Jump to content

Lost Skills


Fuji Shooter
 Share

Recommended Posts

Our local village blacksmith retired a few years ago and non of his family look over the business even though it had been going for 100 years. His smithy is as he left it but the door was left open the other day and I grabbed a few pics. It was pitch black so excuse the poor photos. He used to makes great chain too. Real shame many of these skills are dying off. Used to watch him making horseshoes with amazement. Great selection of tools though.

 

DSCF0762.jpg

 

DSCF0764.jpg

 

DSCF0768.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It is a shame the art is being lost, magical place. Most of the tools would have been made by himself. I made many sets of tongs myself when i was into forgeing. Get lots more pics for local history. :good:

 

I am trying to get him to fire up one last time for a photoshoot but he hasn't agreed to it yet. Never thought to take any when he was doing it all those years - doh

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It is a skill I sometimes wish I had.

 

The thought of a winters morning working by the forge does appeal.

 

I have watched an old farmer friend making show quality shoes for shire horses, on a coke powered forge. I realised at the time that I was quite priviledged to see something made from scratch the way they had been made for centuries.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It is a shame the art is being lost, magical place. Most of the tools would have been made by himself. I made many sets of tongs myself when i was into forgeing. Get lots more pics for local history. :good:

 

I wouldn't say its being lost, just evolving. With modern farm machinery and the mobile agricultural engineers, the blacksmith has very much moved into the more creative artistic space.

 

I've been forging for the last three years full time, and there is lots of new blood, like myself, getting into it. This was a piece from a young smith down in Devon that I thought was outstanding. Certainly a far cry from mending ploughs and making chains.

post-1968-0-78127200-1463861938_thumb.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A local RFD to me is an outstanding 'smith. He has won numerous awards and has been the main man at various national and international events.

There is also a travelling 'smith who sets up on the hill each fair week, and an artisan 'smith who works only two hundred yards away from our unit who sells her wares from a stall to all the wealthy people in Cheshire. I believe she is doing very well.

I'm not sure if these type of skills are being lost really; there is a bloke in one of the local villages who has been making buck toothed rakes for most of his life, and his son has taken on the job also. They have been very busy for decades.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Great photos.

Crying shame that no one has taken it on.My local blacksmith is very busy.Doesnt shoe horses though.On reflection the mobile farrier is fully booked pity someone with the skills couldn't combine both.

A farrier uses the skills of a smith (or at least some) but a smith does not necessarily have the skills of a farrier:

 

"To work as a farrier you must be registered by law with the Farriers' Registration Council. To register, you will need to complete a four-year Apprenticeship with an Approved Training Farrier (ATF). The Apprenticeship is a work-based Diploma which will involve college study and training on the job."

 

http://www.farrier-reg.gov.uk/farriery-training/becoming-a-farrier/

Edited by NickS
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not lost at all. I am by original trade a welder fabricator although I worked for a firm that still had a blacksmith shop and spent time learning from an 84 year old guy who learnt from his dad before him

 

Even my mentor admitted there was no need for some of the skills other than historic re- creation and renovation - but others are still widely used and practiced

 

The art world has taken hold of blacksmithing and taken it to a whole new place - but making chain forge welding the links nah its crazy!

 

I find a lot of clients for the one off forged items but not the everyday items the old Smith used to make. Skills are being lost far faster in drawing offices and regular fabrication work imo.

 

Real wrought iron rather than forged mild steel? Well wrought don't realy exist unless a guy is working with reclaimed old materials

 

Smiting has always evolved electric power hammers do the same job as a striker yet keep regular time all day long

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sadly he had 5 daughters and no son but non of the girls wanted to know. He was the last village blacksmith out of the 6 surrounding villages. One amazing thing is his vegetable plot at the back of the smithy. The dirt is pitch black from 100 years of horse dung collected while fitting shoes. He wins the village fete veg comps every year.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Such a shame ,my metalwork group at school had to make a fire set using the forge,learn how to use a lathe making paint scraper,s ,solder n braze to make ashtrays<totally un PC these days>.Bet the elf n safetee fascists stopped that in its tracks :no:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I had to make a choice when i went on my trade course in the Army,we did a while in the blacksmiths and i had a real talent for it and the instructor told me i would be mad not to become a blacksmith,but i was a good welder and loved doing that as well,so going on the idea that welders would always be needed i became a welder.

Welded for 6 months after i came out of the army in 96 and not since,and now blacksmiths are in demand and create some beautiful pieces of work.I found it very cathartic and loved it,maybe one day i will start to learn the art.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Online Etymology Dictionary

Search:

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

smith (n.) Look up smith at Dictionary.com

Old English smið "blacksmith, armorer, one who works in metal" (jewelers as well as blacksmiths), more broadly, "handicraftsman, practitioner of skilled manual arts" (also including carpenters), from Proto-Germanic *smithaz "skilled worker" (cognates: Old Saxon smith, Old Norse smiðr, Danish smed, Old Frisian smith, Old High German smid, German Schmied, Gothic -smiþa, in aiza-smiþa "coppersmith"), from PIE root *smi- "to cut, work with a sharp instrument" (cognates: Greek smile "knife, chisel"). Attested as a surname since at least c.975.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Such a shame ,my metalwork group at school had to make a fire set using the forge,learn how to use a lathe making paint scraper,s ,solder n braze to make ashtrays<totally un PC these days>.Bet the elf n safetee fascists stopped that in its tracks :no:

We have a wood and metal lathes, hand-o-matic milling machine, chip forge, brazing hearth and facilities for aluminium casting, as well as CNC routers and laser cutters. It has nothing to do with health and safety but costs and teaching skills. How much would a set-up like ours cost to put in? The other big issue is that there are few of us left who went through an apprenticeship before deciding to go into teaching as a second career so there are not those with the skills to pass on. Design Technology is becoming a subject of MDF boxes.

 

I have fond memories of school woodwork and metalwork classes. In my first year, we had to make a pencil case out of a length of 3x2 - it had a swivelling lid but only held 3 or 4 pencils and was more like a dug-out canoe. Another wood project was a pipe rack. "Sir, my Dad doesn't smoke a pipe." "Never mind, boy, he can use it for his cigars." The award for Least Successful Metalwork Project goes to the paper knife that one boy used to stab his mate "to see if it was sharp". Times have changed....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...