Mike Bromley

I shod harness race horses on the California circuit for 12 years, and was a member of the Journey Horseshoers Union,local 17 during that time. In answer to the question asked about light weight shoes, yes we used light weight steel shoes. Stock for the shoes was made of what was referred to as toe steel, a higher level of carbon to make the lighter steel hold its shape. Swedge shoes were made from 3 sizes of steel, 1/4 ×3/8,1/4 ×7/16,and 1/4 ×1/2. 7/16 was the most popular size used. It was made into full Swedges for the front feet of pacers, and was used on the hind feet of trotters. Half Swedges, that would be half round on inside branch of the shoe, and a inverted W ,like a crease, to hold dirt on the outside branch of the shoe. I have, buy hand, swedged between 3 1/2 to 4 tons of steel into shoes. After the steel was swedged into molds the flash was ground off with the bench grinder. The molds were turned with a wooden or rawhide mallet, so as not to flatten the W pattern of the Swedge. I found that 3/8 " rebar had enough carbon to make it stiff enough to hold its shape and was easier to Swedge than flat barstock ,and that's what I made most of my shoes from. I used double Swedge blocks that is one block had the full Swedge pattern cut into it and the matching half round Swedge pattern beside it. These blocks were made for me Ed Kinney, owner of Thor'Bread Racine Plate Co. Swedging has a long low learning curve, it takes a long time and a lot of hard work to become skilled and proficient at it. I can remember after 6 months thinking how well I was doing, and a year later I was amazed at how much better my work was. This was shoeing 8 horses a day 6 days a week .I have taught classes on swedging ,I only taught how to Swedge round into half round as that is the easiest to do and make it look like anything. It is very satisfying to start with very basic material and make it into useful and beautiful shoes. We also used flat bar,3/16" × 9/16" also made from toe steel and for the same reason. There were numerous patterns of swedes. The running horse blacksmith ,before the invention of aluminum racing plates, used a wider Swedge than the standard bred harness horses. Many of the old blacksmiths, when first arriving at a race meet, would go out on the race track, take a handful of dirt from the track and squeeze it in there hand and observe how it would clump up to determine what pattern of swedge would be best suited for that track. Very few of us are left that have any real first hand knowledge of this nearly gone craft.