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I Forge Iron

Some old tools I just made


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I've been avoiding making more urgent orders and giving my sanity a chance to recover a bit by working on a couple of more fun commissions over the last week or so. I've been asked to make some tools for an Iron Age/Roman reenactor and a Saxon woodworker. Here are some of the bits that I've been making, mostly based on archaeological finds where possible and the rest is guess work based on designs and known techniques/technology.

First up some Saxon tools based on those found in a Scandinavian bog and known as 'the Mastermyr find' ( a tool chest of fantastic treasures!). I've made a couple of spoon augers, some chisels, a swan neck gouge, a scorp and a saw.

ancienttools1web.jpg

Then for the earlier order a length of chain based on some roman pieces, a drawknife (that I am unhappy with as I can't find any examples like this from that date), a sickle, a couple of axe heads and a fork

ancienttools2web.jpg

and whilst I was at it I made a little axe alongside a student in the workshop
trapperweb.jpg

I have been having some power issues lately (in that I've had very little electricity due to a problems with my PV array and generator), so these were mostly forged in my new shiny gas forge and with virtually no grinding or power assistance :blink:

hope you like

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Nice loking work, especially the last axe. How does a spoon auger work? Do the outer edges have a sharp edge to cut the wood fibre or is a sharp corner adequate. I dont see a sharpened edge. Is that because these are not quite complete? I want to know so I can make a small auger for possibly making chairs someday.
Thanks,
Bob

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cheers guys. :) The drawknives that I can find any reference too are much smaller (that one has an 11" blade) and the tangs are on the back side not the cutting edge side like modern ones. It may be that they were also like that, but I can't find any evidence strong enough either way :rolleyes:

You're right none of the tools are sharpened, the customers both wanted to finish them off so thay are just ground ready for honing. The spoon augers only need to be sharpened on the pointed portion, basically around the tip and up the sides until the max width is attained. If the sides are sharp then it tends to cut a conical hole as you wobble the bit during drilling. Though that is useful on occasion such as when hollowing out clogs (judging by a nice old video of a clog maker I've seen). You use the auger a bit like you would tap a thread: rotate the bit back and forth and every now and then go beyond the 180 turn and completely sever any fibres and leave a round hole. That way you don't spend a lot of time switching handle position like with a screw auger and you have 2 cutting edges/directions. Really quite a nice tool to use once you get used to them. In fact a really big version used to be used to hollow out wooden water pipes by hand!

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Nice looking work. I don't know about the draw knife either but it looks nice. That chain reminds me of a surveyors chain. When I was a young lad one of the old surveyors in the office had an antique chain that his great grandfather had used in Kentucky to survey land with. Each link was a very specific length. Do you suppose that the Romans used a similar device to set up their camps? :huh:

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Nice looking work. I don't know about the draw knife either but it looks nice. That chain reminds me of a surveyors chain. When I was a young lad one of the old surveyors in the office had an antique chain that his great grandfather had used in Kentucky to survey land with. Each link was a very specific length. Do you suppose that the Romans used a similar device to set up their camps? :huh:


The Romans were outstanding civil engineers so it would not surprise me that they used a surveyor's chain.
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I originally trained as an archaeologist and was taught to survey by the guy who trained the Ordnance Survey in his youth (he was in his 70's when I knew him 10 years ago). We learnt a whole bunch of older surveying methods as well as the new up and coming electronic gizmos (that are now standard and cost a few grand rather than tens of thousands then!).

Amongst the theodolites and plane tables we also had to survey parts of the campus with a 19th century surveyers chain too B) Xxxxxx heavy things but they work very well! I forget the length of each link, but the whole chain is 66 feet or 4 poles long (there are 10 chains in a furlong I think?.) I can't remember if the Romans used chains but they certainly used wheels to survey the land and some of the other kit they had was brilliant. One exercise we had was to plot a ridgeway of several miles using a Groma which is kinda like a simple theodolite.

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Nice job! I always enjoy working with folks who want to go just a step (or more!) more toward authentic. Can be lots of fun when they sometimes find out that the old ways actually were easier and faster than the new ways----working on a viking boat build I once showed that using the drawknife was quieter, faster and less effort than using a belt sander to taper overlaps. I have a book on the history of carpentry tools I'll see if I can dig up a roman drawknife reference.

Are the pieces wrought iron?

Do you have a cite for that fork? I'm familiar with the American Revolution twisted wire fork; but I haven't see an earlier one and would LOVE to be able to document it! (and add to my stack of sources for cooking and eating gear from various time periods)

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Likewise, I enjoy making things that are right archaeologically, but people seldom want to pay for the wrought iron and steel edges, etc :rolleyes: These tools are all tool steel and heat treated, basically they are modern tools but look spot on to the originals (no grinding marks, etc either)

The fork is a strange one. I had been under the impression that the fork wasn't used for eating until much much later, but having done a little more looking around it seems that the Romans DID use them! It seems that small forks like the sort we recognise today are found amongst dining kit, but they are not very common. So maybe they were reserved for certain meals like when meat needed to be plucked from within a shell or the fork was used to serve food from a dish? hereare some examples of bronze, silver and bone forks but no iron ones. So I guess the one I have made could be considered within the realms of possibility but with no evidence to back it up 100% :unsure:

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Alas; I am not a member and no images show up for me. I did see prose reference to some of the roman multitools with forks. I saw one at the Deutsches Klingen Museum in Solingen I believe. (Or else it had to be the Saalburg Museum.)

What I don't recall was that method of making it; so simple to our minds that it's hard to doubt it wasn't in use. So it's a twisted wire fork I'm really hunting not so much the metal used.

Thanks for your efforts so far though.

Thomas

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sorry I didn't realise you needed to be logged in to see the pictures. So here they are ;-)

roman from Lyon
romanforksfromLyon.jpg

From Portogruaro
romanforksfromPortogruaro.jpg

roman but I couldn't see where from, sorry. From Pula I think
romanspoonb.jpg
romanforks.jpg

and a bone one that looks modern! from Pula
Pula-beenromanfork.jpg

none are twisted from wire I don't think, but twisted stems are present. Also all silver, bronze and bone though I'm sure somebody would've made an iron fork or two

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THANKS! Those will go into my pile of pics!

I think I could make a reasonable leap from that second twisted latten one to a twisted iron one as you can tell by the fork end it was twisted wire and not a casting! Now I have a Roman example and an American Revolutionary War example---only need to fill in between!

Thomas

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THANKS! Those will go into my pile of pics!

I think I could make a reasonable leap from that second twisted latten one to a twisted iron one as you can tell by the fork end it was twisted wire and not a casting! Now I have a Roman example and an American Revolutionary War example---only need to fill in between!

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Nice work. I don't see anything wrong with the drawknife - who's to say they didn't look like that during the period.


The problem with making historical replicas, is that we are constrained by what IS available in the Archeological record. There are times when it's appropriate to extrapolate, but this sounds like the fellow is making direct copies of found items (IE items from the Mastermyr tool set) so in that case, it's not appropriate to guess.
Just one of the fun things about direct historical recreation.
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Those small cast two tine bronze forks look just like some of the small sterling silver pickle and olive forks in my late mother-in-law's set of silver. I guess some things don't change much over time. B)
On that multi-function tool, is that an ear spoon on there? Every body's got to have one of those and pick to lance boils too! He sure did an excellent job on that. B)

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The problem with making historical replicas, is that we are constrained by what IS available in the Archeological record. There are times when it's appropriate to extrapolate, but this sounds like the fellow is making direct copies of found items (IE items from the Mastermyr tool set) so in that case, it's not appropriate to guess.
Just one of the fun things about direct historical recreation.



Sort of. I don't like to make exact copies of things, after all no smith in the past would make identical pieces each time (unless he really had to). I try to make a tool to the same style, construction and generally of the 'type' of the the originals. So my Mastermyr tools would look right if they were found together with the chest, but they are not copies of anything in there.

By that token of making right to the type, I don't like to make a tool that has no archaeological president for that style or method of construction. But as pointed out, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. So I can't say for sure that modern styled drawknives weren't in use in the first century BC, but I can't say for sure that they were and that makes me uneasy. After all, they could've made a mosaic damascus Tai Chi sword with the skills and technologies known then, but I'm pretty sure that they didn't :D
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So why aren't these been entered into the Devon County Show blacksmithing competition, in the industrial/agricultural class Dave?

Too late for this years show, (unless you can get them there for 9.00am 20th May) but you could bring them to the iForgeins we are holding there at Westpoint, May 29th and 30th, or September 11 and 12 and let people see and handle them, maybe even demo some.

(Gauntlet thrown down)

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I enjoyed seeing your work. I've done repro work in the Spanish Colonial period of the southwestern U.S.

About unthinking our "design prejudices," a drawknife could be a push knife with the handles placed differently. The Japanese sen comes to mind where the handles are side extensions.

http://www.turleyforge.com

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So why aren't these been entered into the Devon County Show blacksmithing competition, in the industrial/agricultural class Dave?

Too late for this years show, (unless you can get them there for 9.00am 20th May) but you could bring them to the iForgeins we are holding there at Westpoint, May 29th and 30th, or September 11 and 12 and let people see and handle them, maybe even demo some.

(Gauntlet thrown down)



I didn't enter them into the Devon County, mostly coz I forgot it was on until I turned the breakfast news on this morning! Also I'm supposed to be at a wedding in Guildford tomorrow, so wouldn't be around anyway

I've got to be elsewhere on the sunday, but I plan to make the time to come along on saturday to the iForgeins next week. I'll bring some of the bits with me then :) I'm happy to do a demo, but what would you like me to do? Don't want to be teachin people to suck eggs!
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