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I Forge Iron

Safety gear in historical recreation setting


JHCC

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As eye glasses have been around pre us colonial period, I don't see why they can't up there game and still look periodish. A flap of skirting leather over the foot, tho hard to document wouldn't be unreasonable even for a few thousand years. For the most part it's a poor excuse, unless an eye patch and missing toes will make it more authentic

 

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Eyeglasses tend to get expensive the further back you go until in late medieval---early renaissance times they would be as likely as today's minimum wage workers driving maserati cars...

I prefer just using ahistoric safety gear than misleading people as to what was done back then.

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SCA is about living times as they should've been. Part of my demos is always a demo of why Blacksmithing and Bull shooting are abbreviated the same way.

I kept a piece of black obsidian with me to send the period police who complained about my sun glasses packing.

Frosty The Lucky.

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I've always wondered why people in the SCA are so selective about when and where they will cry, "that's not period!"  Duct tape encrusted swords are OKAY because it reduces splintering during combat but glasses on a blacksmith are a faux pas?

  I used to be a pretty good fighter in the SCA but it was stuff like this that made it easier and easier to stop going to events.  My copy of the Known World Handbook had the Carthaginian elephant (going on old memories here) all wrapped in duct tape and it was a humorous nod to the reality of being strictly period.  It always seemed like some people didn't get the joke.

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The SCA is all about choosing what you are being picky about, and so I may be forging in a Y1K forge with a bellows thrall pumping two single action  bellows into a side blast charcoal burning forge and forging real wrought iron on a viking styled anvil wearing a wool or linen tunic; but I'll be wearing glasses and my shoes will have orthotics in them...

I've had many a discussion with folks in other groups putting down the SCA; but not seeing the beam in their own eyes---had one that made a big fuss over all natural fiber clothes but didn't realize the difference between woolen spun and worsted spun and what was appropriate for their area and time.  Had lots of groups tell me that using mild steel was ok cause you couldn't tell it from 10' away---even though mild steel dates till when levi jeans were available in dry goods stores.

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1 minute ago, ThomasPowers said:

The SCA is all about choosing what you are being picky about, and so I may be forging in a Y1K forge with a bellows thrall pumping two single action  bellows into a side blast charcoal burning forge and forging real wrought iron on a viking styled anvil wearing a wool or linen tunic; but I'll be wearing glasses and my shoes will have orthotics in them...

I've had many a discussion with folks in other groups putting down the SCA; but not seeing the beam in their own eyes---had one that made a big fuss over all natural fiber clothes but didn't realize the difference between woolen spun and worsted spun and what was appropriate for their area and time.  Had lots of groups tell me that using mild steel was ok cause you couldn't tell it from 10' away---even though mild steel dates till when levi jeans were available in dry goods stores.

And suddenly it all makes sense why TP asks "Traditional to what period?" every time someone says they want to do "traditional blacksmithing"!

 

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5 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

I did have my bellows thrall in leg irons once...his request for the demo.

I love that almost as much as the"Blondage Barbe" my old teacher had hanging on his bellows,  a Barbe doll in irons held inside an iron ball-cage. His set up was at top of the hill near the barn across from Midrelm Royal camp at Pennsic

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1 hour ago, Steve Sells said:

I love that almost as much as the"Blondage Barbe" my old teacher had hanging on his bellows,  a Barbe doll in irons held inside an iron ball-cage.

When I was in the furniture business, I went to a customer's apartment and saw a similar Barbie (this one pilloried) that he and his girlfriend had been awarded for being "Best Couple" at a decidedly family-UNfriendly gathering. Let's just say that there was other furniture in the apartment besides what we'd sold him....

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I've told this story before; but....Once I went to an SCA collegium (series of short classes on Medieval and Renaissance topics done for and by SCA people) and decided to sit in on the class on the Spanish Inquisition  Hoping for some nice iron work sources. (there *is* a market!) Well the instructor had made dioramas of various goings on of that period. Unfortunately when he went to the thrift stores and tried to by a goodly number of dolls all to the same scale; what he came up with were Barbies.  So we had a number of scenes of Barbie putting Barbie to the question in various ways and it went down in local history as the "Barbies in Bondage Class"

The Medieval Criminal Justice Museum in Rothenburg ODT, Germany has a nice selection of such instruments rather tastefully displayed when I was there and a book: Criminal Justice Through the Ages; there is also one titled Inquisition that is a guide to a travelling Museum Exhibit back in the 1980's (My copy is rather smoke stained as it was on loan to a student who's house trailer burned---but it was rescued....)

So we've made a half circle from Safety Items to Unsafety Items and the weirdness of Thomas' Library...

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I'm enjoying the thread it has just the right degree of chaotic movement to do good educatin. One question for Thomas' Library of SCA lore. Were those off the rack Barbies?

I'll skip repeating my definition of "traditional" blacksmith, most folk are really talking about period and which tech level they wish to restrict themselves to. Yeah, tech level, it's a sci fi gamer term. :ph34r:

At least the thread is keeping to reasonable subjects, nobody has started talking about LARPing!

Frosty The Lucky.

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Are you trying to be a friend or Defoe---I was going to make some Dumas comment but it was bound to get me moderated...

And not not all threads, I generally stay out of the propane burner ones....But I started buying books in my single digits and over 50 years later going to used bookstores is still counted as "entertainment" for my wife and I.  Recently I  bought "William Kelly A true History of the So Called Bessemer Process" from Glenn and even read it cover to cover! When I was Ric Furrer's assistant at a Quad-State Demo he mentioned "Steelmaking before Bessemer, Vol I Blister Steel, Vol 2 Crucible Steel" and as soon as I got home I bought the only used copy then available in the USA.  Sure my "new" truck is 13 years old---but I've got a lot of books that are older!

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