Branding iron article in German

[Frank Turley]

Helmut Hillenkamp, a fellow smith at iron-to-live-with in Santa Fe, NM, visited my forge on January 29th in order to interview me about traditional branding iron forging. He intends to forward the script with photos to the German magazine for smiths, Hephaistos. He is working on the article and will review it with me before sending it overseas. I did a little bit of demoing.

 

Helmut thinks that the article will be received favorably, partly because of the early 20th century fiction author, Karl May, who wrote many stories about cowboys and Indians, even though he had not been to the U.S. to gain first hand knowledge. There is still today a sizable German "community" of Karl May followers, and I think there is a museum dedicated to him in Dresden. This German interest in cowboy culture and Indian culture continues.

 

I've shown a few irons from my collection. They are carefully constructed by way of forge welding, tenons, and rivets. I assume all in the picture were made prior to the advent of gas or electric welding.

 

The two on the left are from Australia, overall length 27": a "flying HD" and the numeral 3. The next is an American iron, reverse fT, 46" long. The next is AN, a Mexican iron whose stamp is 5" tall. Next is a Mexican iron, hard to decipher; it has a socketed shank for a wooden handle. The circular one on the right is probably American, and the connecting rods are attached with right angle tenons. Some of the early iron stamp-letters had serifs. 

[DSW]

 

Helmut thinks that the article will be received favorably, partly because of the early 20th century fiction author, Karl May, who wrote many stories about cowboys and Indians, even though he had not been to the U.S. to gain first hand knowledge. There is still today a sizable German "community" of Karl May followers, and I think there is a museum dedicated to him in Dresden. This German interest in cowboy culture and Indian culture continues.
 

Kind of interesting to read this. I used to get cowboy and Indian stuff from my grand parents and family in Germany every Christmas back in the 70's. (Mom was born in Germany before becoming a US citizen.)I remember leafing thru the German toy catalog looking at all the stuff they had for the sets of figures they had sent me. Chuck wagons, cannons, log forts, various army troopers in different positions or on hose back all with removable guns and swords. Same with fighting cowboys and Indians.

[Frosty]

Helmut Hillenkamp, a fellow smith at iron-to-live-with in Santa Fe, NM, visited my forge on January 29th in order to interview me about traditional branding iron forging. He intends to forward the script with photos to the German magazine for smiths, Hephaistos. He is working on the article and will review it with me before sending it overseas. I did a little bit of demoing.

 

Helmut thinks that the article will be received favorably, partly because of the early 20th century fiction author, Karl May, who wrote many stories about cowboys and Indians, even though he had not been to the U.S. to gain first hand knowledge. There is still today a sizable German "community" of Karl May followers, and I think there is a museum dedicated to him in Dresden. This German interest in cowboy culture and Indian culture continues.

 

I've shown a few irons from my collection. They are carefully constructed by way of forge welding, tenons, and rivets. I assume all in the picture were made prior to the advent of gas or electric welding.

 

The two on the left are from Australia, overall length 27": a "flying HD" and the numeral 3. The next is an American iron, reverse fT, 46" long. The next is AN, a Mexican iron whose stamp is 5" tall. Next is a Mexican iron, hard to decipher; it has a socketed shank for a wooden handle. The circular one on the right is probably American, and the connecting rods are attached with right angle tenons. Some of the early iron stamp-letters had serifs. 

 

Frank: did you reduce the file size of the pic to under 60kb? It's the size of a thumbnail but won't enlarge so weak eyed old farts like me can see any detail.

 

I'm seeing this a lot in the last few days and am wondering if some sort of automatic sizing is a new "feature" slipped in with the new software.

 

I'd comment on the irons in the pic but. . . Congrats on being featured in Hephaistos.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Frank Turley]

Frosty, I can't always predict the size that comes up. On my screen, the photo is about 1 3/4" x 1 1/2" and when I zap it with the mouse, it grows to a larger size with more detail.

 

Best, Frank T.

[DSW]

Frosty, it's that same old pesky pict issue we both have been having again. I tried 3 or 4 different times earlier to open that pict and twice this evening, refreshing the page and so on until finally for what ever reason it decided to open up for me.

[Frosty]

When I hold the cursor on the pic it says it's 56.21kb. and that's it, it's not linked to anything. What I'm getting is an imbedded picture rather than a thumbnail, my cursor won't right click on it at all the little hand just sits there.

 

The pic I'm seeing is about that size Frank but nothing else happens, even a few days later. I think I need to hand this on off to Admin, nothing's changed on my comp, must be a bug on their end. Well, I don't THINK anything's changed on my machine but nothing shows.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

[steevo99]

I live some in NM, some in TN and one time my wife and I were eating breakfast at the only breakfast joint in town and ran into a German couple that came specifically for the Western/cowboy and Indian culture. We invited them out the house and an spent the day trading stories. They loved the local museums, the land and when they saw a cowboy w/spurs it was over. We have been swapping Christmas cards ever since. I'd like to know when that article hits the magazine, Rolf would get a kick out of it....so would I

Steve.