On a more practical day to day level, the Blacksmiths Knew how to keep a fire going all year round, so he was often asked to make space near his forge or even in a seperate brick or stone box, which in time became known as an oven, for bread to be baked or meat to be roasted. We know that in later times when the Blacksmith stopped work for the day, the hot coals were scooped up and rushed to the Bakery to heat the ovens to bake the bread.
In many communities bread was baked at night using the hot embers from the smithy. Simon specializes in craftsmans tools. Thatchers, wheelwrights, stone masons, they have all become specialist crafts with all tools being made to order as they are no longer always available to buy as standard. Simon also makes replica tools, weapons and other artifacts that are used by history groups to re-enact famous battles or life scenes to show how people lived in the past.
He also makes items used in museums and by Archaeologists to re-creat and study experimental Archaeology. So what is the History of the Blacksmith? The skills probably began in what we call the "Iron age".
Someone obviously discovered that some types of rock would give up a substance when exposed to high heat that would become solid when cooled. This substance could be used to make simple tools like knives and scrapers and eventually spear and arrow heads that were much tougher and sharper than stone. A simple process to produce wrought iron, that we now call direct reduction, was in use in the middle East more than four thousand years ago. Nothing much changed for hundreds of years until it was discovered how to make charcoal to burn at very high temperatures and how to find and extract better quality iron from the ore.
The earliest method of producing Iron was a small furnace built of clay called a bloomery, the fuel was charcoal, made to burn hotter by using manually operated bellows. Small pieces of Iron ore were placed in with the charcoal, and after several hours a small piece of "fist sized" iron was produced called a bloom.
The bloom could then be hammered into the desired shape to produce tools and weapons. Blacksmiths suddenly became very important and as the production of iron increased more uses were found for it, this also meant that new skills to work it were being learned and developed. Ironmaking spread across Europe and eventually reached Britain by about BC. When the Romans colonised Britain, Iron production was already well established, they built on the already thriving industry to produce weapons and agricultural tools and implements.
After the Romans left in about AD there were no further major advances in production until the bloomeries were able to be increased in size from the Thirteenth Century onwards by the use of water power.
This meant that bigger bellows could be operated by a water wheel and large trip or tilt hammers could be built to hammer out the larger blooms. The whole process was now well on its way to being mechanised. In parallel the Blacksmiths were also becoming specialised and more in demand to produce weapons, armour and tools. Smiths were now also beginning to be called armourers, bladesmiths, swordsmiths, nailmakers and chainmakers branching out from the trade of general Smith.
The Worshipful Company of Blacksmiths was formed in the year Blacksmiths were now in their heyday with their own trade guilds and Worshipful Company producing not only functional and decorative items in Iron, but horse shoes and agricultural machinery, with the Worshipful Company of Farriers being formed in in the City of London.
The next major step was the introduction of the blast furnace, the first one being set up in Newbridge Sussex in , and was to supersede the bloomery completely. Large quantities of cast iron could now be produced, but at first only a small number of applications were found for it, such as casting cannon balls and cannon the first recorded use of a furnace for casting cannon being in East Sussex in , so most of it was converted to Wrought Iron.
The advances in Iron production that were made in the late 's started what is now termed as the industrial revolution, and was responsible for the conversion of a manual labour based production system to one of complete mechanisation, cast and wrought iron was now being used to make these machines that would eventually cause the demise of hand-crafted work and would eventually signal the end of the road for the traditional worker in Iron.
Henry Bessemer took out a patent to produce steel from pig iron in , this could produce steel far more effectively and cheaper than it was to produce wrought iron. By Wrought Iron was no longer being produced and is now classed as an extinct material. Small amounts are still sold that are produced from re-processed scrap Wrought-Iron, it is approximately ten times the price of steel.
Decorative ironwork is still described today as wrought ironwork. Today we have many materials that are lighter and stronger than the metals used in the past. Many materials are used today instead of metal because they are cheaper to produce and their properties are more reliable. We now have plastics and resins that are far stronger and cheaper to produce in large quantities. All this means that the traditional role of the Blacksmith in the community has all but gone. He is rarely needed because we no longer live in a world where we would use what he made in our everyday lives.
Those Blacksmiths that have found enough work to make a living today have become very specialized in what they produce. So Blacksmithing is a very old craft with a long tradition. There were once Blacksmiths in every Village and town but there are now few left. Learning about the craft and tradition is a valuable way to find out about everyday life through history as there have always been Blacksmiths, and the skills they developed and the objects they created all tell their story.
Happily, Blacksmithing is undergoing a revival in interest, with several colleges now offering qualifications in forgework in conjunction with the City and Guilds institute. To see Blacksmiths at their best, go to any one of the nine agricultural shows that host a qualifying heat for the National Blacksmiths Competition.
Any Blacksmith proud of his or her trade will be pleased to answer any questions or give advice or information on where to find out more about the craft or where to go to learn how to do it for yourself. Traditional hand forged tools. Forged tools used by Thatchers and other specialised craftspeople have evolved over the centuries, borne of necessity and conceived at the hands of a skilled artisan called a Blacksmith, who often worked from a smithey that was little more than a small shed in a close knit village community.
These "ramshackle" workshops were the hub of the village and very often the forerunners of large modern day engineering businesses. The Blacksmiths shop was not only a much valued village business, but a meeting place where all the local gossip would be exchanged and many business deals made.
The reliance on horsepower provided the main source of business and the tired animals could be seen waiting to be shod, tethered, underneath the chestnut tree so synonymous with old time forges and grown especially for shading the old workhorses from the elements. Horse drawn implements were also made, repaired and invented by the Blacksmith, some even diversified into agricultural machinery production, one of the most famous of these Blacksmiths being John Deere in America.
Blacksmiths were, and still are, proud craftsmen intent on doing a good job that will last a lifetime, whether producing a hand-forged nail or a gate for a country estate, every job is given the same level of attention to detail making it fit for the purpose for which it was intended. A Frenchman named Jean Tijou introduced the art of decorative blacksmithing in the late 17th century. Most blacksmiths are drawn to the art of the trade versus its utility.
The key tools of a smith are still the anvil, tongs and a hammer. A securely mounted leg vise complements the anvil. The anvil can be quite expensive, and every part of it — the face, horn, square and circular holes — serves a unique purpose. The Western Maine Blacksmith Association has put together a traveling forge to share this bygone-day art with more people. In the Adirondacks of New York, blacksmithing is being taught in summer camps as well as schools in the area.
The smith responsible for beginning these programs has personally taken blacksmithing classes in Massachusetts, Maine and two classes in New York City. In North Carolina, a blacksmith has begun a course at a local community college. It is fortunate that opportunities exist for people to learn this skill so that one of the longest-established crafts known to civilized man will continue to survive the test of time.
Lest you think that smithing is a skill-less trade, the road to becoming a journeyman smith in the American Blade Association requires a rigorous knife-making test. In the final test, the knife must withstand being bent in a vice more than 90 degrees without breaking.
Hopefully, this glimpse into the world of the blacksmith — of today and yesteryear — will spark an interest of your own. For more information on the history of heating and processing metals, visit our sister site, Industrial Heating, for articles on industrial heating from BC to Having a local forge proved crucial in providing many of the building supplies for early settlers and trade goods for local native peoples.
By the mid th century blacksmithing as a profession met its first real challenge through the Industrial Revolution. Innovations like the Bessemer Process, a technique developed in to mass produce high-quality steel, revolutionized the ability for factories to produce large numbers of goods in a short period of time. Rapid modernization of firearms, industrial tools and mass transit relied on precise machining of interchangeable parts, which was yet another process easier for factories than for individual blacksmiths.
Workers in a blacksmith shop supply parts to a steel mill. By the end of the 19 th century, most blacksmiths found themselves out of their typical line of work, and needed to diversify to get by. Shoeing horses became a major source of income for displaced blacksmiths, but the development of the automobile industry quickly reduced the need for this work in the early 20 th century.
After a drastic decline in the craft in the s, blacksmithing returned to prominence in the s as an artisanal skill. The American heritage movement, prompted by the bicentennial in , saw many skilled people trying their hand at crafts that their ancestors did during the founding of the nation.
At Ohio History Connection, we do our part to keep the storied traditions of blacksmithing alive.
0コメント