Blacksmithing content: forging coal shovel heads or "blades" and the use of a blacksmith's swage block

I know that many machinist types don't go in for beating on hot or cold iron, but there may be a time when a blacksmith's swage block could come in handy. We tend to think of them as huge boat anchors, but that's not always true.
This little piece focuses on just one shape in a particular swage block, the coal shovel form, but this swage block, like all others is good at a number of other things, too.

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That's cool. It's been a long time since I've done any blacksmithing. Karl

Good one, Pete! Thanks for sharing. Also reminiscent of swage blocks the old gunsmiths used to forge raw rifle barrels.
Bob Swinney
I know that many machinist types don't go in for beating on hot or cold iron, but there may be a time when a blacksmith's swage block could come in handy. We tend to think of them as huge boat anchors, but that's not always true.
This little piece focuses on just one shape in a particular swage block, the coal shovel form, but this swage block, like all others is good at a number of other things, too.

On Wed, 14 Oct 2009 00:13:30 -0500, spaco
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Hi Pete,
Some comments...
The link to the printable/full size "ShovelBlankNewAddress.jpg" still points to your local computer. Some people will figure out how to find it anyway but it probably should be fixed.
You could make it a bit smaller by decreasing color depth and using png. I cropped it a bit so the overall dimension is less than 8 inches wide. Most printers won't print wider than 8 inches. The size will be off slightly if someone tries to print and it gets "fitted to page". You might also want to add some dimensions, that way people could verify with a ruler that it did indeed print out to the correct size. I added a line at the bottom with arrow heads, suggesting where a measurement might go. Maybe an up-down measurement would be good too. See:
http://www.iserv.net/~lfisk/shovelblanknewaddress.png
I'm not a blacksmith, but enjoyed reading the article. Just happened to notice the bad link in my status bar when my mouse was over it.
Don't know what graphics program you are using, but Irfanview (if you are running Windows) works well for minor tweaks. The Paint and RIOT/Save For Web plugins (for Irfanview) work real nice for this. See:
http://www.irfanview.com /
If you want I'll finish tweaking the image if you will supply/add the measurements.