A blacksmith is a person who creates objects from iron or steel by forging the metal using tools to hammer, bend, and cut . Blacksmiths produce objects such as gates, grilles, railings, light fixtures, furniture, sculpture, tools, agricultural tools, cooking utensils and weapons.

Smithing proceses:

Forging: Forging is the procces in which metal like iron or steel etc are shaped by hammering it with a hammer. It is different than machining since the material is only being shaped and no material is removed. The basic techniques used in forging are : Drawing down, shrinking, bending, upsetting, swageing, punching and welding.
Usually a blacksmith only needs a hammer and an Anvil for Forging, but they also use other tools.

Drawing: Drawing is the procces of lengthing the metal by reducing one of the other two dimensions (Width, Depth) As for example Depth is reduced the width narrowed or the metal is lengthened. Drawing can be accomplished with different tools and methods. Typical methods are hammering on the anvil horn or hammering on the anvil face using the cross peen of a hammer.
Another Tool used is the fuller. It is used to hasten the drawing of a thick piece of metal. (This is called fullering)

Bending: Heating iron allows a blacksmith to bend it as if it were a soft metal like for example copper.
Bending is done with the hmmer over the horn of the anvil or by using a bending fork. Bends can be dressed and toghtened, or winded,by hammering over the shaped part of the Anvil.
Some metals lose their tensile strength when heated. They easily crack or break apart. This can be a probleme for some steels used for blade production, in order not to devlop hidden cracks they will have to be worked very carefully.

Upsetting: Upsetting is making metal thicker in one dimension and shortening it in the other. For example blacksmiths could heat the end of a metal piece then hammer on it as he would drive a nail. The metal piece will get shorter but the hot part gets widder.

Punching: Punching is used to create decorative pattern or to make a hole. Punxhing is not limited to decorative patterns or holes, it also allows cutting slitting and drifting using a chisel.

Welding: Welding is the procces of combining the same or similar metal.

Finishing: There are some ways a blacksmith uses to finish his products. For example Files can be used to remove burrs, sharp edges or to smoothen the surface. Another method is a heat treatment and then case hardening it to achieve certain degrees of hardness.
Yet another method is using a grinding stone or abrasive paper to shape or smooth an polish the product.


Sources: Various Blacksmithing websites.

Nicely done.