Wednesday, August 06, 2014

Under the spreading chestnut tree...

It's gotta be blistering hot in the State fair's blacksmithing shed in August...
Be happy in your work.

The dude on the right was such an archetype; there's one of him in every gunsmithing/mechanic/machine shop across the land. I could have spent twenty minutes with a long lens getting pictures of him interacting with the other dudes.

Between the hammer and the anvil.

13 comments:

Scott_S said...

I do some hobby smithing and I can tell you it's hot as hell but FUN once you make something that almost looks like what you wanted it to.

Paul said...

Love to hammer hot steel. Not that I have much chance anymore.

NotClauswitz said...

Archetype indeed! My theater budddy who's into blacksmithing and goes to blacksmith events and get-togethers looks just like that, beard and glasses and all.

LCB said...

Love the smell of the blacksmith shoppe. My grandpaw heated his house with coal in fireplaces. The smell of the blacksmith always takes me back to my youth...and it saddens me cause I didn't realize how great it was there on his farm until it was all gone.

LCB said...

The guy on the left...he's an archetype from a lot of railroading events. And no, my stach and goatee aren't all white yet, so it's NOT me! Yet! Bwahahahaha

Darrell said...

I sometimes think if I were born 150 years ago, I'd have been a blacksmith, or perhaps, as Kipling put it, an artificer. :)

Scott J said...

You're taunting me aren't you?

I bet none of these guys would get a front sight stuck halfway into the dovetail of their 1911

:)

Old NFO said...

OH yeah... :-) archtype is right...

Anonymous said...

That's the moustache of competence +4, no?

In 40 years men of that age will be proficient in building things in Minecraft but not in steel, wood or stone.

Al_in_Ottawa

Drang said...

Dude on the right is straight outta central casting for a character from Heinlein, or H Beam Piper, or a John Wayne movie.

We need more like him.

og said...

Guy like that, you couldn't hang him. Neck so muscular the rope would slip right off his head. Smart,too, bald + hot sparks = no hair on fire. Which doesn't seem like a thing until it's happened to you.

Boat Guy said...

I haven't put hammer to hot steel in several months now. Not sure if this is a tease or a methadone fix. My teacher has had us using gas forges (FAR more forgiving) for the most part; those times we've been over coal/coke have been magical - a far less noisy.

Anonymous said...

"In 40 years men of that age will be proficient in building things in Minecraft but not in steel, wood or stone. "


Perhaps less so than today, but there always seems to be a fringe few of younger people that like hands on and older type stuff. Theres plenty of younger people that like outdoors and camping, hunting and that like older guns.

All is not lost to the most modern and high tech stuff.

M