country specific forged item

[Forgingforfun]

Interested in forging a regional type item like a rush light from what I understand. Another example scythe anvil from Europe. Any other ideas? No knives or swords see plenty of that on forged in fire.

[Charles R. Stevens]

Try Cruise lamps. The most basic looks like a bent up serving spoon, 1,2,4&8 wicks

[Forgingforfun]

Thanks

[Frosty]

Harpoon heads, flensing knives and maybe farming tools. I can't think of what but some fruits are harvested with specific knives. Then there's gleaning, say oyster rakes or clam shovels. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Charles R. Stevens]

I thought he said “no” knives, Jerry.

[Frosty]

Call it a fruit harvesting system then. If I listened every time someone said no I'd probably be a pretty dull boy. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Marc1]

Try something more challenging. Are you game for a coffee table? They are not that difficult. And you can make them as simple or complicated as you want. 

[John McPherson]

#1 What is YOUR region?   (Now, or a country of origin, or fantasy, or....) (Hint, hint, edit your profile.) 

#2 What is your time period?   (Renaissance, Dark Ages, American Colonial, Third Age?)  (Authentic, dare I say "Gin-U-Wine" Colonial Williamsburg Selfie Sticks!! Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?)

Seriously, give us a little more to go on, if you expect detailed answers, or we will spitball random stuff all day for weeks.

[lyuv]

These where popular here some 2,000 years ago. I think they where sold in sets of 3.

[Forgingforfun]

To clarify,  i mean any item, any time period not of USA no knife or sword, looking for any lighting, farming, household etc.

[Latticino]

Spoons, spatulas, strainers, pot lid lifters, cooling tripods, gardening tools, scissors, axes, picks, adze, hammers, chisels, locks, hinges, door hardware...

Huge open question.  Virtually anything made of steel in the pre-industrial ages.

[bajajoaquin]

You might look up a rubber tap. It’s the tool used to score a rubber tree so that the sap will run free for collection. Still in use in India today, and I suspect any place where natural rubber is produced. 

[Forgingforfun]

Rubber tap thats the kind of stuff im looking for nothing that was made for use here in USA, thanks

[Frosty]

Okay Bill, Repeating your original question isn't that helpful, nor is leaving your header incomplete. If you'll put your general location in the HEADER you might be surprised how many of the Iforge gang live within visiting distance. 

Telling us: ANY time period, ANY tool, NOT of American make, is NOT clarifying the question. 

We get not from USA, that cuts about 240 years off history on THIS hemisphere but people are making history right now.  

PLEASE Bill, we'd like to help with suggestions, LOTS of us live for the chance, no joke but we need a better question. Lighting, farm tools ? Are you aware of how many farm tools involve a knife? Like oh say the the cutting edge on a mold board plow? How about a how or shovel? They are ALL blades that require sharpening and edge holding qualities.

You have guys here who are historians with personal libraries the Wasilla Alaska would envy but we need questions we ca work with. You CAN NOT get specific answers with general questions.

I'm sorry if this is a LONG reply with shouting. I'm just giving examples of why we can't answer your question as made. We'd LOVE to but we need more.

Frosty the Lucky.

[Jackdawg]

there are a couple of pommy blacksmiths that specialise in this recreating historical stuff, have you had a look around you tube?

[Marc1]

The original question brings me back to some unpopular observations I make about this craft. 

I grew up in a smith shop that made stuff for the customer to use. Some were custom made, other run of the mill production. All had an artistic component and all had a modern day use. Be it a lamp, chandelier, bed head, gate, window grill, table chairs, door hardware, decorative artifact etc.  The blacksmith that worked in the smithy all considered themselves metalworkers and not some blast from the past with some museum curator duties, to reproduce stuff no one has a use for, or even know what it is.  If I proposed to make a plow or an adze, they would have laughed me out of the shop. 

Why is it that today hobby blacksmith think, that their artifacts need to be "period correct" and that their projects need to reflect stuff that was made 300 years ago is beyond me. Blacksmithing is a trade that uses some ancient techniques to produce steel objects by hand. Try making a miniature Mini Morris. 

Harping on with reproducing ancient stuff makes the trade obsolete and irrelevant.

It is not what you make but how you make it. 

In my opinion anyway.

[arftist]

On 3/18/2018 at 5:50 PM, Marc1 said:

The original question brings me back to some unpopular observations I make about this craft. 

I grew up in a smith shop that made stuff for the customer to use. Some were custom made, other run of the mill production. All had an artistic component and all had a modern day use. Be it a lamp, chandelier, bed head, gate, window grill, table chairs, door hardware, decorative artifact etc.  The blacksmith that worked in the smithy all considered themselves metalworkers and not some blast from the past with some museum curator duties, to reproduce stuff no one has a use for, or even know what it is.  If I proposed to make a plow or an adze, they would have laughed me out of the shop. 

Why is it that today hobby blacksmith think, that their artifacts need to be "period correct" and that their projects need to reflect stuff that was made 300 years ago is beyond me. Blacksmithing is a trade that uses some ancient techniques to produce steel objects by hand. Try making a miniature Mini Morris. 

Harping on with reproducing ancient stuff makes the trade obsolete and irrelevant.

It is not what you make but how you make it. 

In my opinion anyway.

And you are entitled to it but consider that we are all different!

My interest in blacksmithing is primarily to preserve the technology....that it not become a lost art. Is my interest somehow destroying the art?

Your interest is seemingly in making useful widgets...in a Smithy. 

 

To each his own.

[ThomasPowers]

I'm a smith: I can and have forged bloomery iron in a charcoal forge using twin single action bellows with a bellows thrall/striker and I have forged Titanium in a propane forge. 

However I won't tell someone that mild steel is the same stuff they were using pre the mid 19th century and I do charge more for doing things at a specific earlier technology level!   I don't consider one technology level better than another; but I do consider that some people want a particular level used for their items, and if they are willing to pay for the possible extra costs. So be it!

I do feel a greater connection to earlier smiths when working as they did with the same types of materials, fuels and tools and help.  I feel that I understand more what their workdays were like; but that's personal, not part of the job. I've also found that many people have  strange views on how smithing was done in earlier times. One I remember, wouldn't use a power hammer as they were doing "traditional smithing" even though powerhammers date back to pre year 1000 and their fuel choice was only used since the late/high middle ages and their materials and anvil were mid 19th century...  Furthermore they were working alone in the smithy which is so ahistorical for earlier times as to be unbelievable! More "an explosion in a time machine smithing".

I hope this craft will always have room for folks doing historical recreation and folks doing modern production and neither will deride the other!

Artist; which level of technology are you trying to preserve and how accurate are you trying to be?  (Got any good sources for that period? I'm always trying to add to my library which so far has "Egyptian Metalworking and Tools" as a tertiary reference on the early side and things like Steve's "Introduction to Knifemaking" as a recent primary work.) 

[Exo313]

Reproduction in general preserves the craft, in my opinion. However. Slavishly adhering to a particular set of tools based on a particular time period, when not in direct view of the public, for the purpose of demonstration, or in the shop, for the purpose of research seems a bit silly. Showing a group how a nail used to be made has value. Taking known old tools and methods home to work through the old way of making a nail, in order to prove a hypothesis of how it might have been done has value.

I think the issue for me comes in when one makes an item, then claiming a vague authenticity due to "x" and marks up the retail accordingly. 

The smiths I've met who do true historical reproduction work are infectiously passionate people who do a lot to preserve the future of the craft. 

 

[Marc1]

I say it once more in a different and always respectful way ...

It is not what you make, but how you make it.

So ... in my view ... if you have blacksmithing skills, you can make a sculpture representing a water skier. You are using your skill in this craft to make a modern day artefact using ancient techniques. You are preserving the skill and making something meaningful for the public.

Is the above effort less valuable than making a flint striker? Or may be an egyptian skull trepanation scalpel?

Thousands of useless artefacts are reproduced every day for the sake of making something that was used hundreds of years ago, and most of the time with no way to know if it was really done that way.   What is the purpose of such exercise? The challenge to make an astrolabe is the same than the challenge to make a coffee table. One is as useless as an ashtray on a motorbike, and the other has the chance to be in someone's home for decades.

Just my view of things.  

[ThomasPowers]

I once bought a renaissance crossbow quarrel head in Germany from a metal detector enthusiast.  He was surprised that I wanted the most weathered one; but as it was made from real wrought iron the weathering showed the grain and so you could see exactly how it had been forged...Sometimes you can dig deep enough to get a good idea how things were made.

[Marc1]

What is a renaissance crossbow quarrel head? Something you use when you have a quarrel?  

[JHCC]

A quarrel is the short, heavy arrow fired from a crossbow. The head is the pointy bit at the front end. The Renaissance was the period of western European history covering roughly the 14th to the 17th centuries.

[Marc1]

Ah oh ... a bolt! 

 

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

Without the nut.