New Edge of the Anvil: A Resource Book for the Blacksmith

The tenet of this book is provide a tool for artists/blacksmiths and metalworkers. It tells how to work metal: heating it, cutting it, upsetting it, drawing it out, twisting it, forge welding it and shaping and assembling it. It tells about metallurgy and tool making, metal finishes and corrosion, sources of information and supplies, charts and guidelines for many tasks. It explains the process of design, how to use the computer in metal design, how to set up a business and how to manage it. Providing an inspiration for all blacksmiths are portfolios of the wrought iron work of Martin Rose and Samuel Yellin, two of America's premier metalworkers of the past. To further inspire and to show the new focus of blacksmithing in the metal arts, six contemporary metalworkers show a series of demonstration pieces of their iron work. This 256 page book is bound with an improved binding system (Otabind) that allows the pages to lay flat.

The is THE one book you need to get started as a blacksmith.

The New Edge of the Anvil is a revised and expanded edition of Andrews' earlier and most successful book. I urge all my students to buy, read, use and then reread this book. Clear words, excellent pictures, good explanations, tables, charts...all you need to encourage you to pick up a hammer and start hammering. The new sections include wonderful pictures of historical ironwork (go practice making some of these!) and then the directions that six contemporary smiths are taking.

I confess that I am one of these smiths, and that I have known the author for years. Because this is such a good resource, it is wonderful to be able to recommend it heartily without our friendship compromised. Buy it! -- Nol Putnam from The Plains, Virginia, USA, May 20, 1999