Another aspect of blacksmithing not already mentioned is horseshoeing.  A 
colleague, Rick Morris, did his Master's thesis on horseshoes and horseshoe 
nails, entitled "What the Horse Left Behind: The Archeological Study of 
Horseshoes," at the University of Nevada, Reno, 1988.  He also wrote an 
article based on a presentation made at the Great Basin Conference in 1986 
that appeared in the Nevada Historical Society Quarterly, Vol. 30, No. 4, the 
1987 Winter issue.  Although the thesis deals with late 19th and early 20th 
century material, I used it for a sawmill site that had a blacksmithing area 
dating from c. 1858 to the 1860s.  The activity area for horseshoeing was 
determined by the form of the nail present, i.e., new nail, bent nail, nail with 
clench (shoe fell off), clipped nail (shoe removed by blacksmith), and nail tip.  
A high concentration of all but the new nail is highly suggestive of where the 
horses were shoed.  Thought this might be of use in your work.