Will Kalif's Blog: Will's Blog, page 11

Taking Blacksmithing Classes

Not too far from where I live there is a historical society that has a whole lot of amazing stuff including a real blacksmithing shop. It was a functional shop in days gone by. And it is still functional although now it is used as a part of the historical society. And it is used for classes.

I am taking Saturday Morning classes there and I have already learned so much. They have a lot of resources including a permanent forge and portable forges.  And a whole lot of great blacksmithing tools. The place is great.

I will keep you updated on what is happening there and I will post more pictures of the shop and the various stuff they have. If you are into blacksmithing you are going to love this stuff.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One thing that I really love about what has been happening lately is that Blacksmithing has made a big comeback. It is an art that almost died out. But it is back. Not so much as a needed craft but just as a wonderful hobby that a lot of people are interested in pursuing.

 

Coal or Lump Charcoal for forging

Blacksmithing is experiencing a renaissance. This is for a couple of different reasons. First off there is the internet! That has changed just about everything in the world.  Now you can learn about all kinds of things including blacksmithing. Everything is on youtube or google.

Secondly video games have had a tremendous influence on blacksmithing. There are so many games that have swords, knives, armor, shields and all kinds of medieval period weapons. And in many of these games you have to blacksmith the stuff up! Yup, it’s true. Video games have helped with the Renaissance of blacksmithing!!!

Now to my point. Coal for forging used to be difficult to come by? Who the heck was buying coal. Years ago I couldn’t get small amounts. And by small amounts I mean 50 pounds or less. I could get 100 pound deliveries but sorry. I just can’t keep that much coal around.

I even went as far as making my own hardwood lump charcoal for forging. that tutorial is here:

 

How to make hardwood lump charcoal for forging

 

But nowadays you can very easily get small quantities of coal. Yay!

The decision now is what kind of fuel should you use for forging? I have done a video showing some options and what the benefits of each are. Want to see a forge in action with a couple of different types of fuels? Check out my youtube video right here: Coal vs Hardwood Lump Charcoal 

 

The New Blacksmithing setup

I now have a new blacksmithing setup. It is a covered area and I like it a lot! There  are a couple of nice advantages to this new setup including being sheltered from the weather. There was a point on my first day of using it when it started to rain, but it didn’t matter. That was nice. And being shaded means I can see the hot steel much better. You have to be able to judge the heat of metals when forging them and the color is important.

I will also be able to make better videos now that the area is shaded. Yay!

And I have a nice work triangle where it is very comfortable for me to grab metal out of the forge and bring it to the anvil without moving much. It is much more efficient and much more safer.

If you want to check it out you can watch my  youtube video here:

The New Blacksmithing setup

New Medieval Word for you

I received an email from a french translator who is working on a translation of some documents (French to English). She was looking for the english word for the person who walks around the castle or town  either lighting candles or putting them out. Well.. I am disappointed in myself for not knowing it. The best I could come up with is “Lamplighter”.

A lamplighter was a person who went around city streets (most notably in the Victorian era) lighting gas lamps.  They sometimes had ladders and they sometimes had a very long pole with a lit torch on the end of it. Kind of a neat and quirky thing from the past.

Well, she got back to me with the word. It is “Chandler”.

A chandler was a candle maker.  But, a chandler often also had the responsibility to take care of the various candles in castles, keeps and wealthy  homes. Make the candles, light them, put them out, replace them as needed.

Now there’s a quirky little job from the past.

Oh and the word “Chandelier” comes from this job. In those days a chandelier had candles in it.

 

Getting ready for a new bee season

I am gearing up for a new batch of bees this spring and I am so excited.  Today me and Dee stained one of the new beehives. Tomorrow we apply a sealant to it. Soon it, along with another hive will be the home for bees. Yay! Here are a couple of pictures.

I will keep you updated on the progress and I will create a tutorial for all this stuff. We are taking two Brushy Mountain hive kits and assembling them, getting them ready for bees. Purchasing them like this saves a lot of money and requires a little bit of easy work.

I will be creating a youtube video for all of this at some point soon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Book Review: Exploring English Castles

Exploring English Castles is available on Amazon

I was doing some research for my interactive castles of the world map when I stumbled across this book.

I  sent the author an email and asked him if I could get a copy for review. And he sent me one. My thanks go to him for that.

And I was so happy that he did because this is a terrific book. I Love it.  It is broken down into two sections and in doing so it covers two very important aspects of castles.

In the first section it covers the basics of  castles including their history, how they were built, how they changed, developed, fell into disrepair, and came back into prominence over the centuries. This is all good stuff if you want to learn about castles.

And in the second section we get a specific look at nine different castles. And we also get stories about them. And this is where the romantic and magical aspect of them comes through.  The author has chosen these castles because they represent the whole of castles in England and they each have remarkable stories to tell.

And these stories cover all of those wonderful things that we have come to think about when we think about castles including King Arthur, Romance, betrayal, murder, intrigue, sieges and much much more. This is some wonderful stuff.

Yes, castles are big stone structures and architectural marnd vels. They are quite wonderful in that aspect. But they are also the endeavor of humans, and being so means they have lots of stories to tell.

And this book captures it all very well. If you are a fan of castles and all that they represent from the architectural to the romantic and mysterious then this is a book well worth getting. I recommend it highly! It is loaded with fascinating castle facts and castle stories.  Five stars.

 

 

Interactive Castles of the World Map

I love castles and have visited a few of them. If you frequent my websites you probably already know this. I do have a whole sub domain dedicated to them (Medieval Castles). I have lot of books about them and have done a fair amount of research on them. That for me is simply fun. But one thing that I had always wished for is a world map with all the castles on it.

One of those google maps where you can explore around, zoom in, zoom out and see various things. That would be great! Well…. there isn’t one of those maps, until now.

I decided that I would have to be the guy to make one!  So I did. I made one. I didn’t realize how much work this project would entail. I would say I have about 50 or so hours invested in it. But now that the framework is done I can add castles to it rather easily. (currently I have 62 castles on the map)

If you are interested in castles you can check out the map right here. You can zoom in, pan around and explore the world and some of its most beautiful castles.

Castles of the World Interactive Google Map

Drilling through castle walls with a Terebra

I stumbled across a new type of siege engine that I hadn’t previously known about. Well, when I say it is a “new” type of siege engine I mean new to me. It has been around for centuries. I just never heard of it before. It is called a Terebra.

 

 

 

 

I was doing some castle research, reading a book called British Castles – by Charles Ashdown when I ran across the Terebra.

This is all Ashdown said about it:

The Terebra.— A machine based upon the classical terebra was also in use. It consisted of a heavy beam which could be rotated; the iron head being furnished with a spike of square section was inserted in a joint into which it bored its way, breaking up the surrounding stones and facilitating their removal.

So I did some more digging to try to get a better sense of what it was and how it looks. I did find a few pictures. A couple of which I have put here in this blogpost.

 

 

 

 

This second picture is in German and the literal translation of its name is “Wall driller” which is apt.

It is an interesting siege engine because most engines rely on brute force to simply destroy castle walls whereas the terebra is a bit more elegant in that it drills!

I don’t think they were used very often, if at all. It seems to me you have to get awfully close to a curtain wall or a castle wall to use it. And this leaves you vulnerable to archers for an extended period of time.

But my understanding here is that the point isn’t to drill through the stone of the castle but to drill through the mortar between the stones which seems more feasible. A series of holes drilled in the mortar would weaken the wall making it more vulnerable to brute attacks by other siege engines.

Anyhoo, It is an interesting word and an interesting, relatively unknown, type of siege engine.

About the Book

The book I was reading is called British Castles – By Charles Ashdown  and it is in the public domain. I have it as a free download in ebook and kindle format on my website here:

Free ebooks about Castles