Look at me, so excited, in my still-clean leather apron, on my first day at blacksmith school… looking sort of cute with my skewed glasses and child-like enthusiasm, I must say…

You know I share not just my art but my whole life with you, so I might as well teach you how to be a blacksmith too… vicariously… That is my forge. It was left that way on purpose by the last person to use it. That is because the coal… bituminous, for those who care… has three distinct forms. The black stuff is not what you want to burn, you want to burn the stuff that was heated and partially burned by the last person to use the forge… (which goes out about 20 minutes after you stop cranking air into it)… The lighter stuff is now called ‘coke’, and it burns much hotter and more evenly than the regular coal. The third stage is called ‘clinker’… when the coal has been burnt until it won’t burn anymore. It looks like glass mixed with bits of steel.

There is my hand-cranked air blower. First, you have to sort all the coal by hand, piling up the coal and coke, and getting rid of the clinker.

By the time you sorted and piled all the coal, you have cleared your ‘clinker box’, that pit in the middle of your forge table. In the bottom is a little rocking panel. You jiggle a handle under the table back and forth, which rocks that door side to side, allowing burnt coal and ash to fall into a bucket under the table.

Next, you light your fire by making a bowl out of crumbled newspapers…

You add one last piece of paper to make a ‘jellyfish’. Then, you put the jellyfish in the clinker box, light it, pile on coke, and surround the coke with a volcano of coal, which, as it heats up, and turns to coke, you push into the center… remember, you have to keep cranking in air, and clearing your clinker box, and moving new coke into the center, and breaking up the big lumps that fuse together with the tar in the coal…

And if you do it right, you end up with one raging-hot forge fire! Remember, add fresh coal instead of coke, and you get less heat and a lot of green smoke, and people look at you like you are a loser. Also, bear in mind that different levels inside the fire are hotter or cooler. and than you can burn steel if you let it get too hot. (It’s all about the color)…

Okay, you are now ready to forge some freekin’ steel!