Blacksmithing on a Budget

Description

http://www.thepathfinderstore.com

Dave Canterbury, David Canterbury, The Pathfinder School,Bush Craft ,Survival skills, Historical Lore, Primitive Skills, Archery, Hunting, Trapping, Fishing, Navigation, Knives, Axes, Fire, Water, Shelter, Search and Rescue

Tags: Bushcraft,Survival,David Canterbury,Dave Canterbury,Pathfinder,The Pathfinder School,Archery,Hunting,Fishing,Camping,Primitive Skills,Fire,Water,Shelter,Navigation,First Aid,Search and Rescue,Signaling,Prepper,Preparedness,Self Reliance,Survivability,The 10 C's,Knives,Axes,Saws,Bow Drill,Ferrocerium Rod,Ferro Rod,Tarp,Hammock,Canteen,Cooking,Longhunter,Trapping

Video Transcription

one of guys I'm Dave Canterbury with the Pathfinder school and what I thought I would do today is I've had a lot of questions especially lately that I've been doing the Greenwood working in the blacksmithing series so heavily about what do I really need to get started in blacksmithing what do I need to pound money so I thought what I do today is I would kind of do a repeat of my budget bushcraft series and show you what you can get away with to start blacksmithing and I know this because I started blacksmithing about three years ago really heavy and over the last couple of years I've increased my intensity level of self training for forge time which equates to dirt time in the woods to make sure that I can do it and do it professionally and I think that is what a lot of people don't understand when I do video series those video series are helping me not only to convey what I want you to learn or what I want to share with you or what I want to learn with you but it also increases my knowledge and increases my proficiency at a skill and I'm a firm believer in you do something until you can't do it wrong you create muscle memory so that you cannot perform that skill wrong you eliminate all the variability within the process so that the end result is the same all the time it doesn't matter whether that's building a shelter making a fire making a knife on the forge a fire striker whatever the case may be you do it until you can't do it wrong that's why I continue a certain series over time because I want to repeat it for myself so that I become more proficient while we are learning together so what I thought I'd do today is go over some of the basic tools that you need to blacksmith with that you can get on the cheap stay with me all right so before we go to fires and anvils and all that stuff let's just talk about the basic tools required to manipulate the metal and let's think about what we have to do well a we have to be able to heat the metal which is going to require some type of Forge and we'll talk about that in a few minutes then we need a solid surface to manipulate or pound the metal to shape it the way we want it or cut it the way we want and all of those types of things that's going to require an anvil we'll talk about that in a few minute

so we're going to cut shape punch hollow those are the things that we need to be able to do these are the tools that we can do that with hammers first thing you're going to need is something to pound that Nuttall with this is just a sledge hammer and a ball peen hammer both of these came from scrap yards or flea markets both of them cost less than five bucks I reached for this hammer more than any hammer I have to this day that tells you how well I like this hammer is great for hollowing things and we'll talk more about doing hollows and creating concavities in a few minutes because you don't need a special form for that you can just use a piece of wood but something like this is also good for pounding over rivets and things like that from rounding them over so it takes the police a little bit of a rounding or more expensive rounding hammer and it gives you a large hammer that you can flip back and forth to and ball-peen hammers are good choices for forging so we can get our hammers for ten bucks or less now holding on to the mountain and manipulating it while we have a hold of it that's important these three tools are my go-to for a basic kit now I have more expensive tongs I have lots of Tom's but I'm going to be honest with you again these two tools I grab for more than anything I've bought over the years all of these came from again either scrap yards or flea markets none of them cost more than five bucks I think this is the most expensive pair I paid five bucks for right here and what I really like about these is they have a concavity on both sides for holding round stock they're concave here here with jaws in them as well for holding stock sideways and they're also very good for holding flat stock these are really good for manipulating metal and they have a longer set of handles on them so whatever they were made for to begin with I don't have any idea but for my purpose they're my go-to set of tongs for forging even to this day this is just a flat jaw set it has a set of wire cutters on it so I can cut nails to make rivets and things like that if I need to it also gives me ability to cut heavier wires that

I may need to manipulate has something else and the flat jaws are really really good for holding flat stock okay this is just a pair of old ring pliers and I'm going to show you something real quick because these plot these tongs here are virtually the same thing in larger scale except these are $100 these were virtually free I mean these things were less than 2 bucks I think or a buck if I remember right and what they like to do is manipulate that metal to do fine curls and turns and gradual curves and things like that with a metal while you're holding it with something else again I reach for these more than about anything else when I'm making small things like whether it be a squirrel cooker that I put in a turn in the Bale hat bail up for whether it be a fire steel whatever the case may be that I'm putting a small hook or turning something I reach for these more than anything else and they're also great for making fish hooks and forming fish hooks these 3 pairs of pliers again probably less than right at ten bucks for all three pair that gives me what I need to hold on to and manipulate the mode now let's talk about cutting and punching the metal we're going to need to drift holes or punch holes in the metal you're not really punching holes unless you're removing material you're drifting it you're spreading it apart okay this is just a piece of tool steel it's been sharpened on a grinder and heat treated so that it's hard and it's not going to malformed on a punching hot steel with it and it is a hot drift punch so that I can put holes in metal to open it up if I need to put a rivet in it or whatever the case may be and it's been rounded off at the front and this is just an old chisel again came from us both of these came from scrap yards for scrap yard price of sixty cents a pound and I doubt there's a pound and a half between the two of them maybe two pounds at the max this has just been sharpened up again and hardened so that I have a hot cutting chisel and I can hold on to so now I have the ability to punch holes in the metal and cut the metal a hacksaw very very good thing to have and you can get wood

leaves for this as well so you can make it multifunctional in the thing with all these pliers and things are their multi functional as well because as well as being my favorite pliers around the forge these are also some of my favorite pliers to use with cast iron cookware for lifting lids and things like that with so a lot of stuff is multifunctional in camp especially a permanent type camp a hacksaw is an indispensable item because it makes it really easy to cut metal without having to heat it up thinner metals you can cut it to shape if you need to if you're making a knife blade out of an old saw blade or something like that you can cut it to shape with this hacksaw very very easily and again you can have other blades for the saw at the same time so it makes it a worthwhile carry the blades the most expensive part of this saw because it's a Baco blade this softer aim I think cost four or five dollars at a flea market and it had a good pruning blade in when I bought it all right wire brush always going to be a good thing to have scrape off the flanking from your work when it comes out you're going to have flaking and stuff on your metal when it comes out of the forge this will help you to clean it off it also helps to get all the grit and stuff off of your metal if you're using a regular a regular fire not a coal fire a wire brush comes in real real handy wire brushes are dirt cheap you can buy them like this brand new for like a buck at a flea market okay let's talk about grinding or cutting the metal with files and grits and things like that an old horseshoe rasp is one of the best metalworking tools there is and I was introduced to this by an Amish blacksmith who's one of my mentors named at Lee Miller and he throws these away after he's done shoeing his horses but he keeps the pilotis around just for metal this side here is fantastic for shaping metal on things like fro blades draw knives axes all the things that you are working on while they're still hot hot filing this thing is perfect for this thing will remove a lot of metal if your hot filing but it's a very very good tool and it can be made into something else in an emergency if it needs to be this is just a regular mill file that's round on one side flat on the other got a wouldn't handle on it again this thing both of these came from flea markets probably for less than a buck apiece are right out of buck apiece this is just an old broken broken carborundum stone off my grinder you can find these anywhere but this will do for a quick sharpening on a blade in an emergency it will also sharpen up the edge of an awl and things like that when it comes out of the forge if you're trying to sharpen something up real fast to give it flat sharp edges like for cutting into things like leather and wood so these three tools are also very good to have that pretty much gives you all the tools that you need and tool wise to be able to shape the metal hold the metal cut the metal drift the metal or split them up all of those things or make a concavity in the middle all of those things can be done with this basic set of tools right there that basic set of tools is well under 50 bucks well under 50 bucks alright so let's talk for a minute about pounding on something you're gonna need an anvil for that all right you don't have to go out and spend a lot of money on an anvil in the beginning this table below me is a very old 268 pound hey bud an anvil this is my pride and joy okay but I didn't start out with this I started out with this which is an anvil made from a piece of railroad track and that's enough you don't even have to have the nose on there or the hardy hole cut into it to start out with you can just have a piece of railroad track and that will work for you a piece of flat hard metal like this thing probably weighs well over a gallon of milk it's probably weighs 10 pounds by itself dropping this into something that you've hauled out in a piece of wood or a stump would be fine for an amble Vikings use to apples and stumps no bigger than this all the time and made lots and lots of things you can make any small item that you need to make on any example very easily now you're not going to pound big half-inch stock into tripods and things like that with an anvil like this you're not going to make big axes and drift holes and axe heads and hammer heads and things like that with small animals like this and tools that we're talking about but you can do a lot of utility smithing repairing of traps making small implements like knives tomahawks all those types of things you can make on small animals like this very very easily you can even pound out a draw knife a chisel all those types of things could be made easily enough on anvil this size none of these animals are expensive the most expensive one was this one and that was because it was created from a piece of railroad ties somebody had really worked on this thing to make it look like an actual anvil I think I paid about 40 bucks for this one this was free and this was free so my dad always said if it's free is for me and that's the way I feel about it when it comes to trying to find stuff on a budget I'm going to look for what I could find doesn't cost anything first then I'll look for what I can find that's going to suit my needs as inexpensive as I can until I can make it better and I started out with this and I use this for a long time until I graduated to a bigger that was 100 pounds and I got it from a scrapyard and I actually bought it for scrap yard prices 60 cents a pound for 100 pound anvil then I graduated to a larger anvil it was given to me by a blacksmith friend of mine an Amish guy Matt Lee Miller and then I inherited this 268 pounds hey bud animal so I started small and worked my way up and you can do this stuff on a very very low budget now let's talk about what we have to do to heat them out because that's the next important thing okay guys real quick let's talk about how do we heat our metal and there's some really simple ways that you can do this or there's some more elaborate ways but none of them are really that expensive until you buy a full-on Forge now this one right here is a brick runner Forge it's not a brake drum it's a brake rotor so it's a little shallower than a drum and you just need to put something in the bottom of it where this pipe comes into it to keep all your stuff and fold through it and I found just a piece of a hibachi grill and a scrapyard broke pieces off of the squares and just laid them in in here to put my coal on top of the most important thing is that you have a way to contain the fire now that you have a way to force air from the bottom that's important forced air is the most important part it being able to heat metal up hot enough forging you can do it with wood coal just regular hardwood charcoal that you have made from a fire that you made ahead of time will work just fine for forging but you have to have forced air so something like this where you attach a flange to it and put some pipe on it with a tea there's a one-way air valve here on the top you don't have to have that that's the most expensive part of this whole thing this is this you plug a hairdryer right into it $10 a hairdryer for the dollar store turn it on you got forced air on the bottom you've got a screw cap so you can empty out the ash and you're good to go drop this thing down into anything that will hold it up off the ground you can put this thing in bricks you could put this thing in a charcoal grill and just cut it out and drop it through the bottom that's what I did that lasted for three years and it was still fine when I threw it away tell you the truth it wasn't rusted through when I threw it away after three years so it still worked

you can build something like this for well under 50 bucks no problem the other thing that you can do that's real easy is just get some black iron pipe that's 3/4 inch diameter and punch some holes in it or drill some holes in it and put an out couple elbows on there to get it up drop this thing on the ground and pile dirt beside it and build your fire in that v you can block off the front if you want to or you can leave it open so you can get win through there and create a wind tunnel take this and just take a cheap $10 blower that you use to hook up for an air mattress when you turn that on and plug it into through this thing it's going to blow air out of this pipe that's going to feed air to your fire from the bottom it's very very simple to do you've got 4 or 5 bucks worth of pipe they're in a ten dollar dryer or a ten dollar blower for air mattress if you want to get a little more sophisticated than that get yourself one of the 12 volt hair dryer or 12 volt blowers they all come with these attachments to go inside of the air mattress and that's all you need that little funnel plug it onto the front put that in your pipe just like this and you're good to go you can then take that cut that connector off of it you plug in your cigarette lighter

put a couple alligator clips on it and you use just a regular 12 volt battery this is a harley-davidson battery that came from a strap yard for five bucks and it's fine holds its charge just fine and it works just fine you connect a solar panel of this thing then you really got something because you can recharge it and renew that energy otherwise you can just charge it up when you're not using it or you can use battery power either one of these will work just fine and you can set up a forwards like either one of these really really cheap this one here you go for less than 50 bucks you're right at 50 bucks probably something like this you're probably talking right at 20 bucks or less to set something like this up in the dirt and you can run it off your car battery if you had to you're not going to run it long enough with this little bitty motor to run your car battery down very fast if you get any kind of a decent battery you can put it right back in your car start the car right back up to recharge guys I appreciate you joining me a day out here for this quick video on blacksmithing on a budget I wanted to get that out there for people who had asked me what's the minimum I need to do to start blacksmithing because I want to do it but I don't have a lot of money and you can spend a lot of money blacksmithing or you can do it on a budget and just increase things and get better stuff that you need as you go that's what I did that's how I built this Forge over the last three years as I started with the minimum and worked my way up I appreciate your views I percieve support I thank you for everything you do for a school for our family for our business follow our instructors sponsors affiliates and friends don't forget to watch dirty rotten survival tomorrow night ten o'clock on National Geographic thanks guys