Subject: Re: Mr Biddle and SIG's

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 7 Jan 1996 11:11:53 -0500

Want a good laugh?  Stand back and take a look at what this whole discussion
involves.   I wonder what the average Joe on the street would say if we told
him that we had special interest groups forming within the "Blacksmithing"
community.  Say What? Most people hearing of my lifelong interest in
blacksmithing are amazed when I tell them that there is a worldwide rebirth
of interest in smithing.  That people actully earn a living as artisans in
this ancient craft is hardly believable.  
It doesn't seem that many years ago that the Anvils Ring was a stapled
mimeographed news letter, and I remember being delighted that there were
others also interested in this craft.  I am sure that it was special interest
groups that led to the original demise of smithing, ie, the automobile and
the demands for standardized mass produced forgings and today the aircraft
industry and medica/surgical forgings consume huge amounts of forged
"specialty metals".  Having been involved in ASM for over thirty years, I
have seen similar changes take place, where American Society for Metals has
become American Society for MATERIALS" (interests developed in ceramics,
composites, polymers, etc).
I feel fortunate that there are artisans willing to both share their secrets
and take the time to write articles explaining them.  As a young man I had
the hardest time getting an 80+ year old local smith named Sam Bray to share
his knowledge with me, despite my obvious interest.  He told me that "my
hands weren't hard enough", I suppose meaning that I hadn't paid my dues as
he had as an apprentice some 70 years prior.  Well, apprenticeships in most
metalworking today have vanished (try to fing a tool and die program). With
more and more of us using power hammers and other power tools, the line
between "blacksmithing" and "forging industry" seems more and more vague. The
fact that a bunch of indiviuals facinated by the placticity of metals using
ancient techniques and at the same time communicating on the internet is
wierd enough,  let's try to be a little less arrogant, folks have been
beating iron for over 3,000 years, and don't we wish that all of them had
written down and passed on what the knew!
Happy New Year
Mike Schermerhorn/Kilo-Sierra Forge

---

From: Randall Gray <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 96 12:03:03 EDT

Thankyou Mike Schermerhorn, thankyou George Dixon.

I am not actually a member of ABANA (I *am* a member of one of its
chapters though). but I'll add my thoughts anyway.  The Anvils Ring
can only print what it receives -- people need to write "how-to's" if
they want to read them.  

That "B" in "ABANA" is there for a reason: the people who are members
enjoy hitting hot iron and steel.  An artist who gets no satisfaction
out of the medium might as well work in clay or wood.  An artist who
isn't interested in how other people do things is only depriving
herself or himself of new approaches and techniques.  Similarly, a
philistine smith who really only wants to make tools and functional
things who isn't interested in how an artist made a church gate or
candelabra is probably missing out on some really nifty techniques
too: there may often be utility which is enhanced or embodied in
form.*

-- Randall

*  A really good book in which this theme crops up repeatedly is
George Sturt's "The Wheelwright Shop".  It basically describes the
trade of a wheelwright in the late 1800's and very early 1900's.