Quite simply, blacksmithing is the act of taking raw metal stock and hammering (forging) it into a functional or sculptural object. Most of the time this requires intense amounts of heat, in the case of iron and steel. Softer metals, like brass and copper, can be worked “cold”. My forge typically runs at around 1,900°F, which allows the metal to be shaped easily without risking burning or melting.

All of the products I make are forged to their final shape. In some cases, I will use plain stock (round or flat bars of rolled steel) as the starting material. In other cases I might use repurposed objects: railroad ties, truck leaf-springs. And in yet other situations, I might have the initial form of the product laser cut into a “pre-form” that I have designed on the computer. Once this shape (often the starting point for a knife) has its tapers and profiles forged by hand, it will start to resemble the final product.

Any object that needs to hold a sharp edge, such as chef’s and oyster knives, requires heat treating. This process changes the structural composition of the steel, resulting in a much harder material that can be sharpened and resist wear. The first stage of heat treating is normalization: heating the object to a critical temperature and letting it cool to room temperature. This creates a uniform micro-structure and prepares the knife for hardening. The next step is quenching: heating the blade to a bright red color and cooling it quickly in oil. After quenching, the knife is very hard, but also quite brittle and delicate. Tempering, the final step of heat treating, seeks to resolve this. By holding the knife at a low temperature for an extended period of time, the hardness and brittleness both decrease, resulting in a blade that is hard enough to stay sharp, but soft enough to be durable and resist cracking.