Finally got back to the forge,

  Today was the first day in two weeks that I got on the forge.  I finished the last large upright.  I set up a few of the pieces to get a better idea of the size.  It is going to be a very large brazier.  I am going to have to make spacer pieces between the uprights to hold the wood in the brazier.  I think the next thing I am going to make is the metal ring to hold the uprights together.  I want to make sure things will go together okay before I invest more time with the additional pieces.

  On another note, I have found myself thinking a lot about the clock.  I think once the new anvil arrives, I am going to make a real effort to get back to it.

  My luck with books continues.  At a Border's on Saturday, I found a somewhat decent smithing book that I didn't own. 

Busy, busy...

  I have been very busy with work both during the day and evening so I haven't had much smithing time.  I hope this weekend to fire things up.

  update...  I just checked my bank account balance and the money has cleared for the anvil.  I get to pick it up in early October.

Its official...

  The new anvil has been ordered.  I decided to go ahead and order it before I talked myself out of it.  It is pricey enough that I could have done that easily.  I just hope its worth it...  :)

Got this medieval poem from one of my new books...

Black smutted smiths, besmirched with smoke,

Drive me to death with the din of their strokes;

You never did hear such noises at night,

How the lads shout, what a clatter their knocks!

Those crooked dwarfs, they shout Coal!  Coal!

And blow their bellows till all their brains burst.

Huf! Puf! says one, Haf! Paf! says the other.

They spit and they sprawl and spin many a tale,

They grate and they grind and they grumble together,

Kept all hot with their hard hammering,

Their leather aprons are hides of the bull,

Their legs are wrapped against fiery sparks.

Heavy hammers they have, and hole them tight,

Strong strokes they strike on an anvil of steel,

Lus! bus! las! das! they snort in turn—

Let the devil get rid of so doleful a tune!

The master lengthens a little, lashes on a less,

Twists both together and tacks on a third.

Tik! tak! hic! hac! tiket! taket! tyk! tyk!

Lus! bus! lus! das! This is the life

Of these clot-heads all.  Christ make them suffer!

Can a man have no sleep for the hiss of the quenching?

 

A. R. Myers, ed., English Historical Documents 1327-1485 (London 1969) p. 1055

 

My deuce coup...

  I scored two major book finds for my clock this evening.  I was bored in the hotel so decided to head out to a bookstore.  The first book I found of interest was a book called "Coal: A Human History."  I had actually seen this book before but I had never really looked at it.  Well, I finally sat down in the bookstore to take a look at it.  The most important aspect of the book for me was the first part.  It went into the history of the coal industry in medieval England.

  Like many SCA smiths, I had assumed that the primary fuel used in England was charcoal.  However, the book clearly documents that by the 13th-14th century, the primary fuel in use in the cities by blacksmiths was coal.  So, I don't need to justify the use of coal when I finally start my version of the clock.

  The second book, which was the real shocker, which I almost missed is called "God's Clockmaker: Richard of Wallingford and the Invention of Time.".  I almost dropped a load right on the spot.  The book was just published this year and is a biography of one of the earliest medieval clockmakers.  This was such a stroke of pure luck.  I always look for books that might be helpful to the clock but this was a real find.

My Precious......



  I will be ordering you tomorrow...  Oh yes, you will be mine...  Just for an idea of size, this anvil weighs about 220#, is close to 2 1/2' tall and 2 1/2' long.  Now, how to move it once I get it?

I see quatrefoils.  I see them all the time.

  My blacksmithing geekdom has reached a new high.  I am on a business trip this week and stuck in a hotel room.  ABC is showing Sixth Sense and I just have it on in the background.  Well, the scene happens when Cole gets locked into the attic by the two boys.  Cole is busy screaming, his mother pounding on the door and what do I see?  That's right, I'm looking at the iron door behind the mother.  Looking at the quatrefoils on the door thinking to myself that I could make those...  Not only that, I'm thinking that it may have come from the workshop of Samuel Yellin in Philadelphia, perhaps American's finest blacksmith who lived in the early 20th century.  Oh yeah, movie, plot, dialog...  stop looking at the iron work.