[TheForge] Blacksmiths in space!

[Jerry Frost]

I've gotten to the point of ignoring "blacksmith" scenes in movies and on
TV. I can't count how many times the "blacksmith" takes the piece out of the
fire and gives it a dip in the slack tub before hitting it with an upside
down top tool of the most interesting shape. 

Then again, our club has members in their 50s who had never swung a hammer
until their first meeting. It gives a person perspective on how helpless so
many folks feel that don't have basic skills.

Frosty, Meadow Lakes,  Ak.
-----Original Message-----
From: theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net
[mailto:theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Mike Spencer
Sent: Saturday, January 7, 2023 8:34 PM
To: theforge at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [TheForge] Blacksmiths in space!


If you're like me, you're ever alert for how well smithing is handled
in movies.  Was Thorin Oakenshield's hammering style credible when he
was shown as supporting himself as a working smith?  Magic aside, did
the elves do the right thing reforging the Sword That Was Broken?  Was
that a Peter Wright anvil in a 13th c. forge shop?  Was that guy in
Laredo beating cold iron?

Watching the 2009 movie, "Cargo".  The year is 2267.  The earth is
uninhabitable a la Wall-E but, unlike Wall-E, people live in crowded
orbital habitats more like Blade-Runner-inside-a-Greyhound-Bus and
have done so for a few generations.

We're on a huge spaceship, deep in interstellar space when someone
carelessly jams open the two-storey tall, 2' thick multi-ton sliding
doors to the refrigerated cargo hold.  Two crew guys are detailed to
to free them up.

They appear to be equipped with:

   + Tanks for some kind of torch

   + Some sort of jack

   + 20th c. stick welder and mask

   + Crowbar

   + Cold chisel

Cold chisel?  Ya gots to *hit* it with something.  The hammer -- both
conceptually and practically -- has been around since the stone age.
What does a space-going 23rd c. hammer look like?

It's unequivocally a long-handled 3"x3" blacksmith's flatter with
which the crewman struggles to deliver useful blows to the chisel.  It
shows moderate peening-over on the poll from use as a flatter but he
uses the big flat face to hit the chisel.

I was sure I could see the A-in-a-horseshoe Atha Tool logo but
failed to bring it up recognizably in any of several screenshots.

It's at about 00:46:00 if you have access to the movie and want to
look for it.

Here  we are, huddled by the fire, sheltered from the Howling Gale and
the Icy Blast and all we get for weather is Black T'ick 'o Fog and
Poor Footing.  Maybe some of y'all in California are worse off?
Haven't heard from my friend in the Berkeley Hills.


- Mike

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