The ABCs of Blacksmithing

Author: Fridolin Wolf
Translators: Winfried and Judith Berger
Originally published as Kunstchmiededepraxis (1974) and Kunstschmieden in Beispielen (1979) by Charles Coleman Verlag Gmbh & Co. KG, Lubeck Germany
Translated publication: Blue Moon Press, Huntingdon, PA 2006
182 pages; hundreds of black & white photographs
ISBN: 0-9707664-5-9
Price: $45.00

This book was literally “hot off the press” when I bought it at the 3rd Annual Bill Gichner Hammer-In, January 2007. Judy Berger had not yet even advertised its availability. Judy and her husband Winfried had taken 2 books by Fridolin Wolf, translated them and combined them into this single volume. As soon as soon as I saw it, I grabbed it. The first half of the book briefly covers the basics of materials, forge and tooling and then quickly moves into PROCESS: drawing out, upsetting, punching and drifting, collaring, etc. The second half of the book provides 23 different examples of forged elements with detailed pictures and text. Some are quite simple: twists and leaves, but others are quite involved, many involving slitting: horse, bull, owl, eagle’s head, etc; very Germanic. The book concludes with showing how to forge uppercase alphabet and numbers by slitting and forging various widths of ¼” and 5/16” thick steel.

I can see aspects of some of the very basic processes presented in this book which I will be incorporating into my work. To be honest, I bought the book for the section on forging letters and numbers, the rest is just icing on the cake.

The only negatives that I found were: since the pictures were taken in the 1970’s, the young men demonstrating various stances, processes, etc are not wearing safety glasses; also, the author assumes that all blacksmiths are right handed. (And maybe at that time in Germany they all were.)

I can strongly recommend this book to the advanced beginner who desires to incorporate a European look into his/her ironwork.

Blue Moon Press, Blue Moon Road Huntingdon, PA 16652
http://www.bluemoonpress.org/
toll free at 866.627.6922

-- AlbinDrzewianowski - 25 Jan 2008