Alex W. Bealer

Transcription

Hi I'm David Burress with Calerin Forge. Well I'd like to welcome you to the back porch of the shop here. My Uncle Chicky said "the front porch is the most important room in a mans house and so the back porch is pretty important part of the Blacksmith shop." What I want to talk to you about are some of the best resources when you're getting started in Smithing is books. You can educate yourself on the craft, you'll put yourself miles ahead. One of the first books I'd like to recommend to my students is "The Art of Blacksmithing" by Alex Bealer. This is not only a good primer for getting started, it's an important book because Alex Bealer is pretty much responsible for the modern revival of Blacksmithing. He was an ad executive and got interested in blacksmithing and realized there was nobody teaching. So he went and interviewed all the old time smiths he could find all over the country and gleaned from their knowledge. He was pretty much the founder of the ABANA Organization. It's the Artists Blacksmiths Association of North America. That's another good resource when you look up their website. There's "Backyard Blacksmithing" by Lorelei Sims. It's a really good book. "Edge of the Anvil" by Jack Andrews. "The Blacksmith's Craft" by Charles McRaven, there's a lot of good information in there. One of my favorites or the first book that really inspired me was, you can tell I've thumbed through this one a bit. "Decorative and Sculptural Ironwork" by Dona Z. Meilach. It's a really really good resource, really lets you know the range that's possible when working with metal. "Practical Blacksmithing and Metalworking" by Percy W. Blandford. A lot of good solid stuff in here. "Practical Projects for the Blacksmith" by Ted Tucker. Most of these books should be still in print. If they're not in print, a lot of them are still available through Amazon.com If you would be so kind to mention you heard about them here when you order them. As far as getting started in equipping your shop, the Blacksmith's Depot, Steve and Shirley Kayne, it's a family run business. They're wonderful people to work with and they've got everything you need as far as tools for blacksmithing. You can find them on the internet too. If you don't have a chance to come and take a class with us here at Calerin Forge then another good place to learn about blacksmithing is the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown North Carolina. Those are some things to get you started. I suggest you get these books and you read them and you go to your forge and you try out what you've read and you go back and read them again. The second time you read it you really understand it because it really does take hands on to really learn what you're doing. There's an old blacksmiths proverb that says "Life's so short and the craft's so long to learn" so no matter how long you've been doing it there's always more to learn than what you've already got behind you. Good luck and happy smithing. Hello Sophie.