The traditional blacksmithing

The traditional blacksmithing

Although forging is nowadays more and more practiced and popularized, traditional blacksmithing is the method of working iron that is the closest to the ancestral method, and the most artisanal. 

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Le Forgeron, by The French Canadian Genealogist

The blacksmith was one of the seven main metalworking professions in New France, the others being locksmith, boilermaker, tinsmith, gunsmith, carpenter and harquebusier.

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Forge bellows and their repair, by Jacques Benmussa

Forge bellows and their repair, by Jacques Benmussa

The blacksmith has the mastery complete the object from start to finish, he also makes and repairs his own tools according to the needs of his production. With very simple means: boards and a skin, he stirs up embers that reach temperatures that allow the iron to be melted or worked.

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African blacksmiths

Many African peoples worked metal in their own way, even before the arrival of European settlers. In this anthropological excerpt from 1872, we can read that African tribes were forging iron in their own way, very skillfully.

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Forged rifle barrels, by Jacques Benmussa

The methods of manufacture varied from one shop to another according to the experience of the smiths and the tools available. In some cases it took sixty hot and three hours to forge an infantry rifle barrel; it took thirty hot to forge a musket rifle barrel (shorter) and one hour and forty-five minutes of labour.

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