While my son Colby is off at college, his blacksmithing tools are just gathering dust. I got to thinking I could use some of his scrap steel to build some racks for my hunting equipment to keep it organized in the shop and the barn.
So I went out into the shop last weekend and fired up the forge. I would have called and asked Colby if it was OK to use his stuff, but he’s probably busy studying hard, like I did when I was in college. Besides, I paid for the propane for the forge, and he uses my tools all the time, so I figured it was fair game.
I also figured it couldn’t be that hard to heat up metal and bang it into various shapes. I was right about some of that. Bending metal is easy, as long as you’re just bending it in one direction. It got pretty tricky when I tried to twist the steel to make a decorative shape for my bow holder. I ended up with something that looks like it got run over by a dump truck several times.
The other tricky thing was putting holes in the metal so I could screw the newly created bow and arrow racks to the wall. I tried to drill it, but I ended up just dulling my drill bit. Then I got the brilliant idea to heat the metal up with the forge to make it soft, then drill the hot steel. But all that accomplished was melting the drill bit. I finally had to use one of Colby’s metal punches to bang the holes into the metal. And that caused the steel to jump on the anvil. Now’s a good time to warn you to never, ever try to catch a chunk of steel that’s falling off the anvil.
But ugly finished products, ruined drill bits and third-degree burns aside, I got it done. My gear has new racks to keep it organized, even if they look like they were built by a kindergartener.
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