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The fire
The fire is the heart of the forge. Learning to use a fire correctly and keep it running well is a skill that takes time to learn. Keeping a fire small enough to do your work, but hot enough as well also takes skill and this is only learned by standing in front of a fire for hundreds and hundreds of hours. How do you keep a fire running well so that the coal waiting becomes coked to make a stronger and fierce fire? By practicing it for hours on end!
It is a fact that blacksmithing is the core disclipine of blade smitihing. You can't get around it and if you don't train to learn all of the aspects of blacksmihting before learning to be a bladesmith than you are only one fifth of the way there. You are not fully trained as a blade smith, if you haven't learned all the skills of a blacksmith. Fact.
I started at 13 years old learning the blacksmithing skills. Upsetting, tapering, cutting, hot cutting, forming, scrolling, forge welding in a coal fire. I learned how to use swage blocks properly, flattening setters, moving setters, dies, the different types of hammer necessary, how to use a penne vertical and horizontal correctly. All these have to be understood to be able to move steel correctly before becoming a blade smith. If you haven't done the proper training as a blacksmith before becoming a blade smith then you will never be a properly trained blade smith. Fact.
Blacksmithing and blade smithing has become an open profession. It is open to anyone and everyone. That is ok if you are a civil servant in a some ministry looking at blacksmithing and blade smithing as if it is just smashing hot steel with a hammer. There are no standards being set to become a properly trained blade smith. Hence there are so many low level blade smiths around. And the level is going down.
Personally and frankly I am fed up with any dweeb who comes along who buys an anvil, a fire and a hammer and ten minutes later says he is a blade smith. This is bullshit! I started when I was 13 years old moving steel. I have been a professional bladesmith for 20 years and still there are no standards for anyone to strive for in blade smithing in Europe!
