An old film of French smiths

 

I noticed that like the sword makers I visited in Toledo they worked with a large pile of pretty fine coal and the work piece is totally buried in it---no way to tell what heat it's at but *experience*!  It also makes for little scaling.

 

I may need to make some tools with right angle bends at the top to make them easier to knock out.

Holy smoke! Those grinding wheels are huge!

Interesting to see the specialized anvils, and hammers.

The one guy welding the barrel, are those vision, safety,or a light blocking glasses?

The lack of safety gear is funny compared to today's workplaces.

That, quite possibly, is one of the neatest smithing video I've seen!  Thanks for sharing!

That really was worthwhile. I like the short sledge as well.
The custom barrel blew my little pea brain.

Thanks for posting the link, that's a pretty darned good video. I don't have very much experience with coal, by time I got to give it a shot I'd had years working in camp fires and had my first propane forge up and working. Anyway, it didn't take me too long to decide what I liked in a fire.

 

I liked a little larger coal, nut, +/- in the heart but covered the outside of the dome with wet fines. The more porous heart allowed the blast to flow through the coal/breeze without having to blast it hard and the fines capping it prevented air and heat from escaping except at the very top where I made a vent.

 

I'm not saying that's HOW to manage a coal fire, just that I liked it that way.

 

I think the welder was judging the temp of the steel when he "wiggled" it sideways and lifted it slightly. I did something similar when checking the heat in a closed fire. If the steel is pretty much invisible in the heart it's good to work, too hot and it's incandescent and brighter than the fire.

 

Like I say I have little coal experience but that's my take FWIW.

 

PPE? Don't pour the sulfuric acid on your fingers. Don't touch hot or sharp stuff. Exercise your blink reflex. I mean REALLY guys OSHA doesn't have enough vowels to have any authority in France. Or was that Belgium?

 

At first glance I thought those were mill stones but no grooves means grind stones, the kind you lay on a bench over to use. Of course that used to be the industrial sector so they may have been used for . . . who knows?

 

That was a very enjoyable 25 minutes, thanks again.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

Ooops.

It was film in Liege - sorry Belgium

I didn't see any specialized hammers; pretty standard for industrial smithing at that time and place.

 

The old natural stone grinding wheels had to be huge to get high sfpm with slow speeds---both what water mills produced AND they wheels were not strong enough to withstand high speeds without grenading 

I have tried welding spiral ribbons but had little success.I really concentrated on the "jump weld" as the sole method for welding the ribbon. It appears in this video that the smith jumped the barrel enough to push the seam into a perpendicular plane to the barrel's bore and then just welded the seam by pulling the metal together from both sides of the seam while rotating the ribbon very much like it is done on longitudinal welding of a skelp. Is that what you see?

Last name of the president of the company was Dupont, I think those big grinding wheels my have been for black powder.

Nope; you don't mix forging and powder making in a small locale!

 

I liked their clogs! 

Awesome. Loved it when he scrapes the scale off with an old bayonet!

Thanks for that link Wayne, fascinating! I couldn't help notice the footwear.....clogs. It may just have been the traditional footwear in that area or it may have been an industrial preference. I know here in the North of England many industries employed clogs for durability and safety although they would have been a wooden sole with a leather upper and pondered if I would find a pair beneficial in the forge. I've more than one pair of rubber soled boot with bolt head sizing facilities!!!!!

I noticed the large pipe clenched in the teeth and the fast rate of hammering with the sledge. My guess is when he bit down you could put a large straw through the gap left by that pipe stem.

Is the amount of fines to preheat the incoming air so no fractures appear? May be a dumb question I am very un educated in coal fires. Out where I live transporting or building coal fires is not done. To many fires started. Propane is portable to the broken equipment and shuts down for transport.

Thank you for posting.

Could not help but think about the time frame of that film.   I wonder how many people in the trade lost their lives in WW I.  I think that the war may have contributed greatly to the demise of the Industry.   I know that the barrels that were made there and in Britain are still cherished by shot gun cognoscenti today.     

  I know that the barrels that were made there and in Britain are still cherished by shot gun cognoscenti today.     

To we aficionados of the SmoothBore ... and particularly the "High-Grade" creations of John Moses Browning, ... Liege, and the neighboring town of Herstal, Belgium, ... are revered, in much the same way that Muslims cherish Mecca.

The classic Browning "flagship" model  over-under Shotgun, ... the venerable "Superposed", ... is still built, one-at-a-time, by the Browning Custom Shop, in Liege, Belgium.

And another bit of SmoothBore trivia .....

The last production model Browning over-under Shotguns to carry the coveted "Made in Belgium" barrel stamping, ... were sold in the US as the "Liege" and "Grand Liege" models.

While 1975 was the last year those models were imported into the US market, ... they are STILL sold Worldwide, ... by "Fabrique Nationale" ( FN ) of Herstal, Belgium.

That's right, ... a product that's existed in it's current form for over 50 years, ... and is still recognized as being among the finest in the World.

 

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Edited October 7, 201510 yr by SmoothBore

Could not help but think about the time frame of that film.   I wonder how many people in the trade lost their lives in WW I.  I think that the war may have contributed greatly to the demise of the Industry.   I know that the barrels that were made there and in Britain are still cherished by shot gun cognoscenti today.     

The war and developments in metallurgy.

How did they weave his name like that?

How did they weave his name like that?

Google "mosaic damascus".

I was going to refer to a stick of Blackpool Rock in reply to JimsShip.....but realised it may not be a helpful analogy for anyone outside the UK!

That's a nice video. I've go an old double barrel with damasus barrels. Now I know all the trouble they went through to produce such a nice looking barrel.

Kinda gives you and idea of how tough an anvil is. I would think those anvils were used day in and out for decades.

Scott

Google "mosaic damascus".

Ok, that is cool, but I still can't believe thats how they got the name to repeat so perfectly.
I couldn't stamp it that clearly!
That is the most impressive thing i've ever seen. I can't even fathom the planning it took to work that out.

Thanks for sharing that. Fascinating!

Ok, that is cool, but I still can't believe thats how they got the name to repeat so perfectly.I couldn't stamp it that clearly!
That is the most impressive thing i've ever seen. I can't even fathom the planning it took to work that out.

JimsShip, check out this video; it shows a similar process done in Blackpool Rock (the lettering process starts at about the 4 minute mark).

Edited October 9, 201510 yr by JHCC

I did Google  Blackpool rock when it was mentioned earlier, and I understand how they do it so when pieces are cut of you see the lettering, but this looks like it's along the weld seam, which makes me think it's 2 halves of the name (or letters) that must line up, no?