Documentation

Visit traditional blacksmithing

While forging is increasingly popular today, traditional blacksmithing is the ironworking method that is closest to the ancestral method, and the most artisanal.

Le Forgeron, by The French Canadian Genealogist

Blacksmithing was one of the seven main metalworking professions in New France, the others being locksmithing, boilermaking, tinsmithing, gunsmithing, tailoring and harquebusier.

Forge bellows and their repair, by Jacques Benmussa

The blacksmith has mastered complete from start to finish, he also makes and repairs his own tools according to the needs of his production. With the simplest of means: planks and a skin, he stokes the embers to temperatures that can melt or work the iron.

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 read that African tribes forged iron in their own skilful way.

Forged rifle barrels, by Jacques Benmussa

Manufacturing methods varied from one shop to another, depending on the experience of the smiths and the tools available. In some cases, it took sixty chaudes and three hours to forge an infantry rifle barrel; it took thirty chaudes to forge a musket rifle barrel (shorter) and one hour and forty-five minutes of labor.

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