[TheForge] trade secrets

[Saint Phlip]

 On Nov 25, 2006, at 11:22 AM, schade at acegroup.cc wrote:

I was wondering what kinds of things that we talk about here every day
might have been considered "trade secrets" at some time.

Are there still trade secrets? Would we know if there were?

Bob

Well, if you go back to the Middle Ages, the Bakers Guilds had the
secret of baking bread wrapped up so tight that _to the day_ we only
have about 5 recipes that we know they used ;-)

And, I suspect that things like wootz steel are still not entirely
understood because they were kept as trade secrets and the owners died
out. If you notice, people are still working out how to make it
properly.

Medieval goldsmiths were a pretty tight mouthed group, too, from what
I hear. Apparently, they had the secret of the double lung bellows
(the ones historical shops use today) for over 100 years before the
blacksmiths got them, towards the end of the Italian Rennaissance.

One of the things that makes my SCA hobby so fascinating, is either
figuring some of this stuff out, or watching other people figuring it
out in their fields of interest.

-- 
Saint Phlip

Heat it up
Hit it hard
Repent as necessary.

Has anyone seen my temper?
I seem to have misplaced it at Stalag XXXV....