Secrets of the Forge: Step-by-Step in Photos

Author: Antonello Rizzo
Published: 2008 in Italy
ISBN: 978-88-903359-1-4
228 pages; hundreds of detailed color photographs.

This is a very expensive book. On the back cover it gives a price of 130 Euros, which in Oct 09 equates to $191. When the Guild bought this book for the BGCM Library, we paid $136.

It is a large format hardcover book, 11 ½” by 13 inches. All of the text in the book is presented in both Italian and English. The books gives a good insight into contemporary Italian forging. There is a lot of work with sheet metal. The overall design of the projects presented is what I would characterize as modern. There is a nice mix of large projects and small ones. Most of the projects are shown step by step.

In some respects, the book is a strange mix: on one hand it could be considered a “coffee table” book, but on the other hand it has step by step instructions. But with this book being so expensive it is not one that you would want to take out into the forge, yet at the same time, the size of the book makes it difficult to photocopy certain pages to use in the forge.

There are 49 individual projects presented. Although at the beginning of the book, they present some basic forging operations: scrolls, twists, and leaves, there is no really organization as to how the projects are grouped. One of the projects presented is how to do a “pineapple” twist. In the book, they call this twist the “Spiral with 'Diamond' Shaped Designs”.

One aspect of this book that I did find truly fascinating was that occasionally in some of the pictures, in the background, you got to see the interior of Italian blacksmith shops. On the back wall of one shop was a pin-up calendar.

Although stock dimensions have been translated from metric to English, you still have starting sizes that seem weird. e.g. the lizard shown on page 107 is made from 30mm half round which translates to 1 3/16 half round.

Safety is an issue. The pictures here are of contemporary Italian blacksmiths but one thing that jumps out is the pronounced failure to use safety glasses. Also, a lot of the tooling has badly mushroomed heads. This is one aspect that you do NOT want to copy.

There are some interesting projects that I will be writing up for myself, but given the cost of the book, I don't see myself buying a copy.

Book Review by Albin Drzewianowski, October 2009

-- AlbinDrzewianowski - 14 Oct 2009