The Everyday Blacksmith - by Nicholas Wicks (Paperback)

About the Book

The Everyday Blacksmith empowers hobbyist blacksmiths to make simple, practical projects for everyday use.

Book Synopsis

The Everyday Blacksmith is your essential reference for learning how to make items you'll use everyday: tools, hardware, utensils, decorative objects, and more. Get great techniques and tips for hand forging, and discover projects contributed by leading blacksmiths from around the world, each featuring plenty of opportunity for variation.

Modern smiths can use the first section of The Everyday Blacksmith as a reference for shop basics: safety tips, equipment, and techniques like spreading, using a chisel, twisting, and finishing pieces. These basics are incorporated through a series of distinctive projects that include a bookmark, spoon, and leaf fob.

The second section of the book features a diverse array of essential step-by-step blacksmith projects, which are arranged by category and difficulty. Projects include accessible techniques, functional designs, and diverse styles.

Among the techniques and projects you'll discover are:

• How to heat treat high-carbon steels
• Methods for making curved bookends
• Instructions for creating decorative functional pieces such as a towel rack and napkin rings
• How to make unique jewelry and jewelry display items
• Ideas for creating basic hardware, including latches and hinges

For centuries, blacksmiths were the craftsmen and artists who worked society's most important material--iron. Blacksmiths were not only a fixture in their community, they helped shape that community through their particular methods of making the hinges, hooks, brackets, and tools their neighbors used every day. Blacksmithing today is enjoying a resurgence. No amount of technical perfection replaces the feeling of picking up a hand-forged object, knowing that it was shaped by someone's creativity and physical effort. Celebrate that individuality with The Everyday Blacksmith.

About the Author

Nicholas Wicks is an artist blacksmith based in Maine. His family has been metalworking for five generations, starting with Nick's great-great-grandfather, who worked on the Statue of Liberty. After apprenticing under the master blacksmith Jim Whitson, in Scotland, Nick started Wicks Forge in his grandfather's garage using homemade tools and his great-grandfather's anvil. Wicks Forge quickly expanded as audiences responded to Nick's products and philosophy--everyday pieces that combined a formal background in blacksmithing with an accessible, DIY mentality. Nick started helping others join the Maker Movement as a contributing editor for Popular Mechanics, where he writes how-to articles and reviews about which work pants are least likely to catch on fire. Wicks Forge has been featured in numerous galleries and publications, including Yankee Magazine and Connecticut Magazine. Nick is a member of the New England Blacksmiths Guild and the Artist Blacksmith Association of North America. He is the author of The Everyday Blacksmith.