Subject: Re: Blacksmithing again

From: [email-masked] (W Thomas Powers)
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 1996 10:10:00 -0500

Franklyn D. Garland wrote:
>I have often had people confuse "crude" for "period."  I instruct them to 
>visit the Chicago Art Museum and look at the display of arms and armor 
>there.  NOTHING about that display is crude or rustic!!!

I agree with you; however--Dog in the manger time again...

I have the catalogue from the Tower of London exhibit that toured the
US a few years ago. One of the things mentioned in it was that one of
the gleaming polished suits of armour was delivered "rough from the hammer
and black from the forge"  400 years of cleaning&polishing has changed
it into something completely different. 

This ties into researching blacksmithing's history; its really hard to
shed our preconceptions about how things were done,  (have you read the
Penna Historical Society's Blacksmithing Booklet, investigation of the
account books from the mid 1800's showed that the smiths made a good
portion of their income from horseshoeing!).  Objects in museums can
"lie" particularly in that is usually the un-usual that is saved and
displayed. The usual is worn out and made into something else.

Also what was common in one time and place might be against the law in other
times and places!  (european guild restrictions)

When you look at a piece think about: when was this piece done?  Was it
done by a professional smith or just a farmer/mechanic who uses the forge
for quick and dirty fixes.  Was the piece "worth" time and effort? What
were they trying to accomplish--get the dangblasted thing back into the
field before the rains came?  Make the best repair or just the fastest...

Working on knives tends to orient you toward not leaving hammer marks and
for me it tends to carry over to other work. Using mainly "found" scrap
means I re-size a lot of stock.  Reading both medieval studies and more
modern "gothic revival" and pioneer works shoes that there is no *one
true* method of working.

(did any of you catch the issue of the "Old House Journal" where someone
was asking about a bunch of cabinet hinges thay had bought at an architectual
salvage store---marked Yellin!)

Thomas who debates himself AND loses!

---

From: Ralph Snel <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 1996 10:18:29 MET

> it into something completely different. 

Armouring was a very specialized trade in those days. A piece of armour could
be forged by one smithy, sent to a different place for grinding and polishing,
assembled in yet another place, and finally even sent abroad for guilding
and engraving. I have seen hundreds of suits of armour, and not a single one
that had hammer marks on the outside. I'm pretty sure that that the person who
ordered the suit had his own grinder/polisher to make the suit look decent...

Ralph Snel
[email-masked]
Sweden