Under A Spreading Chestnut Tree, Basic Blacksmthing

Title: Under A Spreading Chestnut Tree, Basic Blacksmthing

Author: Charlie Sutton
Published by: Dolphin Press, Ontario, Canada; 1998
ISBN: 0-9684098-0-6
108 pages, spiral bound

This is a good comprehensive beginner's book on getting started in blacksmithing. He covers all of the basics, identifying equipment, setting up your shop, safety practices, basic forging, design and layout, and a number of projects. The book is illustrated throughout with many excellant line drawings. Especially useful are a number of tables which he has included in the last chapter: a table of lengths of stock required to make rings or hoops of a given size; a table to determine the starting stock in order to end up with particular finished size; weights per foot for various sizes of steel stock; etc..

In 1940 at the age of 14 Charlie Sutton was apprenticed to a large industrial blacksmith shop in a ship yard (I think it was in England, but it could have been in Canada. He resides in Canada now.) As a result of his training, you find that he uses a ball pein hammer as his forging hammer, this is a departure from the cross pein hammer, which we usually see in the basic blacksmithing books. Throughout the book he sticks in amusing anecdotes from his days as an industrial blacksmith. Over all it is a well written and entertaining book.

This book is available from Norm Larson Books, 5426 E. Hwy 246, Lompoc, CA 93436; 1-800-743-4766; e-mail: larbooks@impulse.net

Book review by Albin Drzewianowski

-- AlbinDrzewianowski - 18 Dec 2007