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I Forge Iron

Smithing in the 3rd. world.


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This came up on another list I hang with and does a great job of showing how few tools a person needs to do some good work. It's enough to make a fellow with a well equipped shop feel a little embarrassed.

 

 

Frosty The Lucky

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That looked like West Africa and the stoves that they were making are very useful in a place with out a lot of trees for charcoal. I have read that people like UNESCO are teaching people to make retorts to turn what are really clippings, leaves and grass in to a kind of charcoal called biochar. Its got Bio in the name since every thing with Bio is better for the environment. These guys who take what they can get and make stuff are really my heroes. I have about 2 foot of rail of the same weight and it works like a dream for light stuff. Give him an anvil or even an ASO and I bet he could build a battle ship!   

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About what they could do with real tools, did you notice how much more productive the guy with the rail was than the guy with the anvil?

 

One thing I was struck by was using a nut to bolster punching for rivets.

 

Frosty The Lucky

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My father knew a Jesuit Priest that did a good bit of work in Haïti and one of the things that he did one year was had 100's of spalings planted. Came back from a trip off island and found out that the saplings were cut down for charcoal. This was in the late 80s early 90s.

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Out of the box? These are the kind of guys who made the box. No, not these guys specifically, but these guys represent the spirit of smithing as it was and is from the time metal began.

 

Frosty The Lucky

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What struck me was *practice*  I bet that wasn't the hundredth or even two hundredth one of those he's made---not a wasted or misplaced blow!  And a certain elegance in design often seen in places of great poverty.

 

Also those were *real* tools and exactly the ones they needed!

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Thanks Frosty!

I really like the guys leg vise, with toenails!

That actually was not just informative but pretty inspiring, the way blacksmiths really used to work!

Way cool!

 

I was thinking the same thing. Here I have been trying to figure ways to hold things when working by myself and all I needed to do was take my shoes off : ) .

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