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I Forge Iron

Stumped with tongs...


Dewnmoutain

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So the locksmiths and tool smiths became bit and spur makers? 

A lot of the whitesmiths work became superseded by factory work and the "smiths" became factory workers.  Whitesmiths tended to be found in larger towns and cities that would support their type of work.  The more remote you were the more things the local smith would end up doing---this had a greater affect here in the USA where the nearest town might be a long long way away and travel was difficult back in the early days.

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Thanks, BillyBones, pretty interesting. Lol, sounds like both of the old definitions sorta looked on the blacksmith as a get a bigger hammer kind of a guy and a whitesmith as the refined finess sort. 

I do remember locksmithing included in the whitesmiths work. I associate it with some really pretty colonial kitchen ware ive seen pics of.

 

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Well, Thomas, that is what the info i read said. I would have thought that with the detail and precision that it would have morphed into more of the machine trades.

Many of the older professions have gone to the way side. One of the thing i liked about being in Germany when i was is that we did not go to the grocery for many things. You got bread from a baker, meat from a butcher, etc. The grocery was mostly just canned goods. 

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I checked my copy of the Oxford English Dictionary and it notes the earliest mention of a whitesmith as being 1302, "John son of John le whytesmith."  Other than that, the references are to usages in the 17th-19th centuries.

I also noted 19th century usages that implied a blacksmith worked in iron and a whitesmith worked in steel.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand." 

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I usually go back to the granularity of the medieval/renaissance guilds  where the spur makers had their own as did metal polishers, etc. ISTR a reference in Mechanicks Exercises on filing an item shiny I'll have to review it again.

I enjoyed the small stores in Germany too; and the small refrigerators! Walking down to the various small stores to do your shopping was nice and not a chore like fighting the big box stores can be.

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Found it. For what its worth, my comments on whitesmithing come from a long ago read of "Professional Smithing" by Donald Streeter. He has a section labled whitesmithing and shows how to make things from forks to pipe tongs. All done in the colonial style.

Seems like Streeter's book was critiqued here a while ago for being too jig/production oriented. Not this section. Everything is done by hammer in hand and no special tooling other than the basic hammer, anvil and hand tools.

A good read and recomended for all levels of smithing and especially for those with an interest in Colonial iron.

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Well dang it here i go learning again. 

Curiosity got me looking for "John son of John le Whytesmith" What i found was an official pardon for murder, it was decided he killed a man in self defense. Also found an economic history of Warwick that mentioned John le Whytesmith arriving there. Did not figure out if it was only for the fair or that he actually lived there. Long read and take a bit to get used to the titles of the various persons but it had info like the annual income from tolls in 1156 and the like. Anyone know how much land is in a hide? 

I also ran across the pewter society that has a page dedicated to the various touchmarks used by pewterers in Ireland and England. It is a .org if anyone is interested. Kind of neat to look at. 

The holidays were my favorite time of year in Germany. Everybody was out being festive, singing and dancing, all lit up, like something from an old time book. I miss the Gluehwien.

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A hide is an Anglo-Saxon unit of land measure considered the amount necessary to support a family.  Although it is variable in different areas the usual modern equivalent is about 120 statute acres.  It was used for various tax assessments or to calculate feudal duty owed.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."  

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At least in the US/UK I believe it is called an Advent Calendar.  In most western churches Advent begins on the Sunday closest to St. Andrew's Day (Nov. 30th) and runs until Christmas.  My late wife and I were once given an advent calendar and kept it and refilled it with candy and chocolates for out son each year.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand." 

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As a kid I used to spend a few months every year in Germany. Kaiserslautern mostly but a few other places also. It usually coincided with my sister's and brother in law's vacation which is who I was staying with so I got to travel through Europe and the UK pretty extensively.  I'm so grateful to have been exposed to other cultures growing up. I think the Mark Twain quote about travel being deadly to small mindedness is 100% true. 

Pnut

I miss the curry potato chips and curry ketchup too. It's Adventskalender iirc. 

Pnut

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I took our kids to Germany for 6 weeks one summer; wonderful time in Southern Germany; they still talk about it decades later, (yes, DECADES). I think one of the best things about travel for kids is to show them that people can live differently with out being *WRONG*; it's just different!

I was over there for a 90 day installation and some of my coworkers had difficulties adjusting; I remember one who was telling me that they didn't have trough urinals in Ohio!  Till I told him that they are common in rural county fairgrounds---in Ohio!  At least he didn't have the experience of being a US teenager using a German restroom with a 50+ year old Frau in it collecting tips...

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George, thanks for the memory jig. Advent calendars are what they were. Seems some of the cholocates had brandy or other liquers in them. Mayby that what BillyBones is speaking of.

I was in the Boy Scouts while in Germamy. Great memories of my 3 speed english raciig bike and weekend bike/camping trips on those nsrrow roads. Camping on the Rhine! We would tour castles. The first thing we saw on entering the castle was a "Verboten!" sign on sawhorses. It should have said "boy scouts enter here!"  ;) :)

 

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I remember a castle I toured as a teenager with my 11 year younger brother, in the entry "tunnel" up in a masonry groin there was a painting of a hand being cut off. I thought it meant that the lord of the castle had the middle justice, (High justice was death, middle was mutilation, low was things like branding and flogging, IIRC.) I pointed it out to my brother and told him it meant DON'T TOUCH the exhibits...

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Spent 2 years stationed in Germany. When i was not out in the woods playing soldier or off in some other country shooting at the locals i did get to do some travel there. There are a few countries in Europe i wish i had went to but i did manage to get to a few. My trip to East Germany (now i am dating myself) was about the most depressing place i had ever seen though. 

When we would run our PT test we would do it along the river, the Mainz river, next to the castle. That was when i was stationed in Aschaffenburg. Beautiful castle i would suggest looking it up. Technically a schloss, Schloss Johannisburg to be percise. We just called it the castle. Built in the early 1600's. 

When i was in Kitzengen we had the leaning tower. But just outside post was a small town that still had town walls complete with battlements and portcullis. The town had outgrown the walls and what was inside was mostly shops and guesthouses. Had the absolute hands down best bowl of chili i ever ate in that town. 

Anvil, just read your response. No, no chocolate. It was filled with those little bottles of booze that have about 1 shot in them.

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I remember those too as a wayward boy scout. My favorite was apflesaft, a sparkling apple cider, non alcoholic. It came in wine type bottle with a cork. My dad was air force. We were 2 years at Ramstein and 2 years at Wiesbaden. Long time ago. '56 to '60. Then in '65' I had my senior year in France near Metz/Nancy. 

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The summer in the mid 90's I was there on business; we were based near Frankfurt; but I was also supporting a location near Leipzig and so would take the autobahn over every week or two.  Actually I found the former east Germany a bit restful; more like my hillbilly roots with cars on cinderblocks and collapsing barns where southwestern Germany was a bit like Disneyworld with everything a bit too clean and "perfect".  I had a colleague who was from the former East Germany but would not admit to it; I was hoping he would help my eldest Daughter practice her Russian. I thought that since he had a technical degree from an East German University he would know Russian; but he disavowed all knowledge of it.  Other local colleagues told me that there was a lot of social bias against the East Germans in West Germany at that time and so I understood him wanting to "walk on the sunny side of the street" so to speak.

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My last time in Europe was '87. I went to Prague to work for a month with a blacksmith. It was still a communist country. I spent an extra week plus at the beginning and the end of my time in Prague on my own. I met two blacksmithing brothers in Frankfort. They were doing the 9th or 10th restoration of the masdive exterior screens for the Frankfort cathederal. The church had these restored every 100 years. It was an incredible intro to what was to come.

I took the train from Frankfort to Prague instead of flying because i prolly wouldn't return to europe and wanted to see as much as i could. Crossing the border from the free world was an experience. Speaking of multi linguistics, the people a generation before me spoke czech and german due to WW2. Those of my generation, post WW2, spoke russian, german and english as their other languages. I found that many of these spoke pretty good english. The younger gen, russian occupied, spoke russian and no english. 

I spent  5 days after my work time hiking and camping in the high Tatra mountains close to the east german and Hungarian borders. I was warn'd to be very aware of these borders as they cut no slack if you were caught on the wrong side. 

I met many in Prague who were well educated, engineers, biology, physics etc that refused to work within the communist system. It seems the catch all job for these folks was repairing cobble stone streets and roads. 

I then returned by train to Frankfort and spent 3 or 4 more days with the two blacksmith brothers.

I learned a lot,,, far beyond blacksmithing.

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