Blacksmiths Guide

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. Fourteen years of my blacksmithing experience have been spent as foreman and during this time I have observed that blacksmiths in general have but a small chance to learn anything more than they can dig up in their own daily toil. A young man from the farm can go into a machine shop, start in by running a drill press, then a lathe, and by reading and strict attention to business he will soon become a fairly good machin ist. It is not so with a blacksmith, and especially a machine blacksmith, who usually has difficulty in acquiring full knowledge of his trade. Something should be done to assist the young men who are will ing to learn the trade most difficult to learn - that of' blacksmithing. For since the birth of time, throughout all ages and nations, Has the craft of the smith been held in repute by the people.