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

Sat Nov 30 22:44:00 2002

At 02:59 AM 11/30/02, you wrote:

Great story!! Thanks!!!  Pete

>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Phlip" <[email protected]>
>To: <[email protected]>
>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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