ABANA Controlled Hand Forging

Controlled Hand Forging

Controlled Hand Forging Chairman Dan Nauman

User Reviews of ABANA Controlled Hand Forging

Artist-Blacksmith’s Association of North America is a fantastic resource for blacksmiths and I highly recommend a membership with them to receive the great quarterly publications they put out and support the work they do to promote blacksmithing in North America such as the Controlled Hand Forging they have published free of charge.

There are currently ~26 lessons in the Controlled Hand Forging series and they cover all of the basic blacksmithing skills a new smith needs with each lesson focused on a specific topic such as Drawing Out, Twisting, Upsetting, Splitting, Forge Welding, and Cutting.

The lessons are written by different authors and have been published in the Hammers Blow over the years. Because each lesson has a different author the quality and style varies from lesson to lesson. Overall the quality ranges from reasonable to excellent.

The biggest criticism I’d have is that there is not a single set of skills that each lesson builds up from. For example lessons 1, 3, 11-1, 11-2, 16, 17, 18, and 23 are all focused on Drawing Out steel. They are all good lessons but if you are working through the lessons in order you find yourself skipping back and forth across subjects and sometimes skills that are needed in earlier lessons aren’t covered until later lessons.

That being said this is an amazing resource and if your a beginner smith looking to get started with some sold instruction this is a good and free way to do it. You are certainly getting more than your money’s worth out of these articles.

One tip I’d recommend is downloading the articles and having somewhere print them out and bind them for you so you can have them in the shop with you. Springing for a vinyl cover is probably a good choice as well.

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