Horseshoe projects are where many new smiths start, because the stock is free or cheap, already bent, and forgiving at the forge. They also teach real skills: reading heat color, moving steel with a hammer, and finishing a piece so it lasts. This guide covers where to get shoes, what to check before they go near a fire, and what to make from old horseshoes at each skill level. If you are brand new, start at the getting started hub and come back.
What counts as a horseshoe project
The phrase covers three different kinds of work, and they need different tools.
- Cold projects. The shoe stays as it is. You clean it, arrange it, and fasten it into a boot scraper, a wall hook board, a candle holder or a garden piece. No forge needed.
- Forged projects. You heat the shoe and change its shape: hearts, hooks, bottle openers, rings, and straightened bar stock for something else.
- Assembled art. Several shoes are joined into figures, wind chimes, letters or sculptures. Joining can be done with rivets, wire, forge welding or an arc welder.
A lot of what gets sold as horseshoe crafts is the third kind, and the forged projects are the ones that teach the most. If you want hammer time, do the forged ones first. If you only want a gift for a horse person by Saturday, the cold ones are fine and nothing is wrong with them.
Where to get old horseshoes
The best source is a farrier. Farriers trim and replace shoes all day and often keep a bucket of pulled ones. Ask first, because the scrap may be spoken for or they may sell it by the pound as scrap. Show up at a sensible hour, not in the middle of a hoof trim, and offer to take the whole bucket if they are glad to be rid of it.
Other places that turn up shoes:
- Boarding stables and riding barns that keep their own pulled shoes.
- Feed stores and farm auctions, where a box of mixed horseware often has a few.
- Old barns and fence lines on land you have permission to search. Do not pull anything off someone else's property.
Pasture finds are the weakest source. They are rusted deeply, they may be decades old, and you know nothing about the steel. They are fine for cold decoration. For forging, I prefer a pulled shoe from a farrier because you at least know what kind of object it is, which is more than you can say for a rusted find.
Check what you have before heating
Before any shoe goes in a fire, sort the pile. Three things matter.
Steel or something else
Most steel shoes are plain low-carbon steel, which is why they bend and move so willingly. That is the common view among farriers and smiths, not something I have lab-tested. If you want to know what a particular piece is, a spark test at a grinder gives you a rough idea, and my mystery steel guide covers what to do when you cannot identify stock. For real metallurgy questions, go to testing sources like Knife Steel Nerds. Do not guess from a rust color.
Aluminum shoes exist, mostly on racehorses. Check with a magnet: plain steel sticks, aluminum does not. Aluminum melts at forge heat and will make a mess of a fire you also use for steel. Keep those for cold projects.
Coatings and inserts
Some shoes have a coating, a plating, or a rubber or plastic pad. Others carry carbide studs or borium, a hard material welded onto the shoe for traction. I do not heat or grind shoes that have inserts, because the dust and fume from carbide and unknown coatings are not something I want in my lungs. If you do grind any shoe, wear a respirator; my respirator guide covers the options. If a shoe has a bright, silvery coating and you are not sure what it is, read my galvanized steel article before it goes near a flame. Zinc fume is a real hazard and I treat any unknown plating as suspect.
Cracks and wear
A shoe worn thin at the heels or toe is hard to forge into anything strong. Hairline cracks near the nail holes open up when you bend. Keep the thick, even ones for forging and use the worn ones for cold decorating.
Clean them and prepare the shop
A used shoe has been through manure, mud and hoof. Handle them in work gloves and wash up afterward. Scrub off the packed dirt with a wire brush and water, then let them dry completely before they go near heat. Wet steel in a hot fire spits steam and scale.
Pull or cut off any nail ends still stuck in the holes. Nail stubs are sharp, and clinched ends have a habit of catching your glove. Pliers or a hammer and punch usually clear them, with your eye protection on. Save the nails if you want to try the small projects later.
Then deal with the usual forge hazards:
- Eye protection. Wear safety glasses rated to ANSI Z87.1 at the forge, the anvil, the grinder and the wire wheel. Scale flies off a hot shoe when you hit it, and cold fragments fly too.
- Clothing. Natural fibers such as cotton or leather near heat, no loose cuffs, no shorts. Synthetic fabric melts onto skin. My safety gear guide covers the rest of the kit.
- Hearing. Hammering steel on an anvil is loud over a long session; my piece on ear protection for the shop covers the options.
- Air. Burning dirt and residue makes smoke on the first heat. Work with good ventilation, and put a listed carbon monoxide detector in any shop with a fuel-burning forge. See my forge carbon monoxide article for why flame color and smell are not a signal. If you get a headache, dizziness or nausea at the forge, leave the shop and get medical advice.
How a horseshoe moves under the hammer
A horseshoe is a small, bent bar with a groove (the fuller) running around it and nail holes punched along the groove. That shape tells you what to expect.
The steel is thicker at the heels than people assume, so a hand hammer takes real work to move it cold. Heat it to a bright orange and it moves much more freely. Keep the shoe in tongs that fit the stock. Pick tongs with jaws that close on the bar without crushing the groove, such as the kind in my blacksmith tongs guide.
Three moves cover most horseshoe work.
- Bending. Hook the hot shoe over the horn or a rounded edge of the anvil face and bend with hammer blows near the bend, not at the far ends. Bending is easier at a good heat than cold, and cold bending a thick shoe can leave kinks.
- Straightening. Hot, flat on the anvil face, with light blows along the length. A straightened shoe becomes a short flat bar, handy for hooks.
- Drawing and upsetting. Drawing makes the bar longer and thinner; upsetting makes a section shorter and fatter. My walkthroughs on drawing a bar longer and upsetting a section thicker cover each. Horseshoes are good for practicing both because the stock is the right size for a hobby anvil.
Work at an even orange. Hammering steel that has cooled to a dull red invites cracks and pushes scale into the surface. When it stiffens up, put it back in the fire. And if a shoe cracks across the section, set it aside for a cold project and move on to the next. That happens with old stock and it is not a reason to force the piece.
Cold projects that need no forge
If you do not have a forge yet, these still count as horseshoe projects, and they cost almost nothing.
- Boot scraper. A pair of shoes set into a board or a block of wood, edges up, gives you something to scrape on. Bolt through the nail holes.
- Coat or key hook board. Mount several shoes on a plank as hooks. The nail holes already give you places for screws. Pick screws whose heads sit in the groove and do not stand proud.
- Candle holders. A shoe on its side with a pillar candle in the opening, or a few set in a row on a plank.
- Door handle or drawer pull. One shoe, two screws, a clean wire-brushed finish.
- Garden pieces. Shoes as edging, trellis feet or stake toppers. Rust is part of the look, so skip the finish here.
For anything that hangs from a wall, anchor it into studs or use proper anchors, and be conservative about weight. A shoe is heavy for its size, and several together on a hollow-wall screw can come down on a foot.
Forged projects worth making
Here is the ladder I would climb, easiest first.
Hooks
Straighten a shoe, flatten one end, and curl the other around the horn. Then drill or punch a hole for a screw. Hooks teach you to heat evenly, bend at a clean point, and hit consistently. Make five and compare them.
Hearts
The usual approach: heat the shoe, close the heels toward each other so they meet in a point, and push the center of the toe inward to make the cleft. Clean up the curves with the hammer over the horn. It sounds simple and it is, but getting both lobes the same is the lesson.
Bottle openers
A shoe segment can be forged into a handle with a hook to catch the cap. It is a good project once you can draw and bend. See my bottle opener explainer for the design.
Rings and small jewelry from nails
Old horseshoe nails are small enough to bend into rings and bracelets, and that is a long tradition at craft fairs. Hold the hot nail in small tongs and keep your fingers clear of it. A small ring takes patience and a slow, even heat, and it is a handy way to learn small work.
Stock for other projects
A straightened shoe is a short bar of flat stock. You can draw it out, punch it, twist it, and bend a crisp corner in it. If you want more ideas at this level, my page of first projects for new smiths lists other jobs that build the same skills, and my notes on forging a clean square corner are worth reading before the hook that wants one.
Joining pieces together
Assembled horseshoe art, the figures and letters you see at fairs, depends on joining.
- Rivets and bolts. Simplest and reversible. Drill through the shoe, which is easiest at the nail holes you already have.
- Wire. Wrapped binding wire holds sculptures together and is easy to adjust.
- Forge welding. Plain low-carbon steel forge welds, so a shoe you have confirmed is plain steel can be welded to another in a fire at welding heat with the right flux. It is a skill of its own, and I would learn it on clean scrap bar before spending a good shoe on it. My forge welding walkthrough is the place to start.
- Arc welding. Much of the commercial horseshoe art is arc welded. It is a separate craft with its own hazards: weld fume, arc flash, and the zinc and coating issues I mentioned above. I am not going to teach it here. Learn it from a qualified instructor or a local class, and use the right helmet and ventilation.
Whichever method you use, make a dry fit first. Horseshoes are not uniform, so two "matching" shoes rarely line up the way a drawing suggests.
Finishing the piece
A forged piece comes out of the fire black with scale. Let it cool, then wire-brush it while it is still warm enough to take a thin coat of finish, using gloves and eye protection at the wire wheel. A coat of wax or oil keeps the surface from rusting indoors. My beeswax finish article covers how to apply it to forged steel. Pieces that live outdoors need more than wax, so use a paint or coating made for exterior steel and follow its label.
File or grind the sharp edges where a shoe was cut and the nail-hole burrs where fingers go. Anything hung on a wall or handled daily should not cut a hand.
Mistakes I see with beginners
- Starting with a pasture rust-bucket and a poor fire, then blaming the hammer.
- Working a shoe at dull red and getting cracks.
- Heating a coated or plated shoe indoors without finding out what the coating is.
- Hammering a shoe that is not supported on the anvil, which bounces the hammer and the tongs.
- Putting a heavy horseshoe wall piece on a hollow-wall screw.
- Forgetting that a hot shoe can look like a cold one for the first few seconds after it leaves the fire. Keep a designated cooling spot and never leave hot steel on a bench where someone can grab it.
None of this needs expensive gear. A good fire, a hammer, tongs that fit, a safe place to set hot work and a pile of clean shoes are enough to start.