Being President of the Indiana Blacksmithing Association, let me assure you, does not make me a leading blacksmithing expert. It is my personal observation that there are very few blacksmithing "experts" because the craft requires such great breadth of knowledge. The most capable smiths have just learned a bit more than others and may have a natural bent for a particular part of the craft.
Nevertheless I hope that I can open your eyes to an ancient craft which still survives today and is growing in the number of people who have shown an interest in learning more. The Indiana Blacksmithing Association tries to satisfy this interest with monthly meetings and a monthly newsletter. We also operate a lending library of books and video tapes and other materials which are available to our members to help them with their specific interests. We provide a weekend conference in June of each year during which we try to present experienced demonstrators of the craft. In December we present a free mini-conference usually featuring one demonstrator. All of the events are open to any interested person and I encourage you to attend if you think you might be interested in learning more about the craft.
The Indiana Blacksmithing Association has approximately 280 members and the Artist-Blacksmith's Association of North America, of which we are one of approximately 45 chapters, has nearly 3,800 members in several countries. The Artist-Blacksmith's Association of North America - called ABANA for short - is headquartered in Nashville, Indiana. ABANA holds a major international conference every other year -the next to be held at Alfred State University, Alfred, New York in June 1996. ABANA publishes two quarterlies: the very professional The Anvils's Ring and the newsletter, The Hammer's Blow. The latter is designed more for the beginning blacksmith.
I have yet to meet a blacksmith, of any age or experience, who did not firmly believe that there was more to learn. It is a fascinating craft. So much has been done by so many over so long that much has been learned. New tools, new materials and new processes are constantly changing the craft. The need for a modern smith to keep up on these changes is just as pressing as it is for all of us to keep up to date in modern communication methods and medical advances.
Let us begin with a loose definition of what a blacksmith is. The word smith comes from the German word "schmied". The work of the blacksmith comes from the forge - black. The blacksmith is one of many metal working crafts which are loosely related. The blacksmith is really at the foundation of many of these other crafts. He must in most cases make their tools.
There is, for example, the white smith. The white smith will take the work of the blacksmith and file and finish it until the base metal shines brightly. There is the tin smith, copper smith, locksmith, silver smith, gun smith, gold smith, saw smith, wheel wright, ships smith and so on to name just a few. In other words there are many specialties in metal working -just as there are specialties in the medical field. Smiths just specialized sooner because they required and developed specialized knowledge and tools sooner.
Let us not forget the specialist smith who is the horses friend - the farrier. This smith must know a great deal about an animal's physiology in order to do a good job of applying shoes. This is a highly skilled job and one of the few smiths who works with living things.
There is also a very wide branch of industrial smithing. Because all of these smiths required specialized tools - not to mention specialized knowledge - they all relied on the blacksmith to make these tools if they themselves could not make them. It has been said, and with good reason, that the blacksmith is the only craft which makes its own tools. Some smiths even became tool smiths. Let me say here that women blacksmiths - and there are quite a few - make their own tools, also.
It is a good thing that many smiths have the insight and skills needed to make their own tools because different tools are needed for almost every job. An old blacksmith shop is cluttered with these specialist tools - the purpose of some long forgotten. Some tools dropped in haste and not needed again have simply become part of the earth floor found in some old shops.
We are all familiar with a blacksmith's anvil, but the one we probably think of is called the London Pattern. It has a sort of round horn on one end and a thinning tail on the other. It has two holes near the tail. The square hole is called the hardy hole, and it needs to be since a wide range of tools will be mounted in it. The other smaller round hole is called the pritchel hole and it is used for punching holes for rivets. The top of the anvil is hardened and serves as a table on which most forging is done. The horn makes it easily possible to make curved shapes or to change the curve of an existing shape.
Dozens and dozens of anvil shapes have been developed and in the late 1800s in Europe nearly every little valley and craft had its favorite shape. I suppose that anvil makers were hard pressed to keep up with who wanted what. Even today there is a wide range of shapes available. The farrier's anvil is specialized to make animal shoes. It is lighter, has a longer horn or beak and usually has a protrusion on the side of the body for special work.
Anvils come in many weights - from a few pounds to nearly a thousand pounds. The weight of an anvil in a country blacksmith shop will usually vary from 125 to 500 pounds. The English developed an interesting way of marking anvil weights. It consists of three numbers. Pay attention now! The first number is the number of hundred weights. A hundred weight is 112 pounds. The second number is quarters of a hundred weight or 28 pounds. The final number represents the number of single pounds.
Here is an example: The anvil is marked 2 l 4. Not 214 pounds at all! 2 times 112 equals 224 pounds to which we add 28 pounds - one quarter hundred weight - for a total of 252 pounds. Next we add 4 pounds for a true anvil weight of 256 pounds. More than one modern smith has puzzled over this system.
It is an ancient system and I can see the old Anglo Saxon weighing it with an ancient scale called a yard - what we, who still remember it, call a steel yard. The anvil hung on one end of the beam and two weights equal to hundred weights stacked on the other. Next a weight equal to a quarter of the hundred weight. Finally, enough small one pound weights to balance the beam. In an age when most were illiterate, it was easy to see how much the thing weighed in small numbers related to the weighing system.
Most modern anvils are marked in pounds or kilograms, but anvils have long lives if cared for and many made a century or more ago are in use today.
The next tool you may think of is a hammer. I do not know of another craft where the variety is so wide. You can buy new today basic hammers in the Swedish, German and French styles and these come in a generous range of weights. These are, however, just a drop in the bucket. Blacksmiths frequently make their own hammers to suit their personal taste. I know of two professional blacksmiths working in Indiana today who made very distinctive hammers as their general purpose working hammers. Old hammers are modified for specific jobs or new ones are made. It is often cheaper and quicker to make a special hammer than to buy one, if, in fact, one can be found in the special style needed for a specific task.
Of all the tools used by the smith the tongs are by far the widest in variety. Tongs are used to hold hot materials and a different set is required for each size and shape of material. Is it to hold the material from the side or the end? A different tong shape will be needed for each. As the work develops several different tongs may be required for holding it firmly. All serious smiths soon learn how to make tongs and as a result not very many varieties are for sale new. An old shop which does a wide variety of work may have made a couple of hundred shapes of tongs of all sizes. They may be hanging on racks or the walls or lying on the floor. Tong jaws have been developed to hold nearly anything and a competent smith will want the right jaw shape to hold the work firmly and most importantly - safely!
While most tongs are easily held in one hand, some have been made which are so heavy (because of the work piece to be held) that they must be held by a crane and a number of men.
The final major tool is the forge. Forges have been made in many shapes and from many materials. They range from the very simple ground forges with goat skin bellows used yet today in Africa to sophisticated cast iron or steel or brick forges with electric blowers used in professional shops. Forges are arranged to get their wind (to fan the fire) from either the side or from the bottom. Each has advantages. Most American smiths use the bottom draft forge. The draft may come from the traditional bellows - which some smiths still prefer, from a hand cranked blower (which replaced the bellows) or from an electric blower with speed control or damper. To heat the material a variety of heat sources are used. Low sulfur bituminous Pocahontas coal is preferred by many smiths because of its flexibility. The use of natural or propane gas is becoming more widespread especially for production work where many similar pieces are being made. Charcoal and coke have also been used. Hand held high temperature torches are often used on intricate work. Each smith will have these basic tools, but his success will depend on a great variety of other tools. These include hot and cold hardys for the hardy hole. Hardys are used to cut hot and cold material. There will be punches of all kinds, fullers (used to reduce and/or spread material), flatters (for smoothing), cutters, mandrels (to form work around), bending forks, scrolling tools, bridges (used to work on the top part of work which must hang down above the anvil, vee blocks, snappers, (used to cut material by snapping it off), drifts (a form of punch or mandrel), nail or bolt or rivet headers, and so on and on. The list can be endless.
There is also that curious block of steel which looks like a piece of Swiss cheese and is called a swedge block. These come in a number of shapes, but their purpose is to provide various shapes to form metal against or in. They are usually heavy and may be used flat or on edge as the need arises.
Modern smiths use modern tools such as arc and gas welders and cutters, plasma torches, electric and compressed air tools for drilling and grinding. They also use hydraulic tools. For nearly 500 years they have used power hammers to move large masses or to substitute for occasionally needed helpers. These may operate from water power, steam, compressed air, or electricity. Hydraulic presses, developed within the last 150 years are also used.
Some industrial smiths working with new materials like titanium - a material lighter and stronger than aluminum - have helped put spy planes in the air and men on the moon. Today some work at massive hydraulic presses of up to 3,000 tons and more to push materials held by giant manipulators into rough forgings for industry. The manipulators for these large presses are like giant two-story tall fork lift trucks with special grasping tongs on the front which can hold nearly white hot ingots while lifting, lowering, tipping and rotating them quickly. These tongs also move independently front and back to allow for changes in the materials length during working.
The modern smith does as his forbears did and uses the latest technology to keep up with competition. This extends to laser cutters or high pressure fluid cutters as well as numerous materials developed in the last century.
Why forge pieces when we could just as easily cast them or cut them out of solid stock? The answer is easy - strength. Using the proper materials and forging processes, parts made by forging are stronger per unit of weight than those made by other processes. This is of great concern in a great many machines and processes. Aircraft would be heavier and carry less load if forging were not available. The cost of air transport would rise. Highway vehicles would weigh more, carry less load and be more sluggish were it not for forgings in many places. Forgings made from the proper alloys, worked at the proper temperatures and cooled in the proper way make much of our present day civilization possible.
Let us turn now to the materials used by the blacksmith. Most blacksmiths learn to use a number of materials because each has specific advantages. You might use copper or brass (a combination of copper and zinc) or bronze (a combination of copper and tin) or aluminum or titanium or any number of materials, but the primary material is iron in one form or another.
Iron is so important that I need to tell you a bit about how it has changed over the centuries. Certainly the element iron or Fe has not changed, but the material used by the smith has changed greatly. Even today it is changing. Changes in sheet steel are being made to satisfy the regulators who are demanding greater gas mileage in cars. Lighter, stronger steel alloys are needed for this purpose while maintaining drawability - that is, the ability to shape the material. Changes in construction steel are being made to permit architects to design lighter and stronger buildings.
These changes affect the blacksmith, who is no longer the primary user of the output of the iron and steel industry. Only a small part of current production now goes to the blacksmith, where once nearly all would be shaped by him.
The ability to change steel at will to meet various requirements is a comparatively new ability. Less than 100 years ago we really knew very little about iron and steel when compared to current knowledge. Today we learn more each year, probably more in some years than was learned in some centuries. Some of the old alchemists would be both astounded and delighted. The science of metallurgy has developed at a rapid rate and new instruments have made advances ever faster. The blacksmith has benefitted in some ways and lost favorite materials in others.
We do not really know how iron was first discovered. It may have been a cooking fire in just the right spot which first made a material harder than any metal then known. It might have been a lightning strike. Whatever it was, people discovered a better material and began a search for more.
It is thought that iron working developed about 6,000 years ago in the Caucuses of Europe from which it spread rapidly both east and west. It finally replaced bronze in isolated England shortly before the Romans arrived. We know that the Romans required about 320 tons of metal to build the Coliseum in Rome - a rather large quantity at the time and an indication of the growth of the metal working process. The extraction of iron from the earth has been a process long in development - a development which continues yet today. Early American iron - that which was not shipped in - was made from bog iron. Bog iron was so named because it was often found near the surface near bogs in the Eastern United States. It was once mined near Rochester, Indiana.
In the early Americas a facility was built at Saugus, Massachusetts near Boston. Here water power operated bellows and hammers. Reconstructed by the National Park Service you can see this first American effort today. It produced pig iron which had to be further refined to make wrought iron. It built on much earlier work in iron refining going back at least as far as the eighth century and well developed in Coalbrookdale in England.
The making of iron in the period from about 1700 to about 1890 required really large quantities of charcoal. Scotland today has few trees because they were cut for this use. In England the problem became so bad that the Crown set aside certain forests so that there would be wood available for the building of the great English naval fleet. These remain today. In the United States much of the Eastern half of the country was stripped of trees to make charcoal for iron refining. As an example four square miles of forest were consumed each year for a furnace producing just fifteen tons of pig iron a week. Furnaces were erected wherever ore, limestone (used as a flux), and trees were plentiful. It helped if water or road transportation was nearby. Besides those sites operated by the National Park Service, an interesting site is Fayette, Michigan, in the upper peninsula, which operated until 1891 making charcoal iron. This facility had its own harbor and railroads branched out to bring wood to the beehive ovens for conversion to charcoal. Ships would take away iron and bring limestone. Place names abound in certain parts of this country recalling these furnaces.
The product of all this effort was wrought iron, a unique material no longer produced except occasionally in the museum facility at Coalbrookdale in England. Wrought iron is almost pure iron with very little carbon. Unlike all other irons it contains a silica slag which becomes bonded intimately with the iron improving its ductility. Wrought iron was produced in this country until after World War II when it went into decline and was discontinued. It has a high degree of resistance to corrosion.
Today blacksmiths still value wrought iron and recover it from previous uses wherever possible. Only a couple of years ago one of our members recovered the material used in a bridge near Peru. This material has been shared out to several historical shops. It forges at higher temperatures and is more fluid in how it moves. Wrought iron is easily identifiable by the "threads" or "sinues" which are seen when the material is cut and bent or when it is etched or is corroded. These are present because of the pure iron and siliceous materials that are in fine layers. Good art smiths will tell you that the metal will teach you what it will do. These smiths tell us that some shapes are not possible with other materials.
While wrought iron is a marvelous material it did not meet the needs of tool makers and developing industry. They needed a stronger and harder material -a material we call steel. Steel starts with the pig iron made from iron ore and has carbon added to make it more uniform and harder. It does not have slag included. There are a very large number of alloys of steel - each for a different purpose. The addition of nickel, for example, produces stainless steel. Manganese is added for toughness - the ability to take wear and physical shock. Steel can be made so hard that tapping it with a hammer will cause it to shatter like glass.
Carbon is the principle thing which sets apart wrought iron at under .3%; carbon steel at .3% to 2.2%; and cast iron 2.2% and up. As the material is heated and cooled the carbon combines in different ways with the material.
The making of steel was developed in the Orient and in India where it was known as Wootz steel and was some of the finest in the world having been made since early in the Christian era. Unfortunately Europe was in the dark ages and it was not until the development of blister steel that steel was found in any quantity in the area. Blister steel was pure iron which was placed in proximity to charcoal dust and soaked in heat. Carbon from the charcoal dust slowly transferred into the iron making it workable. The system was not very good and hardly any two pieces were alike.
Finally in 1740 Benjamin Huntsman of Attersea, England had had enough. He needed high quality steel for the clock springs he manufactured and developed a secret method for cooking blister steel cut into small pieces out of the carbonizing effects of the furnace. Out of this came the first cast steel of uniform high quality. He kept this secret for a number of years until one cold and rainy night a supposedly drunken workman begged shelter in the small factory. A kind factory foreman admitted him to the factory and while "sleeping off" his alcoholic stupor the drunken workman observed the entire process. The process was put to use by many others and the fame of Sheffield steel became world wide.
Throughout this long number of centuries the blacksmith has adapted to the new materials which the iron maker has provided. He is still adapting today.
Much of my life I have heard of mild steel. This means steel with a low carbon content. Smiths have used this since wrought iron is no longer regularly available. It works at a lower temperature than wrought iron and can be forge welded like wrought iron although somewhat differently. Now the carbon content is increasing and forge welding is becoming more difficult. Forge welding is the ability to join two pieces heated to surface melting temperature in the forge. The act of hammering these pieces together joins the melted surfaces together and the two pieces are now one molecular piece.
Now let's look at the training of these people called blacksmiths. Two courses have been followed in recent decades. In Europe, especially in Germany, a very strict training regime continues. You must apprentice with a master for a certain number of years. The apprenticeship will include much training in materials and methods. It will also include full business training. At the end of the training you are fully tested and prepared to hang out your business sign. In fact, you may not hang it out until you have passed the course satisfactorily. You become a licensed blacksmith and the public can be assured you have certain well defined qualifications.
In the United States we have proceeded differently. Much of the training is simply not available in a shop setting. Classes are given in some schools. Apprenticeships are sometimes available, but seldom from what the Germans would call masters. They are led by those having somewhat more experience. There is no test or licence required to hang out your sign and take on business. If you have applied yourself you may succeed, but market forces alone will judge your competence to practice and your success.
Obviously the German smith is better trained. The introduction of the European Economic Community has placed certain strains on this system since by law a smith from France or Spain or Italy can now go to Germany and bid on work there. Their training is not as good and the German smiths are concerned that other Germans will not receive the same high quality preparation they expect from a licensed German smith. Time will tell how this gets resolved, but I'll place my bet on the Germans. In the United States meanwhile, beginning smiths are offered training which is usually catch as catch can in groups like the Indiana Blacksmithing Association, personal instruction in private (usually home) shops, a number of craft schools around the country and personal experimentation. About a dozen craft schools offer short 2 day to 2 week courses. Out of this helter skelter system have come some remarkable craftsmen and women. They have worked hard to learn what they needed to know, and have taken every opportunity to learn from others. A number have gone to Europe for training lasting sometimes a couple of years. They have learned how to do business from such organizations as the National Ornamental and Miscellaneous Metals Association (NOMMA). They have learned from other smiths in ABANA and elsewhere.
The passage in recent years of increasing government regulations and the growing liability awards made by juries have further increased the blacksmith's difficulties. These usually apply to large work often placed in public places.
But through it all the forming of metal into a decorative or useful shape which you know will be around for a while is a most satisfying experience. To know how to form a scroll of beauty and symmetry, one which is pleasing to the eye and far better than one made by machine is worth the effort. To make a difficult railing and have it right and a delight to the eye is an extension of the efforts of many masters over many centuries to bring forth the best iron has to offer. To take a piece of waiting iron and put it into a shape and place which is satisfying to others is to add to the fabric of civilization in a very positive way.
Yes indeed! I report to you that blacksmithing, which was moribund in the United States just two decades ago, is healthy, growing and active. From the person who just comes to watch - and this too is an ancient custom - to the person working at his own small forge for his own relaxation and enjoyment and onward to the forgers of huge sculptures, each is enjoying benefitting from the craft in some way.
The history of blacksmithing is still being written. I write a tiny bit of it in our newsletter each month. New people join us all the time to learn a bit more for their own use and enjoyment. Perhaps you would like to join us also. I extend an open invitation to visit.
this too is an ancient custom - to the person working at his own small forge for his own relaxation and enjoyment and onward to the forgers of huge sculptures, each is enjoying benefitting from the craft in some way.
The history of blacksmithing is still being written. I write a tiny bit of it in our newsletter each month. New people join us all the time to learn a bit more for their own use and enjoyment. Perhaps you would like to join us also. I extend an open invitation to visit.
A new book by Dr. Stewart Rafert, professor of history at University of Delaware, was prepared for a general audience and for serious scholars interested in the history and culture of one of Indiana's most important Native American groups. The author has written a history which treats this group before, during, and after removal. It covers the Eastern or Indiana Miami and those who were removed, known as the Western or Oklahoma Miami.
About 2500 Miami or approximately half the tribe still live in Indiana, many in the area of their former homeland in Miami, Wabash, Grant, Huntington and Allen Counties. The Miami headquarters is in the former Peru High School and includes the tribal archives, a cultural center, a day care center, tribal council chambers, a cafeteria and a bingo hall. Their Longhouse situated on land along the Mississinewa River owned by the tribe is the location for various ceremonies and the Miami reunion held every August since 1903.
Publication of this book was supported in part by a grant from Ball Brothers Foundation and Edmund Ball. Libraries in the Miami homeland area should be especially eager to have it.
Last Saturday night showed the largest number of cases of drunkenness on record. There was an unusually large number drunk, more in fact than there has been for a long time. There seems to be a great increase of the baneful evil in spite of everything done to prevent it. It seems to us that if these cases of drunkenness were taken in hand, our city coffers could be enriched by many a shining sheckel.
Marble playing has become the mania and it is amusing to see a giant playing with a five year old boy, and then be beaten.
Some of our citizens went to North Manchester last week and purchased beer by the bushel, getting a two bushel grain bag full of bottles.
Eugene Banks has gained the title of the "naturalist" of our town, by finding a large fungus in this wood this week, far surpassing any of the kind we have ever seen.
The building committee of the Lutheran church are now ready to receive bids for both brick and stone work on the new church building. The drawings and specifications can be seen at the office of Eichholtz, Peters and Valdenaire. All bids on stone work must be in by the 15th, and on brick work by the 25th of July. Also desire to correspond with slaters and galvanized cornice dealers. By order of Committee. Lewis Petry, President. North Manchester, Ind. July 4th 1882.
J.M. Jennings bought and sold in ten days 6,000 pounds of Lagro flour. It is the boss, and gives the best satisfaction.
There is a whisper going the rounds that there is to be a temperance party of young folks at the Occidental soon.
Tomorrow evening Otto Soltlan gives a concert at the opera house. He has the reputation of being a splendid violinist and the house should be well filled to hear him.
With every boys suit it sells the Star Clothing House gives away a brass drum that is the delight of every child in the country. Try them and see if it is not so.
The season for snake stories has nearly passed by and almost without note in the columns of the JOURNAL. Our bucolic friend, Ira Gill, came to our rescue one day last week with the statement that he and Emanuel Miller had killed two blue racers six feet in length on the Eagle farm near town.
Bill Haney tells us a fish story, the truth of which is vouched for by a number of friends. He says he caught a seven pound buffalo fish in the river near the dam one day last week with a hook and line. This is the first fish of that species we have ever heard of being taken from Eel River.
A few days ago our reporter happened in the tin shop of Noftzger and Son and were shown a partly finished galvanized iron cornice that John Lockwood is making for the new store room. Mr. Noftzger will begin erecting next month. The pattern is a very tasty one and will lay to land any other cornice in town.
Near the Morris dime store (in North Manchester) there was for many years the A & P grocery which was operated by the Faurot family. When you entered to shop you were not confronted by shopping carts - you just got in line and waited your turn at the counter. The clerk learned of your wishes and went to the shelves to get the items. You took your own sacks and left. I particularly remember the A & P store - each time a bag of "Eight-o-Clock" coffee was sold the clerk punched a button and a bell, on the outside of the store rang so all would be aware of the popularity of this brand of coffee.
Another interesting business in this block was the L.P. Urschel & Son (Harold) department store. It was also known as the Urschel's Bargain Store. In it you could find men's and women's clothing, shoes, paint, and hardware of all kinds. When I first came to our town the drugstore on the north side of this street was the A.F. Sala Pharmacy. Shortly it became the J.B. Marks Drug Store and is still in the same family. In those days the soda fountain was just inside the door on the right. I fondly recall the tasty chocolate-marshmallow sundaes they served for only ten cents. Above this store was the office of Clevenger and King Real Estate and Insurance.
On the corner was the business known as Gresso's with the logo in all their advertising - "Our package under your neighbor's arm has been paid for." On the main floor you could look for men's and women's clothing and in the basement was a large grocery store. For many years this was managed by John Smeltzer who lived on Ninth Street. He later ran a small grocery outlet in his own home.
Across from Gresso's on the other corner, was Burdge's Stores. It had large rooms for school supplies, books, candies, gifts, stationery, "pure" drugs and drug sundries. It also dealt in china, glassware, pottery, wallpaper and paints. Directly behind this store was a small alleyway with many doors. At one visit some of us found a door open and went in to seek what mysteries lay behind it. After climbing a dark stairway we were confronted with a winding hallway - at one juncture of this we came upon a lifesize figure of a gray horse - we left in a hurry down some steps that led to the dental office of Dr. Glen Wright. Later we were to explore this area many times to introduce our new friends to this strange horse -- I have often wondered the 'how and the why' of this animal in an upper hall of our quiet town.
Parenthetically, I might add that two of the doors in this alley were exits for our two theaters, the Marshall and the Gem. It was rumored that at times certain young boys would stand outside those doors and when the first show was over they would walk in, backwards, to gain free admission. This was only hearsay so I can't vouch for its accuracy. On the site of the Marshall theater was a plaque noting the birth of Thomas R. Marshall in a house at that location. As you recall, Mr. Marshall was Vice-President of the United States while Woodrow Wilson was President. The house was long ago removed to the northwest corner of Walnut and Ninth Streets and was lived in for many years by the D. F. Priser family.
A few days ago our reporter happened in the tin shop of Noftzger and Son and were shown a partly finished galvanized iron cornice that John Lockwood is making for the new store room. Mr. Noftzger will begin erecting next month. The pattern is a very tasty one and will lay to land any other cornice in town.