How to Build Horseshoeing Tools & Equipment
J. Scott Simpson

How to Build Horseshoeing Tools & Equipment
By J. Scott Simpson

Copyright (C) 1978 by J. Scott Simpson
Manufactured in the United States of America

A book such as this could have saved many of us hours and hours of building equipment or tools that we were not particularly satisfied with. Much of this gear didn't work as well as we had hoped it would, and many times it didn't look as nice or professional as we would have liked it to.

Too much of my youth was spent trying to make forges from old brake drums and cream cans; anvil stands from old army bed frames and bent pieces of used pipe. This was all useable equipment, but lacked in some way or another.

I tried forging out fire tongs and nail clinchers years before I had enough skill to make useable tools.

After I had shod my fourth horse, I made a shoeing tool box that resembled a cross between a small flat-bottomed boat and a large bird house. It wasn't that I wasn't handy enough to build this equipment, I just didn't know what it should look like, or how it could be constructed so as to not only work well, but be aesthetically pleasing to the eye.

A personal touch that will give your equipment a special look is to establish your own 'colors'. Use this scheme on your static equipment, such as your anvil stand, coal hopper and tool box, etc. This is definitely appealing to your customers, and you will discover this professional touch will be the source of many compliments about your equipment. After all, any farrier who is meticulous with his gear must carry this same care over to the horses entrusted to his or her skills.

If you are new to our trade, this work will give you some guidelines as to outfitting yourself properly. If you are an established farrier, perhaps you may find at least a couple of items in this book that will allow you to upgrade or improve the equipment you are already using.

I sincerely hope our profession will be better off because you are a part of it.

Scott Simpson
Bozeman, Montana

This work is dedicated to:
(In alphabetical order)
Dude Best
Floyd 'Brownie' Brown
John Burton
Newman H. Gist
Kennard Happ
Ralph Hoover
Robert W. Miller
Bob Tosh Sr.

These greatly respected friends are no longer with us, to share their valuable knowledge.

It is not often that a horseshoer can be found who is truly ambidextrous - not in the sense of doing the same task with either hand - but who can do several things well. We often find a groove into which we fit ourselves comfortably, then stay there. We develop certain specialties or skills and are content with those.

Not so for author Scott Simpson. When physical problems drew the curtains on a full-time, professional horseshoeing practice, Scott turned his attention to what he had been doing all along - helping others to learn to perform and/or appreciate the art of the horseshoer. Through his years of private practice, he was always willing to take the time to study out a particular problem whether it was his or his friend's. This pooling of knowledge and skill almost always provided a successful technique or process needed to get the job done. Like most of us, the failures were quickly forgotten; the successes soon crowded out by new problems or situations.

Through his years of informal and formal teaching, Scott had the opportunity to reflect upon and refine those facets of his profession that were most troublesome to him in his earlier years, and those he saw as problems for his horseshoeing school students.

This Second Edition, How To Build Horseshoeing Tools & Equipment is one of the many fruits of his labor for the profession. It goes a step beyond merely teaching something from his storehouse of knowledge, then relying on the hearer to remember and implement. For the first time, years of applied learning are recorded in simple, easily read and understood text and illustration. The most basic of tool and technique are suggested and detailed. As skill increases, you will reach to expand your newly found horizons.

Most professional horseshoers have an insatiable thirst for knowledge; they can't wait to try for themselves what someone else has found to be true, or to work for them. This book makes it possible. Whether by necessity or for fun, you'll find a gold mine of things in this book that you've always wanted to know about "how to", but had no one to ask. Just don't blame Scott if your home life gets a little more ragged and your shop bills go up a bit, as you burn a little midnight oil in practicing and producing those things you've learned about here! You'll find a new satisfaction that has heretofore been reserved to only a few who were fortunate enough to have a teacher of Scott's ability. Now we can all share in it, and be a bit better prepared to do the thing we choose to do -- shoe horses.

Walter E. Taylor, President
American Farrier's Association
Albuquerque, New Mexico
December, 1978