Start With the Forge, Then the Tools

Before you spend a penny on tooling, be honest about what you actually have. A starter workshop needs three things above all: a heat source, an anvil of some sort, and a hammer. Everything else exists to make those three work better. The mistake most beginners make is buying a shed-load of shiny kit and then discovering that what they really needed was a decent pair of tongs and somewhere to quench hot steel.

What follows is the core kit I would put in front of any new smith. None of it needs to be expensive, and much of it can be second-hand, home-made or improvised. Buy good where it matters, and improvise cheerfully where it does not.

The Anvil and Its Stand

A traditional London pattern anvil is lovely, but a hundredweight of second-hand English steel now costs more than most people's first car. You do not need one to learn. A length of rail track set upright in a bucket of concrete, a thick offcut of plate steel, or a sledgehammer head clamped in a vice will all move hot metal. What matters is mass, a flat face, and a secure mounting.

Mount your anvil at knuckle height, or slightly above, so your hammer face lands flat and your arm stays relaxed. A stand that rings like a bell will numb your ears within an hour, so damp it:

• Chain or rope wrapped loosely around the waist of the anvil and trapped under the stand.
• A magnet stuck under the heel, which kills a surprising amount of ring.
• Silicone or rubber matting between the anvil and stand, if you can spare the height.

Hammers: One Good One Beats Three Bad Ones

A 2lb or 2.5lb cross-peen hammer is the classic starter weight. Heavy enough to move metal, light enough to control for an hour. Buy one with a hickory handle, dressed properly, with the edges of the face radiused rather than sharp. Sharp edges on a hammer face leave chisel marks in your work and chips in your knuckles.

You will eventually want three hammers: a heavier one around 4lb for drawing out, your main 2lb to 2.5lb, and a light 1lb to 1.5lb for finishing and detail. Add a pair of tongs before you add a third hammer, though, because burnt fingers teach faster than any lesson.

Tongs and How to Hold Hot Steel

Tongs are the tool beginners most often buy too few of. One pair of flat-jaw tongs will not grip round bar, square bar and flat stock equally well, and a slipping tong at forging heat is genuinely dangerous. Start with two pairs and add as your work demands.

• Flat-jaw tongs for flat stock and general work.
• V-bit or bolt tongs for round and square bar.
• Pick-up tongs, sometimes called wolf-jaw, for odd shapes and short offcuts.

Self-made tongs from mild steel are a fine first project and a rite of passage. Fit matters more than finish: the reins should sit comfortably in your hand, with the jaws closing flat along their whole length. Keep them cool and do not leave them in the fire.

Hardy Tools and the Cutting Edge

The hardy hole, that square socket in the anvil's heel, is where half your tooling lives. Hardy tools let you cut, bend and shape without chasing your work around the face. The two worth making or buying first are a hot cut and a hardy cut-off.

A hot cut is a chisel-shaped tool with a square shank that drops into the hardy hole, edge up. Lay hot bar across it and strike down with a hammer to sever it cleanly. Make yours from a piece of suitably tough steel, or buy one and dress the edge yourself. Keep the cutting edge slightly rounded, never razor-sharp, and never quench it cold after cutting, or you will crack it.

A bottom fuller or a simple bending fork will follow soon after. Both are easy forging projects and cost you nothing but offcut steel and an afternoon.

Fire Tools, Brushes and the Small Stuff

The unglamorous kit is what keeps a forge running. A solid pair of fire tongs or a rake for managing the coal or coke, a small shovel for banking fuel, and a watering can or dipper for damping the fire all belong by the hearth. If you are burning solid fuel, a little water is your friend: it controls the fire and stops it spreading too wide.

A wire brush is the other essential. Brush each heat, and you will build a habit that keeps scale out of your work and gives you cleaner finishes from the start. Keep two: a stiff hand brush for the anvil and a smaller one for detailed work.

• Safety glasses and a leather apron, every session, no exceptions.
• Ear defenders if your anvil rings, which it will.
• Leather gloves for handling stock, but take the hammer hand out of its glove so you can feel the strike.
• A quench bucket of water or oil, well away from the fire.
• A file and a length of chalk, for checking heat and marking cuts.

Where to Spend and Where to Save

Spend on the hammer, the tongs and your safety kit. Buy a decent 2lb hammer and two well-fitting pairs of tongs, and you will forge happily for years. Save on the anvil, the stand and the hardy tools, which you can improvise or make yourself. A scrap yard, a farm sale and a car boot will furnish most of a starter workshop for the price of a single new anvil.

Buy slowly, use what you have, and let the work tell you what you need next. The best-equipped smiths I know did not buy their kit in one go. They built it, one tool at a time, usually to solve a problem the last project had just handed them.