Tracy L.'s Profile

2 Reviews

This is a natural sequel to the first video. Once again Hershel House is there to present some blacksmithing knowledge along with some really corny old country jokes in between segments. These do help to lighten the mood, and though I didn't really find them funny, it's certainly better than a stoic lecturer's format.

The video was well done, two of the demonstrations I found particularly interesting; forging an axe head and a lead casting ladle. As a standalone video it's a little lacking in that Hershel doesn't always go into much detail on techniques, but if you have done any other reading or seen other videos on blacksmithing, this is quite good.

Good video overall. I have some criticisms though:

1) He frequently worked the blade well into the cold range. It appeared that he was not getting it hot enough in the first place. This can introduce a good deal of stress into the blade and a beginning smith following this example could crack their work partway through. It also means forging a blade is a lot more effort. I presume that's why he's using a 4 pound hammer to do his forging work. If he'd get the blade hotter in the forge and only work it at the higher heat he'd be able to use a 2.5-3 pound hammer. This gives more precision and is a lot easier on the smith. If you're working the forge all day on a number of items you learn to work the metal hot or you're putting out much more effort than is needed.

2) The section on sandcasting was kind of nice to include, but they should have given a little more detail. You can make a flask on your own fairly easily, and there are many cheaper materials to use for casting than petrobond. It would have been nice to discuss this in the video rather than just showing the commercial cope/drag. Much of the video concentrates on basic starting equipment and low-cost options. It felt odd to see them just assume you need a commercial flask and petrobond.

3) When doing the sandcasting, she cast a large ingot of silver alloy, then cut off a small piece and spent a lot of time cutting and shaping it. Lots of wasted effort there. It's better to cast the parts you actually need as close as you can to their final size. This keeps the shaping and filing to a minimum.

4) This is the only time I have seen a smith temper a blade in three stages. There's no reason you can't temper a blade in one step, and most do. I suspect he does it in three stages because he normalizes three times and hardens three times first. It smacks of mysticism; there's lots of practices among smithing that have no scientific use, but smiths continue them because they think they are important without knowing why. This feels like the same kind of thing.

These are minor criticisms though, and overall the video was well produced and is well worth watching. Just remember to get your metal a good deal hotter than he does and you'll have a much easier time of it.