Will Stelter: Working with a Master Farrier

Yeah, so you have to use chopsticks, but if you found the right crooked horse He'd love it He'd look straight. Howdy guys. We have something really special planned today today We're gonna be working with one of the best hand forging blacksmiths in the world Now the ranking list of how good people are at hand forging between the three major categories of blacksmiths is bladesmiths are the worst at hand Forging we're awful. We don't know what we're doing Blacksmiths are generally fairly good There's kind of a wide range in there and the absolute best hammer swingers are the farriers and today We're working with one of the best farriers in the world before we do that We get to drive for 12 hours Howdy and welcome to Riley Kirkpacker shop Riley. How you doing? Doing good, man. How are you doing? Great? We're here in Oregon in a beautiful part of the Willamette Valley, right? Yep. Yep. Riley is one of the best horseshoers in the world. And today he's gonna teach me how to forge horseshoes now Riley You're a farrier by trade. What does that mean? We shoe horses with a gun? Yeah, that's usually what people think he's like you shoot him or you shoot him Generally now a modern-day horseshoe. We show up at a farm and It's generally about every six weeks. We show up and we're gonna trim some excess hoof off of the horse And as the saying goes when where exceeds growth or for therapeutic reasons Then we'll need to add steel to the horse. So there's times we're just trimmers and we're not adding any steel But then there's other times where we're part blacksmith in the equine world. Awesome It's a very different style of forging from what I'm used to and I'm super excited What are we getting started with what are we making today? So we're gonna I got some pattern for us birds We're gonna kind of shape to a foot, you know So it's gonna be a little bit of real life there just no blood involved and no horse wanting to kick you. Hopefully. Yeah We're gonna make a classic what we call a three-quartered fuller shoe Okay, and so it's gonna be a plain ramp pretty round pattern with regular heels on it But we'd call a flat shoe. So no raised heels or cleats on it Cool, and then we're gonna put a ditch in it, you know for the nail holes awesome, and that'll be our fullering awesome I'm gonna be so bad at this. So we got it got to fire up the you forging coke or coal. I use coke It's a our competition series that we do everything's in coke Yeah, and so you see a lot of horseshoes using coke because it's a a it's a really fast heat It's really isolated and we're not working with real big stuff. So the isolation really helps us out and on top of it It's super clean because for the most part horseshoes are never touched with a file Really? Yeah, like they're just going to the horse whatever we can get done fast. Yeah, and It's it's a skill set Yeah, and so we like to kind of keep it alive doing it wherever all of our horseshoes are usually made in pairs Yeah, and so it's just it's a fire skill keep everything rolling. So this is a side blast forge So what it's called it has a water tank that keeps the cone cool and air comes through that water tank So the air nozzle is sitting inside of the middle of the fire all the time. These fires burns coke burns real hot Yeah, they're real clean. Yeah, and so that thing's sitting in there and the water keeps it nice and cool It's a real old-school Method. Yeah. Yeah, I like using it. I'm so excited I've only forged out of coke probably a dozen times or so. So, oh, yeah, it'll be interesting I'm gonna burn my horseshoe in half maybe we got more steel Man all right, let's let's get going before we talk any technical details or I do any forging on my own We're gonna watch Riley forges shoes so we can see exactly what it looks like So the first thing we're gonna do is we're gonna bump this thing We're gonna so we're gonna take a heat and we're a nice isolated heat just in the middle equal size from either side of the center mark and we're gonna pack some material back in there because When we go to make the top end of this horseshoe, it's gonna want to skinny up this material really bad And it's not horrible. It skinnies it up, but it doesn't look real great like as a flow just an aesthetics and The horse is gonna wear the toe out the quickest and so if I have just a little bit of extra material in there I get a couple more resets out of the horseshoe Throughout the deal so I don't have to make one as soon So like we put a half of an inch of material in there some like ten links or so sick After the bump comes the toe bend followed by marking out where to start the ditch Which is the fuller that the nail heads will sit in Before the quarter bends Riley rounds out the ends of the shoes that the horse won't cut itself on any sharp square edges Then he uses the horn of the anvil to add the shape to the back of each branch of the shoe It makes it look so easy to cut in the fuller and punch the nail holes first on one side then the other Yeah, those suckers come out pretty close to the middle. It's awesome. The trick is to don't think just shut it off Like at least for me if I keep thinking I'll and just watch right where you're wanting to hit just look there and Keep doing it I'm hitting down for a little bit and then I start hitting into that edge The hardest step of forging the shoe is drawing the clip Super precise hammer control is needed for this to not look like a dog's Breakfast that clip helps the shoe stay anchored to the front of the foot and takes the shearing pressure off of the nails Right and Like the angle of the clip and all that. Is that just like you you just know it Yeah, you got a good idea. Yeah, you know Well that looked really easy. So now it's now it's my turn What kind of mark I'm more like pitch for the shoe is all I think I might have got a little far on my outside Mark, it'll be easy to see. Oh my gosh. I Got that thing for four bucks. Did you really that's the center of the fire about? Okay, and you're whacking with your round side don't matter And you want that heat like pretty uh Pretty centered. Yeah All right Golly, that does just want to snake on you, doesn't it? Yeah So now that's getting a little colder. You can start putting some little better hits in it Maybe you could I didn't have my three points of contact Good lord, you made that look so easy Now it's all dinged up and yeah It's one kind of rule is you want to hit the ground the ground surface as least as possible So you always want to be kind of striking it from the hoof side. Oh my gosh dude Let's see how much you got in there quarter-inch. Yeah, I think I'll be about right Yeah, you got a quarter in there. Oh boy and like quarter more ago No gas in it, yeah This one's mine the really crappy looking one. That one's Riley's after the first heat Holy crap Yeah Yeah, Riley did twice as much work and it looks good So it's like two heats for bumping like a big no-no like you're really bad at it if you have to do two Yeah, it's it's not perfect. Yeah. Oh my gosh Sick. Oh man Off to a rough start. Oh Yeah work that off there. There you go. Now flatten it all out from this backside starting at one side It's working over knife maker in the box must do a lot of it always kind of trips me out Is you guys love to work an angle? Yeah through the hammer. I mean that's so hard to do That's how you do like you guys all hammer like that Yeah, you can use the hammer straight this way the hammer rolls to wherever way it needs to be makes sense Dang it You get it in there this time. Oh, yeah, dude you got there and now I need to do another heat to throw my chamfer in There. Yeah. Oh, you do a cold. Oh, really? I just hold on to this side So then the chamfer is gonna be on your hammer side. Yeah. Yeah use the flat side of the hammer. Oh boy. Yep Okay, good, I mean honestly not maybe but it's All there you go. Okay, so we're dropping There you go See some stuff Sorry and then There yeah right there. Yep And move the hammer don't hit in one spot the whole time keep coming towards yourself now flip it around and go from the other way There you go, yeah, and then Yeah Yeah air gap. Yep Closer closer. Yeah and keep my tongue square. Yeah There you go. Good and now I flip it. Yeah and watch it You can't you can't do the peekaboo. You can't do this and look around Oh, because then you put a big old dollop on the backside like what I just did. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah Hey, that looks terrible, ah, it's not too bad. It's pretty bad Compared to Riley's just looks like a stock piece of bar stock that got a perfect bend in it. Oh I need to tighten my bend up a decent bit. Don't I just a little yeah. Yeah So I'll show you something real quick. Yeah, so like you just keep getting these corners, right? Yeah So like the only way to make that corner out is to straighten it a little yeah behind the horn and then Hit it Huh? That makes it. Yeah. Yeah, you know he'd do awesome. Cool. So what he fixed Was basically that that thicker bend right there where it is a tighter kink as opposed to a smooth Flow like it is on this side Well, I burnt the end of the shoe How the heck did he I? Don't understand how he got it. So rounded Probably not like this But Riley's grabbing water right now. So Riley's shoe versus my shoe Riley's looks good Mine looks like a drunk eight-year-old did it you got this? I Believe in you that like there. Yeah Yeah, he's just moved my tongs first thing And you got to hit pretty far to the end. That's why that happens so much We'll get one more beat on it Okay, so I'm opening up that bend. Yeah Marty watch out bud, but loose and then bending more fan and then Okay, seeing like you're wanting to straighten it here, but you're hitting right there. So I need to roll it more Yes Yeah, there you go. Perfect Yep Riley's mine yeah, cuz you're gonna kind of put the Tow on the horn and work from the toe to the quarter doing a little straightening. Oh I didn't have my three points of contact There you go a little more bend No, no, no Maybe put the horn like up here and just hit in here once just close that up a little In here. Yeah, but see like if you did it right now, I'd put a bin right in the middle of your of your straight spot Yeah, but if you go to here and whack it right seeing there's an air gap there now Yeah There you go. Oh That looks different like there give yourself here. You're like you're new. It's okay And you're digging in the the top part, yeah, yep Sick. Yeah this this and so now that fuller only ones runs one direction. The outside is always the outside. Oh, oh Yeah, so you have to do it like I'm learning how to use chopsticks And there we go Oh Lord Just how I wanted it Dude yours is like so crisp and nice and mine looks like you got chewed by a metallic beaver Theoretically, I'm working this way Peel so then it also sucks that shoe on Yeah, oh that totally works I mean I ruined the shoe but the clip was okay You're not too far I see what I mean, yeah We're like, okay, we call in the clip the middle There's somewhere in the between those two Forging that shoe was so much more complicated than I thought it was going to be but I truthfully thought that I was going to do better than I did and now it does look like a horseshoe, but There's a lot of small technical problems with it That would mean that it would probably cause issues if it ever went onto a horse's hoof because forging the shoe is really only half The battle they need to know exactly what kind of shoe to forge depending on the kind of horse It needs to match the perimeter of the horse's hoof really well It's putting on the horse's job the terrain that it's in a good farrier attends to all of those with the shoes that he puts On and so now we're gonna head on over to a barn where Riley shoes horses So not only we're gonna get to watch Riley in action But I'm gonna get to try a little bit of farrier work myself Now when Riley first starts working with the horse, he works from the front back He first pulls off the old shoes cleans and trims the interior of the hoof then flattens with a rasp Before deciding if he'll adjust and reset the old shoe or put on a new one like this one. He's wore it nice It's thin but it's still in the middle. Yeah, this one is just The first step of the shoe going onto the foot is burning into place it It might seem like a thousand degree shoe would hurt the horse But it really doesn't you'd know it really quick if it did Next comes nailing and then clipping and clenching the nails and finally getting everything cleaned up with a horseshoe rasp Didn't learn his lesson last time Now I'll be trying what's usually the apprentices work where it's challenging to hurt the horse and the steps really aren't all that tech I do the whole inside first. I'll do that then go ahead and rasp to the shoe Okay, so you're on the inside you're between the two hoods, yeah, no, no outside And you're mainly going like on the outside to the frog Yep, and then around the edge of inside edge of the shoe so I can get in there. Look at the polars And oh you go inside first, yeah, you're gonna need both hands so that hand replaced it with your knee Towards the branch the shoe towards the click that out Don't you do it don't you do it Just some leftovers from what popped out earlier. Hey take that foot and just step it to like here That's satisfying, huh? So easy to come right off. Yeah, they help this thing on Guys like this idiot does not know what he's doing This point he's a good kids or so he's like he's probably yeah this point That's the hard side aren't close to you. Yeah, they're two clips on this thing Gotta get the full experience. Am I like to like go down on one knee? Dude I'm sweating that girl Oh my gosh, it's We're back in Montana now, and that was just an absolutely spectacular Trip, I've hung out with Riley a couple of times now, and he's just a great dude. He's a ton of fun and he is a Master at his craft. All right, Riley your shoe looks incredible How did I do? It's a journey. Yeah, you're always somewhere on the journey You're at the beginning of your journey That brings me to my next point which is that working on horses is so unbelievably challenging My back felt like I just sat for 15 hours in the car Which I had some recent experience with my legs were quivering There was sweat dripping off my face and that was just doing one small part on one hoof I have a ton of respect for farriers I already had a lot of respect and I have even more now because that is not Easy work and the amount of knowledge that good farriers have to have not only of animal anatomy But also a great blacksmithing is really really cool So again huge huge shout out to Riley for teaching me how to forge a shoe for letting me tag along and film him work He really is a great follow on Instagram and he really does make some very cool pieces So make sure to check out his Instagram. Now. We also have some really fun stuff coming up here at Stelta manufacturing we're gonna be doing a drop of the Damascus tenderfoots with the ironwood scales and the Teton leather sheaths. These are just Fantastic little knives are super cool. It's our in-house made Damascus So it's a dressed-up version of our stainless tenderfoots and they are just sweet. They're great users. They're great show knives They do everything pretty well. And then of course, we have all sorts of other fun stuff on up on the website We have our forged ashtrays our forged bottle openers our shirts, and we're currently working on restocking the signature series Gyudos and Santoku's So if you're not currently signed up for an email list But you want to be notified when we're dropping fun things on the website check out the email list on StelterMFG.com That's the best way to get notified when we're dropping new products and all sorts of stuff like that And it just it really helps us out So if you want to continue seeing cool videos like this Make sure you hit like make sure you hit subscribe And if you want go check out our website because I really am proud of the American-made products that we make right here in The shop. Thank you guys so much for following along. Thank you to our patrons for patronizing us I'll see you guys on the next one