[TheForge] Re: doing research

[Mike Spencer]

> Mike, There is a similar well preserved shop in Haverhill Iowa. Well
> worth visiting. It feels like the owner was just out getting tobacco
> at the corner store.

Ha!  When I knew Arch McKnight in his later years, his shop was
roughly knee deep in Stuff, excepting the small area behind the anvil
and around the Jardine hammer.  There was a narrow path through the
Stuff from the forge to the power hacksaw that wound on past the post
drill to the (early 1940s vintage?) arc welder in the far corner.  To
the uninformed eye, the shop was full of junk.  An observant smith
would, however, recognize it as a distributed filing and storage
system.

The museum people have a spotless floor, have even sanded off the
worst splinters and ancient tobacco spit stains (but not the
innumerable caulk marks) and varnished it.  In earlier times when Arch
was still shoeing oxen, it would have had to have been a bit tidier
than he kept it later or oxen would never have made it to the sling.
But he'd barely recognize it now.  It's as if he had stepped out to
the store for tobacco and a dozen furious demi-goddesses of Good
Housekeeping had descended upon it in a frenzy of neat-and-tidytude.

(Er, well, I guess that almost exactly what happened. I hope he's
having a good long yarn at The Store. :-)

- Mike

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada 
                                 
mspencer@tallships.ca            
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/