Most people think of blacksmithing as nothing more than a big, strong, dumb, hairy and angry guy swinging a huge 10Kg sledgehammer and pounding randomly on a piece of hot steel, hopping that it will become a sword on a dark cave lit solely by the fire of his forge and heating small children for breakfast.
Truth be told, there is a lot more to blacksmithing than beating on a piece of hot steel..
I've read several posts on Youtube channels and FB pages about how cool it must be being a blacksmith and that it's a great distressing activity, to pound on something and letting your frustrations go, how great it must be to release all your day/week stress on the anvil and so on... Well, it really isn't like that and last weekend was one of those "every thing you do, comes out wrong" type of days.
Blacksmithing isn't any different from any other kind of creating art or activity, were you must always be concentrated on what you're doing, and although steel is a bit forgiving, there's a limit from were you can recover a piece of bar that just doesn't do what you want it to do!
You see, you DO have to hit with your hammer on a precise spot, or at least a precise area, so that the steel moves to were you want it to move (unless you're just banging away randomly with your hammer and in the end you just call it "art"....) and that, is a lot harder than it looks. The thing is, if you're upset with something, frustrated with life, yourself, the weather, the rain forest or something like that, it WILL show up on your work, you will make mistakes and some of them you won't be able to even call them "art".. really!...
And here's the proof, a day's work completely useless. The result, a broken bottle opener, a second attempt on the bottle opener and one of those "you can't even call it art" type of thing.
The second bottle opener actually served me has a stress relieve thing as I smashed the thing as hard as I could on the anvil because it wasn't doing what it was supposed to do (it deserved it!! It was it's fault!). Risking damaging the anvil, hammer and a really heavy anvil shoot to the face that could transform completely the way people look at me, I banged the thing to a shapeless piece of steel. When I was done I even throw the damn thing to the wall in a last act of superiority making the point of who's the Boss and all ended up in a sense of accomplishment that was preceded by that feeling of "damn..... you're so stupid".
I decided to call it a day and gave myself an homework "go home and think of what you've done you childish man!!!".
Lesson learned, blacksmithing is something you need to do when you're cool and relaxed, without bad feelings and thoughts, or, as in most thing in live, it will reflect it in your end result.
The second bottle opener actually served me has a stress relieve thing as I smashed the thing as hard as I could on the anvil because it wasn't doing what it was supposed to do (it deserved it!! It was it's fault!). Risking damaging the anvil, hammer and a really heavy anvil shoot to the face that could transform completely the way people look at me, I banged the thing to a shapeless piece of steel. When I was done I even throw the damn thing to the wall in a last act of superiority making the point of who's the Boss and all ended up in a sense of accomplishment that was preceded by that feeling of "damn..... you're so stupid".
I decided to call it a day and gave myself an homework "go home and think of what you've done you childish man!!!".
Lesson learned, blacksmithing is something you need to do when you're cool and relaxed, without bad feelings and thoughts, or, as in most thing in live, it will reflect it in your end result.
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