# Process of Blacksmithing and Crafting



## Quotay (Jul 13, 2016)

Hello there!
As you can tell by the title of this thread, I am in grave need of assistance...
I'm writing a fantasy/medieval inspired/adventure piece and within it is the art of blacksmithing and crafting.
Now I have the just of it all, but I do want to dwell on it, as I want the description of the processes to be appropriately put together. Sadly, I am not very educated in these two arts, yes I've done research but I do need further explanation.
In my story, I am intending on including the process of creating leather armor, steel armor, swords, hammers, daggers, bows and quite a bit more 
I just wanted to know some of the processes, if anyone who reads this is able to help, as within the writing It would be someone explaining how blacksmithing and crafting works to a pupil, so obviously I'd need to know how the steps are accumulated. 
If anyone has the information to help and put forth the aid, It'd be much appreciated.


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## idknull (Jul 15, 2016)

I found some sources for you-

How to Make a Bow and Arrow: 13 Steps (with Pictures)
How to Make a sword
How To Make Armor - Introduction by Arador

They contain detailed steps pertaining to forging weapons


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## Malik (Jul 15, 2016)

Great links. The armor piece by Arador is all very modern, though. Armor wasn't made from steel, and if you went into combat in butted mail you'd get murdered in short order.

I have an extensive blog post on historical construction of armor, and steel vs. iron including a modern reproduction of the medieval process used to forge steel. Master Class: Armor | Joseph Malik 

If you didn't know that -- or, more to the point, why -- edges were steel and armor was iron, please see my post on the Mythic Scribes front page about the Great Sword of War. It goes into some of the physics about relative hardness and edge geometry. The Why of Weapons: The Great Sword of War

Also, this:






This guy knows exactly what he's talking about.

Have fun, now.


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## TheKillerBs (Jul 15, 2016)

Man, I could listen to Lindybeige for hours on end. Although I would caution against taking everything he says as fact.


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## skip.knox (Jul 15, 2016)

>Although I would caution against taking everything he says as fact. 

The central consideration there is not to consider everything as fact in all times and in all places. Blacksmithing is everywhere the same and varies all over the place. If anything, that's even more true of sword smithing. 

Fantasy writing is replete with rabbit holes like this. An innocent question, a desire for "a little background" and before you can blink it is weeks later and you have megabytes of information you'll never use. Plus that one bit of polish that makes all the difference.


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## TheKillerBs (Jul 16, 2016)

skip.knox said:


> The central consideration there is not to consider everything as fact in all times and in all places.



Very true, but the clarification was mainly because I didn't want to come across as endorsing everything he says.


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