Frank Turley

Getting to the bar shoe. A plain bar shoe would have the two heels of the shoe extended and bent inward "the hard way" to be welded in the center. The result was no longer an open heeled shoe. The bent and welded portion we call the bar. The bar shoe is reputed to be an all around therapeutic shoe. I suppose one could get into an argument regarding its efficacy. Say a horse has a hoof problem like a crack or a sole bruise. By applying a bar shoe, it gives the horse a "platform" upon which to stand, thus displacing weight from the affected part. At least, this is my feeling about its use.

Getting back to the original question, it would be difficult to say what a "regular shoe" is. In the U.S. and the U.K., an oft used riding horseshoe would have two fullered nail creases. The number of nail holes in each crease could be three or four. British shoes would sometimes have four on the lateral and three on the medial, seven nail holes on one shoe. Lucky horseshoe; lucky seven? When I began shoeing in the 1960's, we would normally crop the heels if need be, at an angle corresponding to the horse's hoof angle at the heel(s). The Brits usually hammer forged the heel without regard to angle, and many of us have begun to do the same in the U.S. Clips were optional. They were fairly common on athletic horses, such as hunters and jumpers, a toe clip on a front shoe, and two clips, one on each side, for the hind shoe. In the U.S., the stock size selected for the shoe was often 5/16" x 3/4" mild steel. In other European countries, the nail crease was not so popular as in the U.K. The shoes were simply countersunk (hot stamped) to accommodate each nail head. Making nail creases was a little more time consuming than countersinking. A nail crease widened the branch by the movement of the metal. To obviate that, the shoe branch was first hemmed, made narrower by edge hammering at a slight angle toward the ground surface. When the creasing fuller was applied, the shoe would regain its original width. I have asked more than one horseshoer why there is a nail crease. I always get the same answer. The crease will fill with hard packed earth, and "dirt on dirt" traction is the best kind of traction. A good reference is "Gregory's Textbook of Farriery" by Chris Gregory. The book is well illustrated with different types of horseshoes.

From "The Directory of American Toolmakers" edited by Robert Nelson: GOLDIE, JOSEPH, Anvils, rules, and vises. MARKS: GOLDIE/ 133 ATTORNEY/ N.YORK/ MAKER/ 1849.

Tie smithing with "Spirit." I recommend reading "The Forge and the Crucible" by Mircea Eliade. This is heavy duty reading, for me about one page on the crapper per day. Eliade was a contemporary of Carl Jung's. I think they knew each other but their views diverged somewhat. The book doesn't tell you how to make a dang thing. It is about alchemy in China, India, and Europe. He includes a bit about African tribal alchemy, as well. In later life, Eliade left Europe for the United States where he taught Religious Studies at the University of Chicago.

Was in Scottsdale AZ a month ago visiting relatives, and they had a tiny, ground floor patio as part of the apartment complex. At over 100 degrees, we would occasionally sit outside in the patio and visit, especially after sundown. About the heat, my niece had a tower fan turned on and she had a spritzer water bottle. Every now and then, she would spray all in attendance.

Get the film, "Inagina the last House of Iron" about the Dogon tribesmen of Mali, Africa. It'll blow your hat in the creek. Their old timey furnace had holes near the base for tuyeres, and the charcoal fire caused an induced draft, so they didn't need bellows!

On this site, go to General Discussions, Book Reviews, scroll to Survivors Library. Thence, the 5th book from the top, Modern Blacksmithing and Toolsmiths and Steelworkers Manual." These are two books combined under one cover. The second book by scrolling is a good book on toolsmithing. The actual title is Twentieth Century Toolsmith and Steelworker. On page 119, there is info on making a drawknife. The only thing we don't do anymore that the author suggests, is "packing", ie. hammering at a dull red the length of the tool before hardening. It's not necessary in the light of modern metallurgy.

May be getting off topic here, but a few more Spanish derived words are: hackamore for jacima; bosal for specialized noseband; dally for dar la vuelta; quirt from cuarta or cuerda; cinch from cincho meaning girth (bellyband); la reata becomes lariat; lazo becomes lasso or "lass rope."

I had my sweet iron idea on here at one time, but I think it was expunged. The oft used Spanish word for the material, wrought iron, is hierro dulce, literally "iron sweet." I think that in the early days of the West, the Hispanic bitsmiths passed this translation to their Anglo apprentices and counterparts. Manufactured bits are no longer made of the old fashioned wrought iron, but in advertising, "sweet iron" sounds good to the ol' cowpunchers.

Somewhere in "The Blacksmith's Craft," I think it says, "Metal forged at the correct temperature loses no strength." I assume that the authors assume that you are not overheating nor underheating while hammering, and that you are not overly soaking the metal. Soaking would mean getting the metal to an incandescent heat and leaving it in say, a coal fire with the blower off, for an extended period.

I started out shoeing and drifted into ironwork, letting the horses go. If you are a stranger to horses and unfamiliar with horse lingo, you might not understand some of our explanations of the uses of various horseshoes. Before letting go of the horses, I kept a show Morgan horse account which kept me busy most weekends. Some of the front shoes were toe weights, hand turned. At that time, a few years back, the weight limit for a front shoe in the Park horse classes was 16 ounces, horse show rules. I made a front shoe out of about 9" of 3/8" x 1" mild steel. Each end was drawn/tapered in width leaving about 1 1/2" untouched by the hammer in the center. After turning, most of the weight of the shoe was in the toe. I put a hammer-roll on the toe. These shoes did not have the fullered nail crease. Each nail head placement was countersunk (hot stamped) and then pritcheled. I always used a toe clip,* each precut from 1/8" thick mild steel. These were arc or oxy welded on. The Park horse's hoof was allowed to grow a little extra long, but there was a limit, again horse show rules. Before trimming, I used dividers to demarcate toe length. I also used a hoof angle gauge to determine the angle I wanted. The horse trainer wanted pads put between the shoe and the plantar surface of the hoof. I used two pads together, one of sole leather, and the other, a proprietary degree pad made of composition material. Between the pads and foot sole, there was room to put a small amount of oakum and some pine tar. For the hind shoe, I used a fullered shoe with forged trailered heel calks, medial and lateral. The toe was "squared." One leather pad sufficed. Raison d'etre. One might wonder what this was all about. This is about the horse show world and the horse owner winning ribbons and trophies. In this Park horse class, the horse is supposed to impress the judge with classy looks and airy, heightened, showy gaits, especially when shown at the trot. The toe weight shoe has a sort of "pendulum effect" causing the front leg to fold more when flexed. The longer foot with pads gives the foot more presentation to the ground from before to behind, than a shorter bare foot would have. Therefore, the horse, not realizing that he/she has all that stuff on the foot, has forward motion of bone and muscle ahead of the foot leaving the ground. When the foot does leave the ground, it does so with snap and increased elevation. When a horse picks up a front foot, the horse lifts the heel and rolls over the toe first. We call this breakover. With the longer foot and heavy shoe, the breakover is delayed. Because of breakover, any shoe with a wear pattern will show more wear at the toe than elsewhere. A cowboy friend once told me, "Hell, I was 18 years old before I knew they weren't supposed to come off in two pieces." It's a yoke, son [sort of]. It is more difficult to get heightened action in the hind legs than in the fore legs because of the difference in conformation. We say that the horses fold in front and pull their hocks behind. Nevertheless, a longer shoe with heel calks is applied in an attempt to increase action in back. I've had people tell me that this kind of shoeing is frivolous. I can only say that there are more horses in the U.S. today than there were in the 1915 census, and a great percentage of the horse activity is recreational. A small percentage of horse activity is with "using horses" such as cow horses and some draft horses. Yet the recreational horse world is large enough to be considered an industry. Big money. Horseshoeing is a part of that industry. I have talked here about one type of shoeing. I was fortunate also to have been exposed to the shoeing of three and five gaited American Saddle Horses, Tennessee Walking Horses, bridle horses, Standardbred pacers for the track, hunters, jumpers, game horses, cutting horses, and your everyday backyard horses. All required different shoes, one from another. *Clips are relatively thin projections rising from the outer edge of the shoe. They are visible when the horse is in the standing position. Their purpose is to keep the shoe from shifting on the foot. Even though the shoe is nailed on, sometimes it will shift backwards or get torqued, and this results in an undesirable way of moving or it results in a lost shoe.

It's a square thread not an Acme. It's difficult to know the pitch, since you're guessing at something made in England, maybe 1850 to 1930. It's the kind of thread put on old house jacks and old office chair bottoms.

I don't get it. However, the slot and wedge idea is not new but used in a different manner. The granite tool sharpener's stake served as a sort of small, canted anvil face for working on granite chisels. Its shank was slotted to wedge against the anvil heel in order to prevent it from bouncing around with repeated use. There is usually a little slop in a hardy shank, so the wedge sucked it tight.

It has somewhat the appearance of an English Peter Wright. Sometimes, you may find a numeral stamped on the straight portion of the screw box, when disassembled. That would be a tip that it's a Peter Wright. We suspect that they were inspector's numerals.

Sometime you might consider ordering a decent hot-work tool steel for your pritchel, 5/8" round, maybe H13 or S1. They are alloyed so that after hardening, each is tempered to dark red incandescent heat, 1200F, WAY ABOVE the heat rainbow, the latter ending at 630F. Dress it to a rectangular section, not square.

It looks good for the price. I've used a 250# Trenton for 35 years, and I like it. Trenton was one of the trusted manufacturers of anvils in the U.S. Doug Wilson is a smith in Little Deer Isle and the New England School of Metalwork is in Maine. They'd probably tell you the same as I did.

Grant Sarver (RIP) of Off-Center Tool Company said that he served an old fashioned apprenticeship where he was taught to test cold work tools on the anvil sides and base and he had better do it that way, or else! His boss insisted.

En la casa de herrero, Cuchara de palo. In the house of the blacksmith, a wooden spoon.

Good job on the transitional tongue, thick to thin.

Some of the Swedish anvils had the two "ledges" on the base.

I pass this heat treatment definition along until I'm corrected or find a more succinct, better one. Heat treatment is the controlled heating and cooling of a metal in order to change its properties. Forging is controlled heating and cooling but is not considered a heat treatment by metallurgists, probably because of the "plastic deformation" involved.

If any of this horse hockey is about blacksmithery, the answer might be found in Otto Schmirler's book, "Werk und Werkzeug des Kunstschmieds." The book is a how-to showing much of the techniques used in the Schmirler smithy in Wien (Vienna).