[TheForge] Woodworking Tools, forging of

[P. McComb]

Phlip, you sound like another talented woman.   From comments you have made
in the past, your talents are many.

A past president of the Ontario Artist Blacksmiths Association is a
Blacksmith, Farrier and Wheelwright.  One of the few women reluctantly
trained on the Canadian Parries to be a wheelwright by a bunch of
traditionalists.     Keep asking her to show me how to make a wheel, one day
she might.

I will be working with a group of fellow volunteers at Fanshawe Pioneer
Village this winter (we start next week) on the annual winter projects.
This year we are working on a Model AA Ford to make it a truck, a seed drill
that needs new wooden wheels (they want me to bend the wood and the
metal...),  and some other projects I haven't heard about yet.

 I don't care about what sex, age, race, religion, health or political
belief a person is.  If you are willing to try something new, obtain the
skills it takes to do your tasks to the best of your abilities, smart enough
to admit you don't know everything  and willing to teach and learn, then you
are a person worth knowing.  A large number of smiths on this forum fall
within this definition of people to know....and some of this knowledge is
not limited to smithing.

Wish you all a brave new year and thanks again for your feed back and
information.

Paul McComb
Fat Raccoon Forge
London, Ontario
fatraccoon@execulink.com

Original Message
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Actually, I've found that to be true of most books on smithing- Bealer's Art
of Blacksmithing goes long way around on a few things, too.

I remember several years ago, at the blacksmithing shop in a small
historical (read tourist trap) town, the smith had quit, and before he left,
he had taught one of the coopers how to make nails. He mentioned to me that
he was going to try to learn to make a horseshoe, and showed me his how-to
book. It was either one of the Foxfire books, or the Buckskinning book-
can't remember which, but if I'd tried to make a horseshoe that way, I'd
still be making the damned thing.

Anyway, I volunteered to show him how to REALLY make a horseshoe, and fully
intended to take a day off work to do so until he told me that "Women never
did blachsmithing in Colonial times" at which point I decided to let him
figure it out for himself.... Wonder if he ever did?

Phlip, former farrier

 If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is probably not a
cat.

Never a horse that cain't be rode,
And never a rider who cain't be throwed....