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Fire and Iron.


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New series on History Channel. "Fire and Iron" Premier April 11.

That's right gang, this time I was watching for it and the trailer lasted all of 25 seconds, long enough for my dented brain to retain the name and date!

I have no idea what this one is about but the trailer showed blades, hardware a flint lock rifle and some general dramatic sparky hammering. Looks like the producers are finding out playing with fire and hitting things with hammers is SEXY TV!

Frosty The Lucky.

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I was surprised that other "blacksmith" show, has lasted as long as it has.

Since I absolutely loathe pretentiousness, ... and detest "artificial emergencies", ... I've found little about it that entertains me at all.  :angry:

( What is it about TV producers, that makes them want to turn everything they touch into some kind of phony competition ? )

But, since there's nothing else of interest "on" in that time slot on Tuesday nights, I do find myself watching them from time to time.

Last night was a good example, ... the "competitors" were a couple of clueless kids, and one guy who could actually make a knife.

I mean really, what's the point ?

 

But apparently they're getting ratings, so they've survived, ... and are now "spinning off" this new show.

Since the premise of the original show is so narrow, and ill-conceived, I suspect the new one can only be better.


Let's hope.

 

.

 

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Smoothbore, prepare to be disappointed.  Watching the trailer for that new show, I'm seeing all the classic signs of suckage!  They'll have a good bit of anvil time, I'm sure, but it will be interspersed with heavy doses of contrived drama, ignorant hillbilly relatives and other sundry examples of tripe.  It's not a competition show, and they won't be traveling around to visit with a different smith every episode, so they'll have to make this guy's life as "interesting" as possible so they can keep the ratings up.

 

The good news is that it will probably go a long way towards building the interests in smithing and ironwork.  That could be very good for business for those of us that actually like to hammer iron.

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18 minutes ago, VaughnT said:

Smoothbore, prepare to be disappointed.  Watching the trailer for that new show, I'm seeing all the classic signs of suckage! 

No surprise there.

But some of my favorite people are true "hillbilly types".
They tend to be interesting folks.

 

What some people might call "hillbillies", I would be more likely to characterize as "useless white trash".


That's more about who, or what you are, ... rather than where you live.

 

And yes, I'm sure the publicity is "good for business", … but have my doubts about its effect on the overall quality of the work that's being produced.

 

.

 

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2 hours ago, SmoothBore said:

But some of my favorite people are true "hillbilly types".

The hollywood stereotype of hillbillies is a caricature and you can be sure they'll be out in force in this show.  Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think it's likely.

The upside to the show, if there is one, will be the renewing of interest in flintlocks and blacksmithing.  I hope it means more business for those established craftsmen in the trades, but I'll be happy if it just doesn't make us all look like idiots.

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4 minutes ago, coldironkilz said:

We haven't had "TV" for over 30 years, so this won't affect me. :)

 

 

That's okay, ... You haven't missed much.

When flipping through the channels just this morning, "The Andy Griffith Show" and "I Love Lucy" were two of the better choices available. :unsure:

 

.

 

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I don't have high hopes but it's something. FIF isn't so loaded with the contrived drama as most, sure there's some and they're selecting for folk who'd be hard pressed to be called a bladesmith in a group of makers. I don't watch it to learn bladesmithing I watch it for the failure analysis value. You learn from your mistakes and if you're smart you learn from other folks and save yourself the tie and effort. I like watching and being able to spot the mistakes while they're happening.

The new program's trailer showed: knives, a hatchet or hawk, hardware and a flintlock and cannon and more than one person. Has anyone here been approached to participate in the program?

While I know this isn't going to be an educational program I think you guys are letting your past experiences with TV quality sour you to a maybe decent show. Oh I don't have high hopes but what the hey they may try something more valid. Has anyone EVER seen a program on TV or in a movie showing blacksmithing in any realistic way? ANYONE?

I'm going to keep my fingers crossed and watch a couple episodes before making up my mind.

Frosty The Lucky.

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  I saw the same commercial Frosty.  It looks like an Appalachian family that has a member(s) that is/does blacksmith.  That's my guess anyway, and if that's gets this family some money in the bank then good on em.

It will be interesting, could be a bunch of hype, or it could be outstanding.  Never know.  Either way it is generating a lot of interest and sending a lot of people out to our guild meetings inquiring about becoming members.  

Like you I will watch a few and see what happens.  I am with you on Forged in Fire as well.  i am learning a lot of what not to do.  Its amazing the number of people that come on there and have been bladesmithing for ?? years but they can't seem to get the quench right.  It shows that people are smithing, which is a good thing, but focusing on one particular niche that they have perfected and specializing in that one thing.  Outside of that they are in unfamiliar territory. 

Admittidily they are all probably better smiths than I as I am a lay person for sure but striving to learn.  Good for them for having the guts to go on national tv and compete.

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I didn't see anything that said "Appalachia" to me in the trailer but you never know. Wait and see is my mode for now.

Picture yourself on a movie set trying to gauge the temperature of a piece of steel under the lighting necessary for shooting. A person can adapt to too bright lighting, I'd learn a working handle on it by how the steel reacts under the hammer. Unfortunately it's not a consistent light level on the set and it seems the quench barrels are sometimes pretty far from the forge. Does anyone here think either of the guys making the Claymores WANTED to harden them in direct sunlight? They both had shops they could've closed the doors on or could've done it in the evening. Without instrumentation they were dealt a bad hand from the start on that one.

These things are RULED by the Sponsors, producers and production values, not the craft.

Frosty The Lucky.

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4 minutes ago, Frosty said:

Wait was Festus the town blacksmith

 I thought he was a deputy sheriff?

                                                                                               Littleblacksmith

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I love it when they pull a horse shoe out of the fire quench it in a huge cloud of steam then put it on the anvil and start forging ! Happens that way in most westerns and Blacksmiths never shoe a horse they just "Tighten up the left rear shoe" make new shoes as described earlier and fix broken wagon wheels AFTER

some idiot states "I should of had that wheel tended to in the last town"

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5 hours ago, littleblacksmith said:

 I thought he was a deputy sheriff?

                                                                                               Littleblacksmith

That too? When did he have time to appraise the jewelry Miss Kitty received as gifts? Between telegraph messages?

  Frosty The Lucky.

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Some of the old shows did a good job of having both a Smithy in it's own building *and* a forge at the Livery stable for the farrier.  (I was wondering about Festus as his name is of course a derivative of Hephaestus the greek god the romans called Vulcan. I figured it was a nickname for the gimp leg.) 

Quenching is a big problem in public perception; just was reading a fantasy book last night and the fellow was working on a pattern welded sword and got called away so he quenched the bar of metal and set it aside pretty much killing my "willing suspension of disbelief".  All y'all will remember how I point out that I generally don't have water near my forge and so am bemused by the massive amount of slack tub discussions.  I figured that when folks were forging very low C wrought iron they were very handy to have but nowadays with A36 they can be a danger to the workpiece.  I desert normalize stuff.   Of course having a detached and dedicated shop means that leaving hot metal to cool on it's own is not an issue.  A lot of items I'll just stick in a forge I'm not using to cool off.

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14 hours ago, Leon Renaud said:

I love it when they pull a horse shoe out of the fire quench it in a huge cloud of steam then put it on the anvil and start forging ! Happens that way in most westerns and Blacksmiths never shoe a horse they just "Tighten up the left rear shoe" make new shoes as described earlier and fix broken wagon wheels AFTER

some idiot states "I should of had that wheel tended to in the last town"

There was an episode of "Downton Abbey" (a show otherwise celebrated for its attention to detail) where two of the characters were talking about something in front of a farrier's shop, while the smith was tapping away in a desultory fashion at a dead black horseshoe. Oh, well.

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