The New Spruce Forge Manual of Locksmithing

📖 The Scoop

Runner-Up for the best HOBBY and CRAFT BOOK 2023, IBPA Book Awards.

The New Spruce Forge Manual of Locksmithing: A Blacksmith's Guide to Simple Lock Mechanisms is a totally revised and expanded version of the original work from 1999. This new hardcover edition, at 304 pages and with more than 800 color photos and illustrations, is more than double the size of the original manual.

This book will have great appeal to anyone who has blacksmithing as a hobby or as a profession, to those who repair antique doors, furniture or who make period style furniture, those involved in historical architectural restoration, and also to everyone who has any interest in antique keys, locks and their mechanical mechanisms.

The book is divided into two distinct sections:

Technical Information - This section is a reference manual in itself that covers the specific tools and techniques needed to build all the parts for each lock, as well as providing the information needed to understand the assembly instructions outlined in the second section.

The Locks: Patterns & Instructions - This section provides the plans and detailed instructions for each of the 14 lock projects in this new edition. The clear assembly instructions describe when and how to use the technical information provided in section one.

The authors have maintained their original trademark style that relies on well-illustrated step-by-step instructions that guide you through the whole lock-making process. They have also kept their low-tech approach that demonstrates how to go about creating good work using only a handful of simple tools.

Making blacksmith locks is an age-old skill the authors of this manual are helping to preserve by passing on their knowledge to this book's readers. The New Spruce Forge Manual of Locksmithing is also an excellent introduction to benchwork, which is a useful skill for any blacksmith to acquire. This manual will become a valuable, trusted and often referred to sourcebook in your blacksmithing library.

Genre: Architecture / Historic Preservation / General (fancy, right?)