Stupid Spectator Tricks

[Nobody Special]

Broken anvil story is the one that supposedly in the Civil War whenever the North captured someplace new, they broke the horn/heels off of every southern anvil they could get ahold of to prevent Southerners from being able to shoe horses.

 

A story that makes no sense seeing as how it doesn't even remotely stop you from turning a shoe, and even if it did, why would they do it after it the area was in Northern control and would be needed for them to continue governance and an economy?  

 

Crap happens, forge welded horns and heels eventually break, especially when struck too hard when cold. But if something makes a halfway interesting story, no matter how unlikely, it'll pop up til the end of time.

[ThomasPowers]

And we even know where the broken anvil story started (and who)  A smith was speculating on why there were so many broken anvils in the south and proposed the story about them being broken in the ACW by northern soldiers.  

 

Actually the south was quite poor after the ACW and so anvils that broke were not fixed or replaced like they were in better off places and so the proportion of broken ones was greater; but this isn't as "good" a story  As mentioned you don't need a horn or a heel to make horseshoes.

[John McPherson]

Nobody Special, there you go again, with your darn Vulcan logic. :rolleyes: Now tearing up RR track sections during a raid into enemy territory, that was a real story. Of course, making "Sherman's neckties" was easier with the lighter gauge rail of the day, which is closer to trolley rail found today.

 

Remember, it's pillage, THEN burn! Get it right next time.

[notownkid]

Until the days of the EPA there was no laws about burning your house for whatever reason as long it did not endanger other peoples property.  Your home was and still is in some states your Castle to do with what you want, don't burn it and try to get insurance that is Fraud or if there is a mortgage on it .  In Vermont & NH about 1900 or so there was a mass exit of farmers headed West into NY and Ohio, while I don't know of any of them burned for nails my father said the vast majority of houses left had all the windows and doors taken when they left.  There were still some houses standing in the back country when I was growing up that had been abandoned with the windows gone.  Just an old house "standing" in the middle of the woods with stone walls all around it, road impassible other than on foot mile or two from a town road.  Only cellar holes left today.

[Nobody Special]

Well.....as they said in that Clint Eastwood movie (huh? John Wayne was in it too?) "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."

 

There's a few of those neckties down here at the Kennesaw museum where they keep the General. I've even got a hunk of the light gauge rail from a fella my wife did chicken business with. He's in his 70s, and his grandpa used it for a tractor weight. It's the "anvil" I let my 11 yr on.

 

Seems like there's some step missin' before pillage.....and a reason for the order it's in.

 

To get back on topic, seems like my most common spectator trick is for someone to try to pick up hot coals/cutoffs/the piece of work that was orange hot two seconds ago and just went flying out of the tongs. Anything that drops. They'd cross a brick wall if I had one to get their hands on hot steel.

[ausfire]

Good to see this very old thread back on the surface; I like to read about spectator comments.

I would think the two most common questions I get are the same for all of us:

1. What are you making?

2. How long have you been doing this? (Suitable answers already given in this thread)

 

One I have been getting a lot recently is "How hot is the forge?" Well, I don't think the actual numbers mean much to anyone but the odd metalurgist who happens along, and they would know anyway. You could quote any number of degrees really and few would know the difference.

So how do you answer that question? I usually say that carbon steel melts at about 1400 degrees C and it is easy to melt steel in there. I sometimes show them an old tyre iron I left in for too long and it's a molten blob.  I'm thinking of making a small chart of some common metal melting points to pin on the smithy wall:

Lowest: Mercury -38C

Tin 232C

Lead 327C

Magnesium 650C

Aluminium 660C

Yellow Brass 930C

Gold 1063C

Copper 1084C

Cast Iron 1127C

Wrought iron 1480C

Carbon Steel 1425 - 1540C

Stainless Steel 1510C

Highest - Tungsten 3422C

Perhaps it would also be useful to write what temperature steel is when it's cherry red, red, orange, yellow and white. Any other answers you have for the inevitable question? (Besides 'very hot', that is!)

[Matt_K]

One I have been getting a lot recently is "How hot is the forge?" Well, I don't think the actual numbers mean much to anyone but the odd metalurgist who happens along, and they would know anyway. You could quote any number of degrees really and few would know the difference.

 
I ask the kids how hot the oven at home gets. Then I quadruple it while touching the steel to the wooden anvil stand.  Then I point out the floor is dirt, instead of wood planks. :D
 

(Besides 'very hot', that is!)

 
Every smarthindquarter kid gives me that answer. I head 'em off at the pass nowadays. I tell 'em that one's been used. :P