[TheForge] blacksmithing in news

[Bruce Freeman]

I was waiting for someone to make that connection to hand-forged AK-47's.

The hubris of the US armed forces lives on!

I'm really trying to envision a soldier who probably doesn't know
steel from iron trying to teach anything useful about blacksmithing to
an Afghan villager, after receiving only 5 days training.  Granted,
some of these guys may be dedicated and may read up on their own and
learn a lot, but what percentage?

We ought to locate some Afghan blacksmiths -- the kind with the
AK-47-forging skills, and sponsor them to show up at these training
sessions in Afghanistan as if they were novices...

BTW, there may be no plows at WalMart (low demand) but there are lots
of hammers, chains and wheelbarrows.  Made in Pakistan, probably.



On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 9:58 PM, Mike Spencer <mspencer at tallships.ca> wrote:
>
>> http://www.theindychannel.com/news/30465647/detail.html
>
> >From the article:
>
>    The hope is to teach the Afghan people how to take scrap metal
>    left behind from decades of war and turn it into tools for
>    farming, including hammers, chains, plows and wheelbarrows.
>
>    "Primarily what the class is concentrating on is being able to set
>    up a blacksmith's shop, a working blacksmith's shop, using
>    scavenged and found materials," said Nathan Allen, manager of
>    historic trades at Conner Prairie.
>
>    Typically, it takes between 4 and 7 years to learn the blacksmith
>    trade.  The soldiers are learning as much as they can in five
>    days.
>
>
> Isn't it Afghans (and Pakistanis) who have been making their own "modern
> firearms" in village shops since the days of The Great Game?  Seems to
> me that I've read about AK-47s hand made in Afghanistan.
>
> Not, of course, that just any guy on the street corner in a random
> isolated village could do that, but I'm guessing that the 5-day
> wonders may learn more from an Afghan village blacksmith than vice
> versa.
>
>    "They are 100 or more years behind us. You've got to go back to
>    that time, find things that are practical and useful to them,"
>    said Capt.  Stephen Spencer. "They don't have the Walmarts and
>    stores where they can go purchase things."
>
> I've only been in Walmart maybe half a dozen times but I don't recall
> seeing much in the way of "hammers, chains, plows and wheelbarrows."
> Maybe I was just in too much of a hurry to get outa there to look.
>
> - Mike
>
> PS: That gives me an idea for a competition.  At an ABANA conference
>    or similar meet running over a few days, give each of two teams a
>    rusty Soviet tank, a trashed armored personel carrier or a
>    demolished military fighter jet.  Each team gets two forge & anvil
>    stations, 5 tons of coal and any hand tools they can bring.  No
>    power tools, electric welders or gas cutting gear unless they can
>    build them from parts of their scrap vehicle.  Team that produces
>    the greatest number of useful (or at least interesting) forged
>    objects wins.  The winners get a free trip to Afghanistan with
>    that Indiana Nationa Guard unit.
>
> --
> Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~.
>                                                           /V\
> mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
> http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^
> ______________________________________________________________
> TheForge mailing list
> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/theforge
> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> Post: mailto:TheForge at mailman.qth.net
>
> TheForge mail list group photo site is
> http://www.photoworks.com
> Login: blacksmithblacksmith at hotmail.com
> Password: anvil
>
> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html



-- 
Bruce
NJ