The Creation of a Turret Clock

Fun day...

  I went to Colonial Williamsburg today and spent most of the day in the blacksmith shop.  I was lucky because the smith who does a lot of their recreation locks was working today.  He and I spent quite a bit of time talking in the back of the shop which was very cool.  He pulled out some authentic colonial locks and let me examine them.  I know it sounds odd but it feels funny whenever I get to hold the artifacts in my own hands.  Its probably from too many museums where you are never allowed to touch the artifacts.

  I also had a chance to ask him about the Sorber Collection auction I mentioned in a previous post.  He said that many museums would love to have the entire collection but they can't afford it.  Its not the cost of buying the collection but the cost of the preservation on all of the items.  Plus the fact that the collection is so diverse that most museums are not interested in the entire collection, just parts of it.

  Anyway, he was very interested in getting some pics from me of the Mastermyr chest.  He had the same problem that I did in that the book on the mastermyr find is not very clear on the lock's mechanism.  I may end up doing some later period locks in the future as his enthusiam was quite contagious...  :)

  I also had a chance to joke around with another of the smiths today as he was forging nails.  I know I posted the numbers before but I had a chance to reask the question and get more specifics.  The shop produces about 20,000 - 30,000 nails a year and there are 5 smiths working in the shop.  The one smith told me that on a good day, he can produce a nail about once a minute.  My nails take longer because of both my skill level and the fact that I don't have the right size stock so I can't make the nail in one heat.  It was a fun day but time for bed...

Update:
  I forgot to mention this...  One of the most enocouraging things to come out of my visit to Williamsburg was getting a sense of my own skills.  I'm not nearly up to the level of the Williamsburg smiths but it was nice to closely examine some of their items and notice they sometimes make the same mistakes that I do.  Simple things like items not quite tight fitting, mishaped rivet heads, etc...