Meteoric Patrem-Made In England...

[Michel]

Thank you Alan,
From each of your answers, I learn a lot.
I print them and make a file out of them. Invaluable.
How do they call these experts in Japan : living treasure ? I do not recall the exact name. This is what you are for me. thanks a lot.

Hi Richard,
You are indeed well equipped in your workshop and produce well made tools.
In your photos your show glass and crucible as raw materials.
What exactly is "crucible" ?
Why do you put green glass in your forging process ?
You utilize steel powder. Don't you loose a lot of this material before it is molten by oxidizing it and really burning it ?
What is the advantage of utilizing steel powder versus a piece of steel ?
Regards
Michel

[Richard Furrer]

Michel,

In your photos your show glass and crucible as raw materials.
What exactly is "crucible" ?
-------a crucible is a ceramic container which holds the molten metal in the furnace.
Why do you put green glass in your forging process ?
---------the glass is a flux which bonds with the oxides and removes them from the metal so it can melt and be free of contamination...borax is too aggressive and will eat the crucible.
You utilize steel powder. Don't you loose a lot of this material before it is molten by oxidizing it and really burning it ?
------the crucible is covered (cosed system) and the glass is the flux so there is very little loss
What is the advantage of utilizing steel powder versus a piece of steel ?
---the steel is a modern metal powder of known chemistry so I can get a certain type of steel when I cam finished.
Ric

[Michel]

Thank you Ric
It shows that you are really making your steel at your own specifications.
Impressive.
I am really in an other ball game. My ideal has been to achieve some results with as little as possible equipment. I have always been impressed by the abilities of the Indonesian smiths (as an example) who work with very little equipment and almost any type of metal scrap they can find. And they heat weld !
I have still a lot to learn.
Thank you for your explanations
Regards
Michel

[A. G. Maisey]

I think that my philosophy has always been the same as yours, Michel. From the beginning , I wanted to work as close to barebones as I could. The reason I learnt how to do forge work was to prepare me for the instruction I was to recieve from Empu Suparman---I didn't want to walk in cold, knowing nothing.When you work like this, there are some severe limitations on what can be done. Using a gas forge does make things easier, but the only reason I went to gas was that I was unable to buy coke, and living in a residential area, I could not use coal.

Michel, I suggest that you try to get hold of a copy of "Practical Blacksmithing" by M.T.Richardson. It was originally published in the 19th century, and reissued by Weathervane Books New York in about 1978. It is a collection of work experiences by working smiths.

Incidentally, in the old days it was an acknowledged fact that not every smith could weld. It was not unusual for smiths in a particular area to sub-contract their welding work to just one man amongst them. Doing good, tight, clean welds is acknowledged as about the most difficult thing you can do. In fact, when I began to learn forge work and I stated that my intention was to weld iron, steel and nickel, I was told by many people, including my own teacher, several technical college teachers of industrial blacksmithing, the resident expert at BHP in Newcastle (BHP is an immense mining and steel producing company) that what I wanted to do was simply impossible, and I'd better forget it.

[lemmythesmith]

Hi Ric, what kind of meteorite is that? Is it the Nantan? Has it turned to a kind of haematite? I've seen those on E-Bay, if it was one of those just wondering if you broke it up did it have any cracks or fissures inside? Might be an interesting ukiran material. Probably a wee bit heavy though!

[Michel]

Thank you Alan,
I will try to find that "Practical Blacksmithing" by M.T.Richardson. I have already a book by Tim McCreight "the complete Metalsmith" but it covers so much ground that it does not get in enough detail about forging.
In French we have a say : "c'est en forgeant que l'on devient forgeron" = it is in forging that one become a smith. This is the real answer to my problems !
I try simply to shorten the apprenticeship in asking questions but the more I practice the more I will know and feel things. I am sure that Ric and Gordon can count their forging hours is the hundreds and you probably in the thousands, I still count them in tens ! And I am not specially gifted !
Thank you for your many advices, they certainly shorten my apprenticeship.
Regards
Michel

[Richard Furrer]

Originally Posted by lemmythesmith

Hi Ric, what kind of meteorite is that? Is it the Nantan? Has it turned to a kind of haematite? I've seen those on E-Bay, if it was one of those just wondering if you broke it up did it have any cracks or fissures inside? Might be an interesting ukiran material. Probably a wee bit heavy though!

That particular piece in the photo was supplier by a client..it was a Russian fall, but I do not remember the name.
The "normal" type I use is Nantan and Campo. The nantan has almost pure nickel srips inside and is rusted in many places...it is good for melting, but I think simply folding it in would be problematic for the first five wleds or so.

Alan,
"low tech" is good till you have to make a living. I struggled with this for years before I made the leap to larger tools. I work alone and have a wide range of jobs. In the past I have forged knives using a granite hammer and anvil and forge welded with a box bellows and charcoal whith a forge of mud...it works, but I can not make railings that way.
If someone wants a traditional piece than I do it as close as I can recreate, but few wish to pay the added expense.

Ric

[A. G. Maisey]

Ric, I hear what you're saying, and I agree with you 100%.

My work in the forge has only ever been for educational purposes. I set out to learn as much as I could about traditional blade-smithing principle and practice. I did not set out to make a living. I learnt a lot of general blacksmithing along the way, and I made damascus blades for a while and sold them, but even back 25-30 years ago it was costing me money to play with damascus. When you charge $10 PH for knife work, and people are prepared to pay you +$60PH (C1990) for writing an opinion, what's the smart thing to do?
Still, I did the unsmart thing for a lot of years, and learnt a lot from it.
I'm glad you can make a living from your forge, but even so, I reckon you'd be a rareity at the present time. I know a couple of extremely talented damascus makers in the US who have fully tooled shops with hammers that would make Thor flinch, and they just struggle along. Just to get return on capital investment seems to be regarded as a major achievement. Here in Australia, I doubt that anybody in knife work of any type, let alone specialist damascus smiths, can make a living from it. Yeah, they might say they do, but investigate them and you'll find some other source of income propping them up---often a wife who works a regular job.
I know two or three "art smiths" here in Australia who can scratch a living by doing stuff like wrought iron railings and so on (using mild steel); I know one old bloke who still does traditional stuff like resetting springs and repointing jack hammer tips, but all these people just barely make a living. If they had financial advisors---which they do not---I'm certain that the advice would be to quit work and go onto social security, because they'd be better off.
Its good to know somebody can still make a living out of fire and iron.

Michel , I'm sorry to disillusion you, but my time spent in forging would be very, very low compared to a fulltime smith like Ric.The difference between Ric and me is that Ric is working at something to make a living, I have always worked at forge work to learn specific things. You could call it an academic approach. The sort of things I have learnt would be not a hell of a lot of use in making money out of forge work.

Additionally, in the making of a keris blade, most of the work time is spent in the sculpting. The longest time it ever took me to make a keris blade was 47 man-days.
This was comprised of me and two strikers making the forging, this was pamor miring and took three days.So that's 9 man-days.
The actual benchwork took the balance of the time:- 38 days of between 8 and 10 hours each.
I am not counting the staining tme.
To sculpt the sogokan alone took 8 days---four days for each side.
The forge work involved in a keris blade is regarded as rough work that any reasonably qualified smith should be able to do.
The difficult part of making a keris blade is all in the bench work.

In all blade work I have done, I have only ever worked in a traditional fashion, using traditional tools. Doing it this way, only very wealthy people can afford fine quality work.
Read what Ric says about the cost of traditional work:- a lot of people want it, but who is prepared to pay the price?

[Richard Furrer]

Alan,
I envy your experiences with the Empu...learning traditional craft is a hobby of mine...I was in India in Feb/March looking at museums and talking to smiths (Bhanwarlal) in Rajisthan (North India).
Tradition now is an electric stone grinder and a power hammer. They can still do the old work (well some can), but few are interested in paying. Antiques are cheaper than modern work so many antiques are re-worked with modern tastes and sold.
I saw piles of handles waiting new koftgari...I asked if they make handles and they said "why?"..pointing to the box of old ones.

It seems that more and more the "first world" is preserving techniques lost or unused in the country of origin...not politically correct, but there it is.

As to a living...in smithing...do architectural work not knives.

Ric

[ThePepperSkull]

amazing work, Graham, amd very interesting discussion!

"a lot of people want it, but who is prepared to pay the price?" Very true, even in my case I'm ashamed to say. Having had talks with Graham a few months back regarding a commission, then realizing the cost was staggering to me at first. Reading more into this subject, however, leads me to believe it is worth such a price.

This has also sparked more interest my desire of learning the process in which a Keris is made. I've been working/volunteering with a few blacksmiths, as well as professional knifemakers in order to gain a level of familiarity with the tools of the trade and plan (in the very very distant future when I'm comfortable with my skills) to find somewhere in Indonesia, much like Alan has, to further my skills by learning how to make keris (as well as the cultural traditions behind it). Perhaps also Malaysia, where their tradition of Keris Sundang making is apparantly still alive (although not thriving unfortunately). Of course, I would see this also as an academic endeavor (as opposed to attempting to make a living out of it) but with a slightly different purpose.

My eventual study will involve the development of the Moro style kris and how its journey from Java to Mindanao has affected its design. Particularly its early incarnations from the 18th century when the Kris Sundang from the Sulu Sultanate still exhibited the meticulous level of craftsmanship of its javanese predecessor. Later designs, I find, were more crude in terms of sculpting and chiseling of the blade's sor-soran area while its focus shifted onto crafting a broader, more hefty slashing-battle oriented blade. I always found it a shame that the balance between the two was never maintained as time had passed.

I think that to gain a more profound understanding of the Moro Kris that my ancestors have so frequently used in history, it is imperative for me to gain an acceptable in-depth knowledge on (not only the fabrication process, but the traditions behind) its predecessor, the Javanese Keris. Reading posts in this forum and gaining knowledge from textbooks regarding the Javanese Keris has further enriched my appreciation for the it as the profound cultural artwork it is, as opposed to just as the blueprint for another culture's weapon as I had once percieved it. It (The keris) is not, as I once thought, just a chapter of a book to flip through to get to the end -- it is quite a meaty story in and of itself!

Alan, I may send you a Private Message soon regarding Keris making appreticeship as I am very much interested.

[GIO]

I am astonished in front of the skill of British smiths. My compliments !
On the other hand I made a reflection: if a good smith can forge a kris of such a level, what is left of the charming mistery of an Eastern weapon whose origins date back hundreds of years and the asimmetric form of which still is an unresolved question. It is more or less as if somebody could forge a sword with the same characteristics of a sword made by the great Japanese masters like Masamune or Yoshihiro. If so only antique or historically important specimen would mantain a certain "spiritual" value.

I would like now to tell what happened to me some ten years ago, in Liverpool.
I visited the shop of an antique arms dealer, and I told him that I used to collect kris. At this point he showed me a kris blade, made by a friend of him, and I almost did not believe this story. The kris was Bali style, and if I well remember without the ganja (too difficult, maybe ? Or the smith did not have interest in completing his work, having already demonstrated his skill ?)
Unfortunately I did not investigate any more and I had no more opportunity to go to Liverpool.

[GIO]

I posted a comment on this subject, but my text went another part, I don't know where