ThomasPowers Posted October 30, 2008 Share Posted October 30, 2008 Gobae; are those not more *renaissance* illustrations? I don't recall has anyone mentioned the Mastermyr Chest and tools for early medieval smithing? Good book out on it too. "Cathedral Forge and Waterwheel" Geis and Geis has several medieval smithing illustrations and discusses things like when coal was first introduced for smithing. For around 1550 in nothern europe De Re Metallica, (Agricola, 1556) is a great source and not just for metalworking technologies as there is a lot of material culture hiding in it too! Pirotechnia, Biringuccio, slightly predated De Re Metallica but does not have the tremendous number of woodcuts that make DRM such a great resource. It does cover southern europe a bit better though. For Medieval "Divers Arts", c 1120, is a good source for a source poor time discussing heat treating, carburizing, etc as part of it's coverage of the studio arts of that period and to go real early there is a Shire book out on "Egyptian Metalworking and Tools" by Bernd Scheel I don't have a digital camera or a scanner but I do have a few books... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gobae Posted October 31, 2008 Share Posted October 31, 2008 Gobae; are those not more *renaissance* illustrations? They date from 1425-1544. So regardless of whether they are considered "medieval" or "renaissance" they fall just prior to the OP's time period and may be germane to his research. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gazilla Posted October 31, 2008 Share Posted October 31, 2008 Thanks for the links guys. Apart from images, I'd like to ask a more technical question: how were these constructed? Does anyone have information on these very old anvils, what size parts they were build up from, in what order, if they had an added steel face (or a cemented one, or a cold worked phosphorous iron face), chemical composition of the iron used, ... Any reliable info on these subjects would be greatly appreciated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted October 31, 2008 Share Posted October 31, 2008 (edited) For questions like this you might profit by asking them on the archeological metallurgy mailing list "Arch Metals". (You can find it with a web search). In general I think it's a good idea not to describe something as medieval that dates to the Renaissance (broadly considered to be 1400-1600 by some definitions) The Standebuchs are a valuable resource as they are generally well dated and their location of origin known; they just are a renaissance resource. I have a print on my study wall of der schmidt from one that I picked up at a museum in Germany. I thought that medieval was just a typo; but as a factual issue thought it should be corrected. No reason to get upset; I'm just as prone to make them too---(if not more since I run into blood sugar problems...) Edited October 31, 2008 by ThomasPowers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gobae Posted November 2, 2008 Share Posted November 2, 2008 Wasn't upset at all; it's probably best to stick with years anyway. After doing some quick double checking it looks like there's about 200 years of overlap with those two terms (depending on who you ask), which is the problem with them. Depending on the source "medieval/middle ages" seems to run from 400AD-1500AD and the "renaissance" from 1300AD-1600AD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
son_of_bluegrass Posted November 2, 2008 Share Posted November 2, 2008 SNIP Depending on the source "medieval/middle ages" seems to run from 400AD-1500AD and the "renaissance" from 1300AD-1600AD. If memory serves from a long time ago in a school far, far away, the renaissance started in Italy and moved on from there. So when one part of the world may have still been in the medieval times may have already started the renaissance somewhere else. ron Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wayne Posted November 2, 2008 Share Posted November 2, 2008 A slightly better shot showing some of the back of my travelling forge. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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