steel plate will also be of great help in forging art products - a shape about 300 × 400 mm in size and 150-200 mm thick, on the four side faces of which there are recesses of various configurations and sizes: semicircular, triangular, rectangular, etc. The plate is necessary when forging various shaped elements and is used instead of backing dies. On the end surfaces of the mold there are through round, square, triangular and shaped holes for punching holes using special punches or punches (Fig. 14).
For the manufacture of large artistic products such as fences, balcony railings, canopies, porches, you will need a large and thick plate, on which the products are assembled and straightened. The plate provides through holes for installing pins, bolts, thrust squares and various devices for profile bending of profiles, assembly of structures and other technological operations.
It is convenient to assemble artistic products of complex shape (with a convex surface) on plates with an appropriate surface shape. For welding large products, it is necessary to have special racks.
To work with hot metal, of course, pliers are needed. According to the shape of the jaws, the pliers are divided into longitudinal, transverse, longitudinal-transverse and special. Forging tongs should be light, with springy handles, to securely hold the forgings during operation, the handles of the pliers can be pulled together with a special ring - a spanner (Fig. 15, a).
Rice. 15. Blacksmith tongs (a) and chair vise (b): 1-handle; 2-clamping ring; 3-rivets; 4 sponges; 5-blank; 6-loop
If the tongs do not grip the workpiece tightly, then the jaws of the tongs are heated in the forge and, having captured the workpiece with them, they are pressed with a handbrake.
A chair vice (Fig. 15, b) and various clamps are used to clamp hot workpieces. Such a vice is fastened with powerful screws, bolts or rivets on the main support of a bench workbench or on
a separate chair - a massive log, well fixed in the floor of the forge. The upper level of the jaws is usually located at a height of 900 - 1000 mm from the floor level.
To measure workpieces and products in the forge, steel rulers 250, 500 and 1000 mm long, metal meters, calipers, squares, etc. are used. In addition, blacksmith artists widely use various templates and gauges made of wire and sheet materials when performing mass production (Fig. 16).
Rice. 16. Control and measuring tool: a-caliper; b-calipers; in-intromers; g-combined measuring tool
To take care of the forge's forge, you will need a coal shovel, a poker, a pike or a crowbar for punching baked coal, a whisk for cleaning the furnace from fine coal and slag dust, a sprinkler for wetting coal when sintering a dome (cap) over the hearth, tongs for coal ..
It should be noted that all the tools necessary for forging should be located on a special table in the immediate vicinity of the blacksmith's workplace. Table height 600-800 mm.
In addition to the main and auxiliary tools, the forge always has a box for dry sand, a rack for storing tools, water tanks, a box for coal, racks for storing tools and metal, a workbench for metalworking, etc.
It is good when the workshop of a blacksmith-artist is spacious, bright, includes several rooms for certain types of work: sketch-graphic, metalwork-assembly and blacksmith-welding. In addition, a room for storing materials, various semi-finished products, etc. is desirable.
For sketching and graphic work, you will need large tables, since some elements have to be drawn in full size, a drawing board for drawing individual components and parts, as well as various tablet stands, cabinets for storing sketches and drawings.
The room for metalwork and assembly works is equipped with a metalwork bench with a vice, a drilling machine, a grinder and other equipment necessary for assembling and finishing forged products.
Journal Reconomica offers you a rare but interesting profession of a blacksmith-gunsmith. Andrey, a knife maker, will tell about his work. Blacksmithing is not yet his full-time job, but he started from scratch, turned his hobby into a source of income and quickly made a good income. You will learn how to turn your blacksmithing hobby into a small business, how to sell finished products and how much you can earn from it, while combining a hobby with a full-time job. According to the author, this is a very good extra income, especially if you live in a region with a low average salary.
The economic situation in the country is such that almost all people are forced to look for opportunities to earn extra money. Retirees work to help their children and grandchildren, motorists taxi or deliver pizza, students hand out flyers or put up ads. It is unlikely that all these activities bring people positive emotions. As well as the main work, which most of us can hardly call a favorite. And how can you call a favorite process in which you are just a small cog, and if necessary, you can be replaced by another cog just like yourself.
That's just a hobby thing. This is something that everyone treats with trepidation and does with pleasure. Doing what you love and making a profit from it is the dream of millions of people, but now it turns out to be realized by a few. It turned out for me, although a couple of years ago I had no idea about what I'm doing now.
How I mastered blacksmithing, or how it all began
And it all started with the usual conversation in a sincere gathering with his brother, who is obsessed with all sorts of knives, brass knuckles and pistols. He began to tell me about the videos that he saw on the Internet, about making beautiful designer knives with his own hands from improvised materials.
Imbued with his enthusiastic exclamations, I also decided to see what kind of masters there are. It turned out to be true that making a cool author's knife with a minimum set of tools is not so difficult, and I decided to try it. I was also lucky with the fact that I work as a thermist in a machine-building industry, so I understand steel grades well, and there were no problems with materials for a knife - the presence of a professional thermals at hand in such a case is a huge plus.
How to make a knife with your own hands at home
I watched a bunch of videos on the Internet on this topic, I liked one of them, which I took as a basis as a guide. I used what was at hand to make my first blade. It can be said that he worked at home with improvised means.
The material for my first knife was an ordinary old Soviet file. Steel for a knife is not the most suitable, but it is affordable and easily processed.
I set up my workshop in the garage. My tools for work were a file, sandpaper and a clamp. For the manufacture of descents, I made a special device out of plywood and set to work. Grinding a large layer of metal by hand turned out to be a very difficult task. His hands were constantly tired, he sharpened for a minute, and rested for five. But, oddly enough, I had no desire to quit the whole thing.
Having completed the work with a file, I began to grind the workpiece sandpaper . A few hours of work - and now my blade is almost ready! It remains only to take to work and harden.
Here I must say that due to inexperience, I made a big mistake with the dimensions, the blade turned out to be very thick and massive, but I still decided to complete the work to the end, because my main task was not to make a good knife, but to understand the principle and subtleties of the process.
Next, I needed to make a handle for my “monster”. I went to a birch grove to collect dry branches and birch bark. Back in the garage, I started making the handle. Working with wood is much easier and more pleasant than with metal, so there were no problems here. The handle is comfortable and beautiful. And I decided not to stop there.
How to learn how to make really good knives
I approached the manufacture of the next knife more seriously. I picked up a workpiece from a more suitable steel and correctly calculated all the dimensions. The second knife came out much more attractive than the first. My brother, seeing the result of my work, praised me and asked me to give this knife to him. Without hesitation, I complied with the request, because it was with his suggestion that I began to do this.
My handmade knife
Then things got more fun. Having mastered some of the intricacies of the process, I improved with each new knife, and some acquaintances, having seen the results of my work, were already ready to shell out money for me to make a knife to order. But my activity has not yet gone beyond the scope of a hobby. After all, even though I spent almost all my free time in the garage, the productivity was extremely low - only 1-2 knives per month. You won't make money on this. And then I decided to take a serious step, since the manufacturing process itself gave me pleasure.
Blade production automation
To take my small production to a serious level, I needed to purchase a belt sander. The difficulty was that the simplest grindercosts about 15-20 thousand rubles. I had money, so I, enlisting the help of virtual colleagues in the shop, the same artisanal craftsmen like me, began to choose a machine tool that cost me 17 thousand rubles, including delivery.
After I installed grinder in my garage, I realized that the production of knives by hand and on the machine is like heaven and earth.If earlier on the manufacture of one blade with a file and sandpaper it took me several days, now in one day of work I could easily check out 5-10 blades, while saving a lot of strength.
In addition, the blades made on the machine turned out to be much more accurate and of high quality. Yes, and there were no problems with the handles, because on grinder wood can also be sanded.
This is what my workshop looks like today
In a word, the matter fell apart. In the first month of work with grinder I made 6 full knives. Having presented them to my friends, I immediately received several orders from them from 1.5 to 2.5 thousand rubles. The next month, I earned 10 thousand rubles in this way. I solved the issue of metalworking with the help of a grinding machine, but then another problem arose before me. I had to carry all the blanks to work for heat treatment or some kind of forging operations. To solve this problem, I was puzzled by the manufacture of a forge.
How to make a blacksmith's forge with your own hands
Even a schoolboy can make the simplest forge forge. I did not complicate my life and went exactly this way. Having collected clay, I blinded a small gutter right next to the garage. The basis of any forge is blowing . I decided to use an old vacuum cleaner with a reverse function for this. I ran a metal tube with holes along the bottom of the clay gutter, connected the vacuum cleaner hose to it and that's it - the forge is ready. Fill up the coals and kindle. And although I still wore blades to work to heat, because the quality of the blade directly depends on the quality of hardening and tempering, then simpler operations, in particular forging and annealing. I made it right in the garage.
Where can a blacksmith take orders?
After I fulfilled all the wishes of my friends, there was a problem with new orders. This is where social media came to my rescue. I created a group where I posted photos of my work, as well as some tips for making, and quickly gained a small audience, since such things very well attract the attention of the stronger sex.
Examples of my work
Now, under each photo of my work, there are several requests for sale at once. I do not overprice my knives, knowing full well that I am far from the most skilled craftsman in their manufacture. The average price of one knife is 2 thousand rubles, it turns out to manufacture and sell usually about ten pieces per month. The process of their production has already been perfected to automatism, only now I put my author's stamp on each knife.
Payback for a knife making business
The profitability has been good. Thus, their costs grinder and I recaptured the materials in two months of work. Moreover, now I can afford not to wander around the shop in search of normal steel, but to order it from suppliers. As well as other necessary materials: leather for the scabbard, special oil for impregnating the handles, ribbons for grinder and much more. And the most important thing is that the very process of making knives brings me pleasure and no matter how much I earn on it.
Although during the holidays, when there is a lot of free time, my monthly income exceeds my basic salary and amounts to about 30-35 thousand rubles, but when you have to combine your hobby with work, the income is about half that.
Youtube is the best client flow source for private master
Now my plans are to create a channel on youtube , where I want to post videos about making knives and share my experience with novice craftsmen. In order for the videos to be of high quality, you need to purchase a good camera and a tripod. All this pleasure is not cheap, but it is worth it. After all, the channel youtube - this is a large number of potential customers, plus another opportunity for additional earnings on the affiliate program.
How to turn your hobby into a profitable business
I talked about my experience of how you can convert your own hobby into a real serious income. After all, things made by hand to order have always had a special value. As an example, we can take consumer goods, which are made by prisoners in places not so remote. Zonovskie backgammon, rosary, cards, pens and much more are very expensive, not only because it is all incredibly beautiful, but also because it is exclusive handmade.The master puts his soul into it, so such things are highly valued.
Product worth 2000 rubles
My experience with knives by no means encourages you to grab a file and run to the garage. This is just an example of the fact that with the right approach and perseverance, you can easily make your hobby bring not only positive emotions, but also income. And you can do anything.
For those who like to work with wood, making chess and backgammon would be a good option, but for girls, various options for needlework are suitable: embroidery, knitting, beading . For each. a seemingly useless, but beautiful trinket, there is a demand, you just need to be able to present it correctly. And if you really like what you do, then nothing and no one can stop you from repeating my experience.