Part of the fun of learning a new skill is that you also get to learn a new language. Here’s some blacksmith lingo you should know if you’re going to start pounding steel:
anglesmith
An anglesmith is someone who bends/welds metal into angular shapes, as in for angle irons or brackets. See also:
annealing
Annealing is the process of heating metal and then allowing it to cool slowly. Annealed metal is softer, making it more workable and more ductile. Steel is annealed by heating it until it glows for a while, and then letting it cool to room temperature in still air.
arbor press
An arbor press is a small, hand-operated press used for small tasks like riveting or staking.
blast furnace
A blast furnace is a tower-shaped smelting furnace used to make iron by blasting hot, compressed air into the bottom. The Catalan forge was an early predecessor of the blast furnace.
bolster
A knife bolster is the junction between the blade and the handle. It makes the knife stronger, more durable, and serves as a counter-balance for improved handling.
brake
A brake (aka press brake, or brake press) is a tool for bending sheet (and sometimes plate) metal.
brightsmith
A brightsmith is a person who works with bright metals like tin (aka “tinsmith”), copper, or brass.
buckling
Buckling is a bend, bulge, kink, wave, etc. in a workpiece.
burr
A burr is the roughness left on the edge of a workpiece after cutting.
casting
Casting is the process of pouring hot, molten metal into a mold.
cold forging
Cold forging, sometimes called room-temperature forging (seriously), is the manipulation of metal without heating it. It can save energy needed to heat up the workpiece, but often involves heavy equipment to shape the cold metal.
cold working
Cold working is the process of strengthening metal via permanent plastic deformation, aka “work-hardening.”
crucible
A crucible in a container used for melting metals.
die
A die is a part of a press that is shaped uniquely in some way in order to form metal into specific shapes as the workpiece is hammered or pressed against it.
drawing (or drawing out)
Drawing out is the process of making a workpiece longer and thinner, or longer and wider.
ductility
Ductility is the property of metal that describes to what degree it can stretch without rupturing.
flux
A flux is any substance used to keep oxygen from the surface of a hot metal in order to prevent oxidation. Charcoal and borax compounds were once used. Today inert gases are more common.
forge
A forge is a brick or stone-lined furnace where metal is heated to a malleable temperature before being moved to an anvil for hammering.
forging
Forging is the process of bending metal to your will with a hammer (or a press, or a roll, or any number of other tools).
forging press
A forging press is a machine press that shapes metal into three-dimensional shapes.
foundry
A foundry is a place where metal is cast.
fuller
A fuller is similar to a small hammer head. It can be secured to a handle, to use as a hammer, or it can be shanked to fit the hardy hole of an anvil and worked against. Whether the fuller is driven into the metal, or the metal into the fuller, it can move the work piece faster than a normal hammer because the rounded head sinks into the metal easier than a flat hammer.
hardening
Hardening is the process of making a metal harder, whether by hammering, quenching and tempering, or adding alloys to change its chemical makeup.
hardy hole (or hardie hole)
The hardy/hardie hole is a small, square-shaped hole on the top of the anvil. It was designed for tooling … such as a hardie. Other tools with square shanks designed to be held here, and commonly referred to as “hardie tools.”
pig iron
Pig iron is the crude, high-carbon iron from a smelting/blast furnace. It’s obtained in rounded, oblong bricks – slightly resembling a pig.
pritchel hole
The Pritchel hole is the rounded hole on top of an anvil, near the Hardy hole. Used in combination with a Pritchel (a kind of hammer with a small, rounded tip), it is for punching holes in a work piece.
quenching
Quenching is the process of rapidly cooling hot metal to alter its properties—usually to harden it.
scale
Scale is a layer of oxides that create a black coating on steel as it is heated. It flakes off easily when hammered.
slag
Slag (aka dross or tailings) is any unwanted byproduct of smelting ore.
smelting
Smelting is the process of heating and melting ore in order to extract metal.
tempering
Tempering is the process of hardening metal by heating and then quenching it.
wire pulling
Wire pulling is the process of making metal wire by pulling a work piece through a hole or wire-making die.
work hardening
Work hardening is a cold working method for hardening metal by flexing or compressing it.
Hi
Thanks for the wonderful details, I have bookmarked your blog for the future updates.
AWESOME
Helpful, thank you!
This is very useful! I write works of fan fiction, and my favorite character to center the stories around is an inventor and metalworker, so it’s great to have this as a straightforward listing of terms and definitions. I appreciate you making this available to the public.
Thank you so much for the helpful information! I’m writing a book that involves blacksmithing, so I’ll definitely be back!
Thank you for this! My boyfriend is a blacksmith and loves telling me about his work – and I love to listen – but I wanted to understand basic lingo so I can really grasp what he’s telling me ☺️
I am trying to interpret a phrase in a daybook by an American blacksmith in the 1790s.. What would “toing” (if I have read the handwritten script correctly) mean in the phrase
“toing and setting a pare of shoes 1/6”? Would love your help. There probably will be more conundrums in the future.
I am trying to decipher handwritten wording by an 18th c. American blacksmith in a daybook from about 1790. What would “toing” mean in the phrase “toing & setting a pare of shoes 1/6”
I am trying to decipher an 18th c American blacksmith’s handwriting in his daybook. What would “toing” mean in the phrase likely about shoeing a horse “toing & setting a pare of shoes”.
The cost was 1 schilling 6 pence.