What does "tradtional" mean?

[Daswulf]

LOL Charlotte, i been there, Seen that. 

[Frosty]

You want me to get close to badly cobbled together . . . stuff? Did I say something to make you hate me THAT much?  I apologize, honest I'm sorry!

I rarely spend time in a Pier One, heck I don't even know if there is one in Alaska. Could be wrong but I'm not going to look. We have a Raj of India and something similar though and they don't call it forged or wrought that I remember. It usually just sits there and they let the customer call it what they will. Oh DRATS! I couldn't resist I looked, there are 2 of them in Anchorage. Now I have to go give my mind's eye a long hot shower.

I don't have anything against using light material unless it's supposed to do heavy work, say a hand rail, it's gotta be strong enough to keep a 300lb. love chunk from taking a header over the edge.

What I do see though is people handling Mark's work (Metalmangler) and commenting on how satisfyingly heavy and strong it feels. I enjoy showing them how it feels to run their fingers over it and feel the hand of the maker imbued into the steel. Forged steel / iron should be brailled, it has so much more to say than our eyes can see.

Frosty The Lucky.

 

[ausfire]

14 hours ago, Joel OF said:

Which idiot started this thread?

Nice to see a sense of humour there, Joel! Folks can be too serious! 

[Joel OF]

I suspect "period" is a less ambiguous and more helpful word than "traditional".

[JHCC]

On 12/12/2015, 7:52:03, Frank Turley said:

David Pye, a British author in the 1960's, wrote a thought provoking book, "The Nature and Art of Workmanship." He begins by talking about the dichotomy of hand tools as opposed to power tools. After getting several pages into his work, he confesses that isn't what he wanted to talk about at all. His thinking is now about workmanship of risk as opposed to workmanship of certainty. Workmanship of certainty would be say, an aluminum soda can. Unless the machinery has downtime, one manufactured can is going to look like another. Workmanship of risk would be something like blacksmithing. At any point in the making of an object, the piece could be burned or the necessary mass lost. I think one of Pye's examples had to do with a dentist's power drill. It is a power tool but requires workmanship of risk when in use.

Thanks for the reminder about a great book. I have a business trip tomorrow, and I think I'll grab this from the library to read on the plane.

As for the topic of the OP, I remember when I was first starting out as a woodworker, I had this total fetish about doing everything by hand. My teacher let me taper down an oak drafting stool leg with a scrub plane, and then -- after I'd worn myself out -- suggested that the band saw might be a better option for the other two.

Years later, when my dad and I were running a woodworking shop doing custom and semi-custom furnituremaking, you can bet your sweet bippie that we were doing everything we could to make production faster and more economical and to produce a higher quality product at a reasonable price. It was interesting to note that some kinds of handwork were selling points (e.g., hand-cut dovetails), while others were not (e.g., a handplaned, hand-scraped finish). In the end, if something could be achieved faster and with equal or higher quality by machine, that's what we did. 

[Everything Mac]

On 12/12/2015, 3:03:24, Joel OF said:

I hate myself for asking such an abstract, loose question, but it's something that's been niggling at the back of my mind for a while...I apologize in advance.

What does the word "traditional" mean to you in relation to ironwork? I don't really know what the word means to me. Is it a point in history? When does "traditional" become "modern"?

I'm forever reading on other smiths' websites "I use traditional and modern methods". I don't think anyone would dispute that punching a hole is a traditional method, but is drilling traditional?

I think everyone would agree that a fish tail scroll growing in size according the to Fibonacci sequene is traditional, but what about the fluid, elongated curves of an Art Nouveua scroll, are they traditional? Are they only traditional to the Art Nouveau style, or has Art Nouveau been around long enouh for those types of scrolls to be accepted as generically traditional?

At what point in time will MIG welding superecede forge welding as the traditional type of welds in architectural ironwork? I suppose at the centre of my questiion is - how long does something have to be around or be the norm before it becomes traditional?

I think Timothy Miller hit the nail on the head in his post. 

I concur with much of what has been said. To me "Traditional" means using methods that pre-date electricity rather than what is produced. I guess it could be considered a demonstration of ones skill, i.e. you can use techniques that are far harder than using currently available technology. 3D printing for example. You could design an item to be printed on a 3D printer but beyond some computer savvy there is little perceptible skill involved. 

With regards to your second question I would say 1-200 years. I have nothing to really base that on other than my perception, which I think is really what is important here. Mine, yours, the customers perception of tradition is what matters. - The idea of the "Blacksmith" is rather a romantic one for many people I think, hunched over a fire in a dark forge conjuring up dark ancient powers to shape and form a material that cannot under normal circumstances be bent to the will of anyone. 

The reality of course as we all know is remarkably different most of the time. We have access to machines and tools that make the work faster, easier, more productive. As Frosty says, if the customer wants to pay for it I'd gladly forge semi naked with them watching. But I won't let the perceived idea of tradition get in the way of using an angle grinder and a mig welder if I don't have to. 

Andy

[ThomasPowers]

A traditional shop should have 3 to 5 people working in it besides the master smith.

[Kozzy]

On December 13, 2015 at 11:01:46 AM, Charlotte said:

 Frosty, 

Maybe we should start a topic on fabed up imports that mimic the style and shape of traditional products and using the lightest weight gage of metal possible.

Ever had the experience of standing next to someone in a store like Pier One imports who is gushing over the clumsy reproduction of a traditional product?

People buy that stuff and call it blacksmithing.  

You beat me to it.  "Traditional" is little but a marketing term in smithing where the actual meaning is in the eye/perception of the maker...but it has some real meaning when it comes out the product output.  How many times have you seen the term "wrought iron" when the product was nothing but cheap tubing bent to emulate the real thing?  Technically one definition of "wrought" is simply "worked" so it legally applies but it definitely violates the spirit of what wrought or traditional really is.

If I was pressed (no pun), I'd define "traditional" as a control issue:  The outcome of the material is in the Smith's hands rather than relying on jigs, fixtures, and dies for the result.  Obviously fixtures et al have a place but in "traditional" smithing, the final work is not primarily defined by them but by the smith and how such tools are used.  The Smith is in command of the tools, not the other way around.

[WL smith]

Joel I think you are a genius for starting such topics.

[Frosty]

5 hours ago, WL smith said:

Joel I think you are a genius for starting such topics.

Ease up there WL, hats are expensive and Joel's fits fine.

Frosty The Lucky.

[JHCC]

I just want to point out that while these discussions of what traditional means are certainly interesting and illuminating, the OP clearly and specifically asks "What does 'tradtional' mean?"

That, I must confess, I have no idea.

[SReynolds]

A traditional nail header would be forged from one piece of stock. Today we can use a small section of spring steel and weld it to a low carbon steel handle. Either way works but some will criticize you for employing stick or mig welding in said shop.

[ThomasPowers]

So those 100+ year old nail headers I've seen with a steeled face are not traditional?  If you break it down you have: traditional designs, traditional materials, traditional methods

Not a lot of folks using real wrought iron, the "traditional" material of the blacksmith. More will use traditional designs or traditional methods. A problem being that some folks consider that "old" ways must be cruder---I've had folks accuse me of using an electric buffer on a bone hilt to get it to shine like it did when what I had used was sifted wood ashes and a strip of woolen cloth and a bit of spit---after reading about it in a book written circa 1120 A.D.  My wife runs into the same issues in spinning trying to tell folks that fine and even threads were characteristic of medieval spinning and crude slubby yarns are more a modern abomination.

So an imprecise,  "sloppy", word when not used with qualifiers "This is a traditional design made using modern materials."  "This is a modern design made using traditional materials."  "This is an item where I have tried to reproduce a traditional design using materials and methods as close to how the original one was made."

[GIJosh]

On 12/12/2015, 12:03:24, Joel OF said:

At what point in time will MIG welding superecede forge welding as the traditional type of welds in architectural ironwork?

I'm as green as a leprechaun when it comes to blacksmithing so take this with a grain of salt. What has attracted me to blacksmithing is in a way, getting in touch with the past and history as a whole. Not just seeing but feeling what it was like for our ancestors to work metal into something useful.

I see mig welding as not being traditional blacksmithing since that technology is relatively new when you take into account how long mankind has been working with metal. Heck..when I built my forge I grudgingly set it up with an electric blower which I intend to replace eventually even considering the loss of convenience.

TLDR: for myself, I guess this is probably a little extreme but I consider tools such as power hammers and mig welders as modern and not something that in my opinion would fit in with "traditional" blacksmithing. Sure more convenient and time saving though.

[Joel OF]

10 hours ago, Frosty said:

Ease up there WL, hats are expensive and Joel's fits fine.

Frosty The Lucky.

Mine's not a hat, it's a helmet. I'm wearing it to soften the blows from Glenn's disciplinary stick.

[JHCC]

Let's also keep in mind the original meaning of the word "traditional" -- from the Latin "traditio", to hand over. Thus, a tradition is something one possesses which was previously in someone else's possession. The opposite of tradition, in this sense, is "innovation", although innovations are frequently adopted into traditions and become part of them.

In our context, therefore, we can see that the smithing tradition is an ongoing tradition, with a continual series of changes and developments from the first rough pounding of meteoric iron to the sophisticated heat treatments of today's tool steel alloys. While smithing has retained many aspects of the "workmanship of risk" (see above) longer perhaps than other trades, it has nonetheless undergone the same process found in other trades: namely, the adoption of tools, techniques, and materials as they become available, especially as these increase efficiency and productivity. 

It should also be noted that the method of handing down knowledge has undergone a similar evolution. The old progression from apprentice to journeyman to master (a system which made perfect sense in an age of rigid social stratification and before the advent of widespread literacy), for all its undeniable advantages, eventually made way to the social mobility of recent centuries and the easy sharing of information over distance, whether by the magazines of the nineteenth century or the internet of the twenty-first. Even the transmission of the most primative methods of bygone days is effected electronically, and practically all of us here on this forum learned and continue to learn our craft through a combination of hands-on instruction and practice, study of print media, and sharing of ideas and techniques online.

Thus, it is impossible to draw any meaningful distinction between "traditional" and "modern" techniques; the so-called "modern" methods (unless complete innovations) are merely more recent developments in the evolution of the smithing tradition. A smith might choose (for various reasons) to restrict himself or herself to techniques of a specific period, but that is a different matter entirely.

[ThomasPowers]

Well Said JHCC!

[basher]

On 14 December 2015 06:54:17, Frosty said:

Y

 

 I can not post without quoting?  anyhow.....

 

I have always seen "traditional" as an in context word, I am following this modern tradition or that ancient tradition.

According to the oxford english dictionary:-

following or belonging to the customs or ways of behaving that have continued in a group of people or society for a longtime without changing:

so in that sense we are all following a modern tradition, alive and kicking and growing not dying.

Could it be that a fifth generation Welder (which is more than possible) is indeed more traditional that a blacksmith who considers his work traditional but has made his tradition up. like a new age religion pulling on bits of this and bits of that, from the flotsam of the tide of history?

before anyone takes offence that would be how I would view myself, Taking a 7th century craft and sucking at its long dead bones to try and imbue some of its marrow into my 20th and 21st century tradition.

In that sense my craft is a resurrected craft risen from the dead after 1300 years......so really a Zombi craft, dead but somehow still walking after all these years in the ground.
To the question is what you do traditional? I would answer "Aaaaaargh" or however a zombi would pronounce the word.

[ThomasPowers]

"Why does Cardiff have the most mellow Zombies?"  "Because whenever any of them moans 'Brains' they get handed a pint!"

I've run into the term traditional used like a club; like authenticity, true path, etc;  basically as a way of ascribing virtue to ones endeavors while denigrating others.

As a gedanken experiment:  can someone do "traditional" work using an induction forge?

[Frosty]

You pretty much nailed my feelings JHCC, surely said it better than I did. And Owen says he's a period smith but you GOTTA call it "Traditional" or the marks won't go for it.

One of my pet peeves is  misrepresentation, it doesn't matter what or how you do a thing so long as you don't defraud people. Marketing has turned "traditional" into an add buzzword.

Yeah, traditional blacksmithing is alive and well. It lives here on Iforge passing knowledge and such around like the boys at a pub in an old industrial town or the boys sitting around the stove sipping hot cider, or. . .

Heck, we're slowly consolidating the blacksmith's lore of the planet online, looking for common terms and descriptions so everybody  knows what's being said. These are the good old days.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Kardall]

Perhaps a better description would be, "the way something was done in a certain era".

Since, traditional Blacksmithing of 1400's is essentially the same as the 1800's, but the methods of doing the procedures are slightly different. More technology had become available, and the way we thought about engineering has shifted. Instead of making candle holders, now they're making electric light sconces.  That sort of idea.

[ThomasPowers]

Unfortunately it is hardly ever used in that way:  Ask a person who does "traditional blacksmithing" if they only use wrought iron and have a bunch of people working in the shop and the answer is almost always "NO".  So they are not doing it the way it was done...

[ianinsa]

Traditional methodology, as opposed to traditional materials, either way its all in the marketing! The Luddite mentality will say "no power tools" , well they usually haven't a clue as to just how long power hammers have been around. Then some weeks ago I saw a reference where there is now credible speculation that the Romans may have used water driven grindstones? So I guess as long as you are using charcoal, gathering your own ore, black sand etc. and have a rock tied to a stick and a large stone to beat on then no one can accuse you of not being 'traditional'...... Marketing =BS wins hands down. You might not need it but 'everyone knows' that 'things go better with Coke'

[ThomasPowers]

And in the early iron age it was traditional for the blacksmith to buy their metal from traders or people who specialized in smelting it---see the "currency bars".  Though even later; there are several examples of remote viking era homesteads that did their own smelting and forging, (besides L'anse aux meadows!)

[Timothy Miller]

On 12/16/2015 at 3:25 PM, ThomasPowers said:

And in the early iron age it was traditional for the blacksmith to buy their metal from traders or people who specialized in smelting it---see the "currency bars".  Though even later; there are several examples of remote viking era homesteads that did their own smelting and forging, (besides L'anse aux meadows!)

What I'm really curious about is where did the vikings get their RR spikes?