July 28, 201213 yr Stumbled across this YouTube video actually while looking at other things but this happened to come up. Just an observation, the part from 2:26 to 2:40 shows the smith using a small treadle/helve hammer situated very close to his anvil and fire which is brought into position when needed and swings out of the way when not. I thought that was a neat bit of kit. O.K. so here's why I posted this video and my question~ In the segment from 3:30 to 4:58 the smith and striker are shown working at their forge and they have a door on the fire which encloses it when the fire is not being tended or stock is not being admitted/retrieved. Why would there be a door to enclose the fire? Is this perhaps simply to shield them from the heat because they are in very close proximity to a rather large forge fire or is there more to it? Does it offer some benefit in controlling the atmosphere of the fire? [media=]
July 28, 201213 yr I can't give you an answer sorry, I'm very inexperienced so hopefully some else can. Just wanted to thank you for sharing an awesome old video. It's great to see how it was do, and probably still done in a Very similar manner. Cheers
July 28, 201213 yr Looks like a heat shield to me. Neat video showing how things were done back in the day. That treadle hammer was unique, to say the least, and I'd like to see more on it's design. The hammer head didn't look larger than a 10lb sledge.....
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