Camel gas? 

Frosty The Lucky.

  I hear it makes a hot flame.  Piping it may be problematic.

  This is an old blog article but I found it interesting.  It eventually sold for 7-8 million dollars.

https://hoofcare.blogspot.com/2017/12/norman-rockwell-famous-blacksmith-shop-painting-berkshires.html?m=1

Thanks for the link Scott, it's an interesting article and a fine Norman Rockwell painting. It's also an object lesson, if I'm ever deemed a great artist and want to donate something to a museum I think I'll put it in a trust reverting back to the family if they try to sell it. 

Frosty The Lucky.

   Sure.

   That's something I will probably never have to worry about, buying OR selling....  Who knows though.

  I suppose if you have the money....

  Then again things go into private hands never to be seen....

The story to go with that Rockwell is narrated here:

 

 

Great narrative, once I turned it on, I couldn't turn it off till it was finished. Thanks for it. Saved it in my YouTube folder.

I can't control the wind, all I can do is adjust my sail’s.
Semper Paratus

 

I had a great moment today, as I was having dinner with a friend who knows that I blacksmith. He asked, “Do you know Goya’s painting ‘At the Forge’?”

I replied:

"Why, yes.  Yes I am."

Opportunities and straight lines like this come along seldom.

G

Carpe momentum!

Where did you get the tee shirt?

Tee Public. 

William Henry Hunt, 1790–1864, British, Barn Interior, 1836, Watercolor and gouache, with scraping on moderately thick, slightly textured, cream wove paper, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, B1986.29.425.

That hammer’s gonna get lost in the straw. 

  Trip hazard.

Notice that the bench has the leg vise for metal and a wood working vise in the shadows beyond the leg vise.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

Good eye, George.  You can barely make it out.   I missed it, thanks.  A barn needs a wood vise...  

I’ve seen that combination in a lot of older shops. 

That brings up the question of when the bench/machinist's vise came into use.  My guess would be the 2d half of the 19th century.  Prior to that most metal vises were post vises.  I have seen some illustrations of late medieval or renaissance armorers' vises that did not have a leg or post and were akin to modern bench/machist's vises.  But I suspect they were uncommon and pretty specialized.

GNM

I just did a little quick Google research and found the site (commercial, so I won’t link it here) for a German vise manufacturer that claims that the parallel-jaw vise was invented in 1750. I suspect that they didn’t really catch on until casting and machining technology had advanced enough to make such vises reliable and affordable. 

(That same site says that the first cast iron vise was made in England in the 1830s.)

Pretty cool Scott, where'd you find it? I'm thinking it's like a teaching tool like a flashcard.

Frosty The Lucky.

  I'm not sure.  It came out of my "public domain" folder though.  I usually describe them so I can credit where I got them but not this one.  Maybe a teaching tool..... 

It's a nicer version of the old saw about how a blacksmith goes to the devil. Maybe something you'd give to 7-8 year olds just starting out.

Frosty The Lucky.

I would guess from the style of the art and the slight coloring that it dates to the later 19th or very early 20th centuries, say 1860-1910/

GNM