There are a few basic behaviors of iron that fundamentally control what blacksmiths are going to do with it in this stage. To begin with, we need to introduce some terminology to avoid this coming confusing: a given piece of metal can be hard (resistant to deformation) or soft; it can also be ductile (able to deform significantly before breaking) or brittle (likely to break without deformation). This is easiest to understand at the extremes: a soft, brittle material (like a thin wooden dowel) takes very little energy and breaks immediately without bending, while a hard, ductile material (the same dowel, made of spring-steel) bends more easily under stress but resists breaking. But it is also possible to have hard brittle materials (pottery being a classic example) which fiercely resist deforming but break catastrophically the moment they exceed their tolerances or a soft, ductile material (think wet-noodle) which bends very easily.
(I should note that all of these factors are, in fact, very complex – far more complex than we are going to discuss. In particular, as I understand it, some of what I am using “hardness” to describe also falls under the related category of yield strength. Hopefully you will all pardon the necessary simplification; if it makes you feel any better, ancient blacksmiths didn’t understand how any of this worked either, only that it worked.)
Of course these are not binaries but a spectrum. Materials have a degree of hardness or ductility; as we’ll see, these are not quite opposed, but changing one does change the other – increasing hardness often reduces ductility.
The sort of things that pre-modern people are going to want to be made in iron are going to have fairly tight tolerances for these sorts of things. Objects that had wide tolerances (that is, things which could be weak or a little bendy or didn’t have to take much force) got made out of other cheaper, easier materials like ceramics, stone or wood; metals were really only used for things that had to be both strong and relatively light for precisely the reasons we’ve seen: they were too expensive for anything else. That means that a blacksmith doesn’t merely need to bring the metal to the right shape but also to the right characteristics. Some tools would need to finish up being quite hard (like the tip of a pick, or the edge of a blade), while others needed to be able to bend to absorb strain (like the core of a blade or the back of a saw).
Bret Devereaux, “Collections: Iron, How Did They Make It, Part III: Hammer-time”, A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, 2020-10-02.
June 17, 2022
June 9, 2022
Packing My Basement Shop and Moving to a New Building
Rex Krueger
Published 8 Jun 2022Out of the basement & over to the new shop!
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The Paul Sellers Mortise Guide
Paul Sellers
Published 4 Feb 2022Mortise guides were once an unknown aid in woodworking realms but they ensure parallelity to the outside face of any mortise you cut and increase your levels of accuracy to near perfection.
Paul invented this guide for woodworking students to improve their mortising work and saw thousands of them succeed in cutting perfect mortises but also found himself reaching for one daily too.
Make metric and imperial sets and customise them for specific jobs too.
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May 26, 2022
I’m Moving to a New Shop!!!
Rex Krueger
Published 25 May 2022It’s time to get out of the basement, but where am I going?
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May 23, 2022
Inside A Woodturners Woodshop – Old vs. New
Townsends
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May 19, 2022
Furniture Forensics with a Craftsman End Table
Rex Krueger
Published 18 May 2022Is this confusing end table garbage or a glimpse into history?
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May 12, 2022
Build the English Cricket Stool // Limited tools build
Rex Krueger
Published 11 May 2022Build this handy & beautiful stool. Work space and work bench optional!
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April 28, 2022
Work ANYWHERE with New Tools and Smart Techniques
Rex Krueger
Published 27 Apr 2022No shop is no problem with just a couple tools & a little ingenuity.
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Build the Lightweight Traveler’s Bench & Japanese Sawhorses (Links Below)
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April 21, 2022
Your Quick-Start Guide to Woodturning
Rex Krueger
Published 20 Apr 2022Now that you’ve got a woodturning lathe, make this easy foot-massager in a few hours.
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April 13, 2022
How Is a Classic Book Really Made?
Darbin Orvar
Published 11 Aug 2021Going over the basic steps of #bookbinding and making an old fashioned book from scratch, starting with downloading a book, editing in InDesign, printing & finally binding.
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April 4, 2022
Clever tricks with forstner bits
Stumpy Nubs
Published 9 Dec 2021These tips and tricks will help you bet more from your forstner bits.
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March 24, 2022
Making a little shelf from reclaimed wood. No plans.
Rex Krueger
Published 23 Mar 2022You don’t need plans for every project. Learn how I improvised this fast build!
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March 17, 2022
Stop Sharpening with Sandpaper!
Rex Krueger
Published 16 Mar 2022You can ditch the sandpaper and get sharp with affordable diamond stones.
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March 10, 2022
High lumber prices might NOT come down. This is the New Woodwork Economy
Rex Krueger
Published 9 Mar 2022Get ready for the New Woodwork Economy with these flexible strategies.
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February 24, 2022
I made an “E” for How to Make Everything … and someone stole it
Rex Krueger
Published 23 Feb 2022I got commissioned to make a giant E out of wood. Then it got stolen. Then it got recovered.
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