[TheForge] Historical type Forge

Fri Apr 25 22:50:59 2003

 I found a couple of images that I had put up on the Historic Sailing page
back in 98. These images are not very large as back in 1998, bandwidth was a
real issue, but you can get an idea of what the outfit looked like. In one
you can see the arm to operate the bellows.  The air supply came in from the
back side rather than from below.  It is a great outfit that always gets a
lot of attention.  Here are the links.
http://historicsailing.tripod.com/98mal4.jpg
http://historicsailing.tripod.com/98mal20.jpg

Harry Foster
Rusty Dog Forge

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]]On Behalf Of H and P Foster
Sent: Friday, April 25, 2003 10:22 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: [TheForge] Historical type Forge

Al,   At Jones Falls on the Rideau River, Ontario _Parks Canada have
restored the old Blacksmith shop and as part of it they have a travelling
forge built on a design from the early 1800's that would have been pulled by
a horse.  They have used this a couple of times at our 1812 reenactments.
Somewhere I have pictures of it and drawings too.  I thought I had them to
hand on my computer, but can't find them. Over the weekend I will do a bit
of a search and see what I can come up with.

Harry Foster
Rusty Dog Forge
http://pages.infinit.net/rustydog/home.htm

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]]On Behalf Of Reynolds
Sent: Thursday, April 24, 2003 10:17 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: [TheForge] Historical type Forge

Good for you Al. You'll love doing this for kids. Be sure and create a
barrier between you and them as they'll walk up and stick there hand in the
forge and ask if it is hot. They'll get in your tools --in general, they'll
pick up anything they can reach. Don't expect parents to oversee their kids.

First off, forges were generally not portable in the pre-1840 era. A
blacksmith was stationary and business came to him, not vice versa.
Remember, this was before there was any rolled steel in America, so sheet
metal would not have been available. The forge you are trying to replicate
was most often made of brick (or stone) and mortar. I've seen a friend take
faux brick and attach it to plywood sides to give the impression of old but
still to portable and light.

Smiths were working almost solely in iron at this time and would only steel
an edge of an axe or knife or some other specific application.

The forge then relied on forced air from a bi-fold bellows, often 6' from
end to end and over 3' across. These are still available if you will look at
antique shows and on eBay. Put an add on the ABANA website. Using one
requires more energy, but it lends a wonderful image to the forge.

There is a high probabilty your anvil would have been a Mousehole,
manufactured in England. Most probably it would be this London-pattern in
styling. There is a smaller probability it could be an earlier colonial
style still in use, made by numerous small foundrys in America. Mouseholes
are much easier to find and cheaper than Colonial anvils. Also, Colonial
anvils should be preserved not used-- I would think there is little reason
to actually work on one today. Kids won't appreciate you using an authentic
anvil anyway. They just want to see the sparks and transformation metal goes
through.

I demostrate 3 days a week at an 1880s Old West village. Believe me,
authenticity is completely lost on 99 % of all spectators. I use period
equipment (crank blower, Hay-Budden anvil, post vise) but almost no one
knows new from old except if it has rust on it or not. The public just
hasn't been exposed to blacksmithing enough to know how they use to do it.
In short, you can get by with a later depiction of smithing and the message
will still get across.

Contact Rob Lyons at Old Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts. He is their
head blacksmith. OSV does an authentic depiction of Colonial era smithing
down to their clothing. They are online. He might also have plans for a
brick forge.

Let me know if I can help. Also, attention span of kids is very short-- you
are competing with computer games, remember? So you will only be able to
forge simple items and hold their attention, like nails, wall hooks etc., Do
tapers, bends, twists and other 5 minute projects. I do work on bigger
projects but I have slightly more adults than kids.

Best of fortune in your endeavor. Feel free to contact me off list at
[email protected].

Reynolds

 --- On Thu 04/24, Al McClure < [email protected] > wrote:
From: Al McClure [mailto: [email protected]]
To: [email protected]
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2003 08:20:55 -0400
Subject: [TheForge] Historical type Forge

<br>I am wanting to build a portable forge that would be very close to a
correct<br>type used in pre-1840 time period.<br><br>Can anyone point me in
the right direction to find the plans for such a set<br>up?<br><br>What I
will be using this for is for demonstrations for our boys ministry<br>(Royal
Rangers / FCF) to demonstrate how things were made by hand during<br>this
time period.<br><br>All help is appreciated and wanted.<br><br>Alfred
McClure<br>Griffin,
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