Word of advice, every woman wants a sword. If you want to make your fiancée, girlfriend, wife, sister, mum or government-issued case worker a happy lady, get them a sword. Scratch that, better idea – let them make a sword.
Flashback – It’s Christmas 2024 and I’m trying to find something special for my fiancée. Kymberley also has a bucket list, and, just like mine (here), she wanted to try smithing.
Turns out that with the advent of Experience Days taking the world by storm, blacksmiths also jumped on the trend. That’s right, rather than become a smithing apprentice and dedicate 50 years of your life to the trade like in the 1600s, you can now just pay a few hundred quid and learn it in a day!
And so, at 5:00 one Bank Holiday Monday, we awoke to the sound of birdsong and an upsettingly loud alarm. We’re headed off to Oldfield Forge, a stone’s throw from the Welsh border. The forge itself was founded in 2007 by Aaron Heath, who has a keen interest in the heritage of ironmongery, and is now the UK’s largest open forge. Imagine a massive metal shed with a wooden front, hidden away in the countryside. Friendly dogs loiter around the entrance looking for attention, and inside, a crew of smiths clang away as they prepare the metal for the day.
We’re asked how exactly we want to design our dagger, and after agreeing on a little drawing, are shepherded into the forge to receive a safety briefing, which largely consists of “don’t touch the hot orange things“. The forges themselves go up to 900C, about five times hotter than when you burn your hand taking the garlic bread out of the oven because you couldn’t wait the extra 30 seconds.
Then, we were put to work. In case you’re unaware of how smithing works, it’s really simple. You heat the metal up until it’s glowing, then you smack the shit out of it until it’s in the shape you want. The trick is learning how to smack it.
We start with a long rectangle of steel. On one end, there’s a thin piece of metal sticking out, that will later form the handle. We begin forging the square at the end into a point. We work as a pair – the smith (Kymberley) holds the hot metal and directs the work with a small hammer. The striker (me) does what I’m told, and hits the metal with a big sledgehammer.
Before long, the metal starts to look increasingly sword shaped. We continue shaping the metal, abandoning the sledgehammer and shaping it out as if we’re kneading dough. We’re told that we should only hit the metal when it’s yellow – not red. As you can see in the pictures, I’m pretty bad at following instructions.
After a while, we flip the blade around and get to work on the other side, shaping and flattening the piece until it has the right shape. Around us, the sounds of strikes ring out as the room is filled with axe heads, swords and rings. To our right, a couple work together on a similar project to us. Ahead, another pair works on a sword, and just nearby, a young man proudly says to us “I always wanted to make a sword, then I realised that I’m an adult and I have my own money, so here I am!“
Once we finish shaping the blade, we start work on the pommel. We took a heavy steel ball, and, holding it in place, use the sledgehammer to flatten it. Kymberley calls out “hit!” – and I hit.
FYI, Smithing is a great way to figure out who wears the trousers in a relationship, and who smashes things with a sledgehammer. We shape the pommel until it looked like a donut without a hole.
And, speaking of donuts, this was around lunch time – where we went into the little shop and had enough cake to put us into a sugar induced coma for the first half of the afternoon. Top tip – if you go here, don’t buy a cake each. You can share one, you greedy animals.
We come back in, and start to work on the handguard. We’d picked this curly designs, so to start with, we need to expand a thick chunk of steel with a hole in it. The plan was to make each side long so we could add the twists at the end. This one seems a lot harder, and because we’re both lethargic after lunch, takes a lot longer.
Eventually, however, we create two long spikes and curl the edges around. We’re told to be very gentle with the hammer for this stage. “Like stroking a cat, but with a hammer”. It occurs to me at this point, that the hand guard’s twirls look vaguely like my moustache, meaning the sword is rightfully mine, sort of like when people look like their dogs.
You might say “no Dan, this was Kymberley’s Christmas present” – but have you seen the twirls?
Finally, after some funky twists and turns with the corner bit of the anvil, we’re sent outside to start grinding the dagger properly. You’ll have noticed by now that I’m using the term dagger and sword interchangeably. This is because we realised pretty early on that this is a big dagger, and by extension, a small sword. That being said, I don’t want Oldfield Forge to charge me more, so for legal reasons, it’s a dagger.
Outside, we get to work on shaping the blade, taking off the rough edges, and smoothing everything down so that the sides bevel into a point.
Kymberley did an outstanding job at this, keeping a small distance between the top of the blade and the machine. Every so often, we’d dip it in water to cool it down, and get back to work. Watching the steel carefully, you could see the heat travel across the metal and evaporate the water.
We’re now at the final stages of the project, and after selecting a handle, and getting some guidance on shaping the sword/dagger/knife/pointy stick, we’re given a pat on the back and asked “shall we assemble?”
There’s two options here. Either smithing is very hard work, or I’m very out of shape, and because I’m not able to consider my own shortcomings in any meaningful way, I’ve chosen to accept that smithing, is hard work.
We were helped by everybody at Oldfield Forge, but specifically a group of guys – Olaf, Tom, and Joe. They made the whole experience fucking phenomenal. They were so welcoming, patient, and helpful at every stage. There was this constant air of banter and excitement and passion that melted out of every moment. We were given constant encouragement and advice, and I can tell that everybody who works there loves working there.
That being said, they have this awful habit of making things look much easier than they are. A few swift smacks with a hammer was all it took to straighten out a handguard, which had previously taken us 20 minutes. It spoke volumes about the level of expertise in that room, and the fact that they had a “doors open, come on in!” approach to the hobby was something incredibly special.
Oh and if you think we didn’t do a photoshoot at the entrance while everybody was cleaning up the forge behind us, who do you think you’re dealing with?
