[TheForge] Ancient treadle hammers etc. Was Help with info (Long)

[Amos Zubrow]

Great story!

Jerry Frost wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Phlip" <phlip@99main.com>
> To: <theforge@mailman.qth.net>
> Sent: Friday, November 29, 2002 8:00 PM
> Subject: Re: [TheForge] Help with info
>
> >
> > Weren't treadle hammers invented about then? What about greater
> availability
> > of consistent steel alloys? And like that....
> >
> > Phlip
> >
>
> Naw, treadle hammers of one sort or another have been around for thousands
> of years. Ever hear of a "walking beam"? Several hundred years ago walking
> beams were a popular way to do "heavy" work, particularly saw mills, heavy
> forging, etc. Basically they were a large tree trunk balanced on a trunion
> with the tool mounted to one end. A group from five to maybe thirty people
> would walk back and forth on the beam to make it go.
>
> Treadle hammers are way older, probably circa spring lathe. Spring lathes
> are really ancient, some claim they're the oldest machine tool after the bow
> drill. Actually are modified bow drills, just cock your head sideways to see
> the resemblance. Some truly ancient copper, gold and silver was spun and
> examples of turned work dates WAY back too.
>
> Saw a PBS special a few years back about a team of archeologists traveling
> in the mid-east, maybe north africa, I'm not sure. They were in a small
> village when a traveling metal smith appeared on his rounds. He was there to
> make or repair whatever metal work was needed.
>
> Fascinated the archeologists planted themselves to document the action. Much
> of what he did was smithing on a stake anvil with visegrips and a (goat?)
> stomach bellows. This is what caught my interest. <grin> The next thing he
> did dropped my jaw almost as far as the archeologist's.
>
> The local (priest?) brings a mangled copper (goblet/chalice/bowl?) to him
> and the smith starts digging wood blocks, nails, cordage and other odds and
> ends from his sack. Then he hunts up a tree with a large horizontal branch a
> little higher than his waist to which he starts nailing his wooden blocks.
> Then he bends an overhead branch down attaches an end of the cordage and
> ties the other end to a loose branch on the ground. Then he scouts out a
> hunk of wood chops and saws it to a suitable size and chucks it up in the
> lathe.
>
> After he roughed it out he evidently decided he needed a special chisel. He
> dumps his "tool" sack out on the ground and starts rummaging through the few
> tools with much grumbling. Evidently there wasn't anything there he could or
> was willing to modify. He has a little talk with the (priest?) and soon
> there's a modest pile of steel presented to him by the villagers. Out of it
> all he gets kind of excited about what looked like a piece of heavy coil
> spring, maybe 3/4 of a 8" + dia. coil spring a good 1 1/2" thick. He chooses
> the partial coil and a few other pieces. (payment maybe?) He puts everything
> but the partial coil in his material sack and starts digging through his
> tool sack.
>
> Oh boy I'm thinking, this guy's going to forge a turning chisel out of this
> great big hunk of steel. This I want to see, the biggest hammer I've seen so
> far is maybe a 2 lb. ball pien. <grin> He digs a sledge hammer head out of
> his sack, maybe 8-10 lb. and hunts up another branch on his lathe tree.
> Okay, I'm thinking, why pack a sledge hammer handle around if there's plenty
> of wood to make one wherever you go? Makes sense to me.
>
> Does he cut the branch? Naw, he removes the cordage and "treadle" stick from
> his lathe and hooks it up to the branch, carves the trimmed branch to fit
> the hammer head and builds himself a treadle hammer with a big fat boulder
> for an anvil. It looked uncomfortable as all getout to use, he had to bend
> over pretty far as the "anvil" boulder was probably less than 2" high. He
> just used the treadle hammer to rough his tool out and finished it on his
> stake anvil though.
>
> What really killed me about the tool making was after forging the thing into
> a wide shovel shape, he forged a tang on the end and cut it off. He used
> maybe 2" off the end of the spring. He water quenched it and tempered it by
> watching pieces of straw begin to smoulder as he heated it. He didn't seem
> interested in the temper colors as they ran. I guess it's all in how you're
> taught eh?
>
> Well, he finishes his new chisel and makes a few cuts on the die in the
> lathe, not many and none I thought he couldn't have made with the chisels he
> already had. I think he just wanted to pad his bill. <grin> The tape spent a
> few more minutes on him finishing the die for the (bowl?) then moved on to
> him preparing a piece of sheet copper. I think it was too heavy looking for
> roofing copper but it wasn't the U.S. so maybe it was. He cut the blank with
> an ancient pair of tin snips and cleaned the edge with a file. Then he put a
> small dent in the center.
>
> I'd been wondering how he was going to hold the blank in the lathe but it
> was simplicity itself when he did it. He cut a small piece from a 2" x 4"
> size piece of lumber, trimmed it and drove it onto the nail that served as
> the tailstock center. Then he carefully pulled the nails holding his
> tailstock (block of wood) and with the copper blank in place he used a large
> stick to pry tailstock hard against the die and nailed it to the branch.
> Viola! Live center.
>
> A bit more about the centers for his lathe. They were large nails/spikes
> driven through what looked to be 4" x 10" lumber blocks. The nails had a
> large washer (welded?) close to the blocks and another maybe 1/2" from the
> point with maybe 1" of nail between the two. They turned freely in the
> blocks and he greased them regularly, probably with whatever greasy stuff he
> had at hand.
>
> His tool rest was another assembly made from scrap lumber, nailed to the
> tree branch with another nail for the rest pin. To adjust it he had to pull
> nails and renail it where he wanted it.
>
> When he had the copper blank mounted and everything adjusted to his
> satisfaction he wrapped the cordage around the back of the die and using
> carved sticks spun a truly beautiful (goblet/chalice/bowl?) He polished it
> in the lathe with rags and various grits of sand down to dust.
>
> I think they edited out several annealing steps for some reason as I'd be
> mighty surprised if you could move even copper as much as he did without
> annealing.
>
> It was a real eye opener as to just how easy it would be to set up some
> pretty complex machinery with next to nothing. The guy didn't even trim the
> twigs and leaves off the branch for his spring lathe, probably the optional
> air conditioning system. <grin>
>
> Anyway, treadle hammers are way older than the 17th or 18th century.
>
> Frosty
> ------------------------
> If it ain't forged
> it ain't real.
> Wrought iron is.
> The FrostWorks
>
> Meadow Lakes, AK.
>
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