I'm sure if we searched the historical record hard enough we could find at example of blacksmiths doing nearly anything imaginable.  Shops were businesses and would potentially do nearly anything  within their means to make money, including the full breadth of the trade they performed and perhaps some unlikely stuff as well.  This certainly was the case for isolated shops.

 

I think these claims that blacksmiths commonly did off the wall things come from researchers scouring surviving ledger books, finding one example of something different, and extrapolating that it was a common practice throughout time.

 

Will

How's this: All farriers are blacksmiths but not all blacksmiths are farriers. :mellow:

Dodge,

I think you hit the nail on the head! :lol:

I agree with George Geist, the blacksmith is the great generalist that includes all specialties that work iron.

what Dodge said as well.

If you search the historical records you will also find examples of someone doing a task that is allocated to a different guild and being fined or having their shop pulled down!

I'll have to look up that PA book; I have a copy of "To Forge Upset and Weld" from PA that includes some excerpts from blacksmiths' daybooks (ledgers) very interesting reading.

To Forge, Upset and Weld??

 

That may be the one I'm thinking of.................I have plenty of reference material and may be the title of said book. I'll look at it.

Thomas,

"not like the German Smith who would throw a hammer at you if you asked *him* to shoe a horse when he was a *Kunstschmied*!"

My master and his competitor in town (Rothenburg ot) insisted on "Kunstschlosser"  (locksmith-artist)

Cheers

Göte

They are also uncomfortable to sit on in the middle

Cheers

Göte

Similarly, I tell folk who ask if I shoe horses is that all I know about horses is that one end kicks and the other end bites.

 

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in one history book I read it said the first blacksmithing guild was formed in England 1650. By 1680 the farriers and wheelwrights had formed there own guild. In major cities New York, Philadelphia, and DC they were separate. In rural areas the blacksmith did it all out of necessity.

To add a little mud to pie here, I had two generations of the same family shoeing my horses for 40+ yrs. They to this day refer to them selves as HORSE SHOERS. When I asked back in the early 80s when the term Ferrier showed up in my circle if they were Farriers I was told in no uncertain terms he was not a Farrier, if he was he would charge 4 times as much and do a poorer job. There was other conversation pertaining to this that I will leave out this being a family site and all. The grandfather of this tribe was a carriage restorer & Livery Stable owner that I worked for when I was a kid and he did his own iron work for the repairs and he was a blacksmith no doubt about it.

There is a large horse Assoc. show grounds near me and for years there was an open sided pole shed that was used to shoe horses in and a sign hung there saying Blacksmith Shop. Some early day PC person aka New Manager took it down and replaced it with a new sign saying Farrier Shop, when the guys showed up for the next event and saw the sign they tore it down, threw it in the brook, packed up their trucks and went home. They told management they wouldn't be back until the old sign was put back up. It was within the hour. It took a lot longer for them to return. The young fellows who called themselves Farriers decided it was best ride with the flow if they wanted to get along with the old timers who most of them had apprenticed under and needed their recommendation to get a start.

Now after all this they do specialize in what horses they will do these days. Very few will do draft horses but they will do crossbreds who weigh up around 1400 lbs because they are Event Horses worth big $$$ and owned by folks with even more $$$ and they charge accordingly.

So Blacksmith, Farrier, Horseshoer I would say it's Their Choice. If you are a horse owner and have a good one you write the check and call them Sir or Madam as the case may be.

You may still find a few men in this country who are Registered Shoeing Smiths (RSS after their name). I think that means they were farriers before the 1975(-ish??) law requiring registration of farriers, so they didn't need to jump through so many hoops to practice.

 

Plater is also a term for a sheet metal worker in this country. Further identification is need before they are employed, otherwise strange and misshapen ducting/very thin horseshoes may result.

 

As the proprietor of a traditional forge, to this day I still offer dentistry, haircuts, circumcisions, marriages, baptisms, legal council and medicinal bloodletting. You get what you pay for. 

One more comment if I might, When I was home for a few days this week I had breakfast with three fellows who professionally shoe horses in our area. I brought up this discussion. One was the Horse Shoer I mentioned above both the others call themselves Farriers. when I asked they said they both graduated from Farrier School. One of theses Farriers said his father at 68 was still shoeing Draft Horses and still called himself a Blacksmith and he had an uncle who was older and still was shoeing some local hYou areorses esp. kid's mounts with limited means and he referred to himself as a Shoe Salesman!!

I guess as I've said before You are What You Say You are a Blacksmith, Farrier, Horse Shoer, or Shoe Saleman. Millions of Horses around the world that need their feet cared for, does it make any difference what the people are called who do this as long as they are good at what they do?

Heh, heh, heh, It is NOT a hypothesis Jack. No more than the wide differences in sur names or other trade languages. People have been shoeing horses for a couple thousand years all over the planet and all call what they do what they learned it is called. If your master (the person you learned from) calls a clip a to stop, that's what the student will call it till s/he retires. 

Now days in 1st world countries shoeing horses is a sub category of the blacksmith's trade. 150 years ago, unless you lived in a large community the blacksmith was the ONLY person who had the skills sets, equipment and tools to make or repair iron/steel items and often took on copper, tin and such as well. 

Still, your statement has a pretty good basis and offers an EXCELLENT challenge and tremendous service to the blacksmithing community. We've often talked about how good it would be to have a glossary of blacksmithing terms. I believe a full blown, dross referenced dictionary would be a boon to every person on Earth wanting to take up the craft.

What do you think Jack, up for the challenge? Your name would go down in history for a genuine service to humanity. 

Frosty The Lucky.

If you want proof/evidence that historically blacksmiths did just about everything to make money I refer you to the reference cited by Thomas Powers in 2014, To Draw, Upset, and Weld" by Jeanette Lasansky (1990).  It has examples of rural Pennsyvania blacksmiths' ledger books 1742-1935 and shows the kind of work they were doing.

As for what to call a person who shoes horses I defer to whatever title they give themselves which will vary by time, place, and individual preverences and influences.

When I am asked if I shoe horses I say, "Sure, 'Shoo horse, shoo" while making shooing motions with my hands.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."