[TheForge] Terry Ridder

[Mike Spencer]

Barry Myers wrote:

> On the blacksmith front, I always admired Tom Latane's hammer with a
> face on the side.  So I decided that I should make one.  I made the
> hammer and have been trying to chase in a grotesque face.  I realize
> I am old and that new trick rule may have kicked in, but this hasn't
> been as easy as one might think.

A little anecdotal digression of which this reminds me:

There's a small museum in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, mostly concerned with
the maritime history of Yarmouth.

In the basement, there is a full-sized ship's anchor, several feet
long from stock several inches on a side, blackssmith-forged with the
usual remarkable forge welds between parts.

And there is a (perhaps half-sized? It's been decades since I was
there.) human face near the top of the shank.  You could call it
repouse only, of course, it's not raaised rfom the back in thin
metal.  It stands out from the massive billet from which it was
forged.  No idea how it was done.

Considering the work in making an anchor -- multiple forges, cranes,
crew with sledgehammers, big pieces at a welding heat -- it's quite
inexplicable why or how that whimsical ornamental detail came to be
there.  No one I talked to at the museum knew anything about the
history of the anchor.

FWIW,
- Mike

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^