Subject: Bellows

From: [email-masked] (Usenet News)
Date: 20 Mar 1994 20:44:48 -0600

Operating the old-fashioned double-chambered bellows is a comfort 
 and a joy. Some technique is needed to maintain a constant stream of air, 
 but this is soon acquired, enabling one to create a subtle, low-decible, 
 natural music. Blowing the fire causes it to roar mightly, and against this
 Wagnerian theme can be heard the point and counterpoint of a creaking lever,  
 the thump of lower and upper boards as they come in contact with the
 immobile middle board, and the muted tapping of felt-padded valves inside the 
 chambers.
        As a stage setting for this symphony the fire brightens and sparks
 from the charcoal fly, dancing up the chimney, while the iron gradually
 turns a brighter red, then white until welding heat is reached, and a 
 whole crops of tiny white incandescent sparks, like fleas of Hades, leap
 from the semimolten iron to perform an airy ballet in the heated air above 
 the fire. No wonder the old-time blacksmith shop was such a popular gathering 
 place in towns and villages.  Nowhere else could a bored loafer find such
 bright, continuous entertainment.

 Alex Bealer
 "The Art of Blacksmithing"