A Little Cold-Forging Metal Work
NOTE: Images with an icon next to them have been artificially shrunk to better fit your screen; click the icon to restore them, in place, to their regular size.
Cold -- Aridagawa, Wakayama, Japan -- Copyright 2011 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/800 sec, f/2.5, ISO 6400 — map & image datanearby photos
Cold

This weekend I had great adventure in a visit to a Japanese swordsmith, about which I'll write soon. One side event was that the swordsmith, who normally works with 1,000-degree metals, was also visited at the same time by a cold-forging metal smith, and the two traded notes and techniques of their vaguely-related crafts.

Pewter Blanks about the diameter of a US quarter -- Aridagawa, Wakayama, Japan -- Copyright 2011 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/200 sec, f/2.5, ISO 720 — map & image datanearby photos
Pewter Blanks
about the diameter of a US quarter
Progress So Far after a lot of hammering -- Aridagawa, Wakayama, Japan -- Copyright 2011 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/200 sec, f/2.5, ISO 1000 — map & image datanearby photos
Progress So Far
after a lot of hammering

The swordsmith is used to hammering, but not to touching what he's hammering with his bare hands (because it's normally glowing red hot).

Smoothing Some Ridges -- Aridagawa, Wakayama, Japan -- Copyright 2011 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/320 sec, f/2.5, ISO 1800 — map & image datanearby photos
Smoothing Some Ridges
Taking a Break -- Aridagawa, Wakayama, Japan -- Copyright 2011 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 1/200 sec, f/1.4, ISO 450 — map & image datanearby photos
Taking a Break

An hour and a half later....

Rough Shaping Begins -- Aridagawa, Wakayama, Japan -- Copyright 2011 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/200 sec, f/2.5, ISO 1400 — map & image datanearby photos
Rough Shaping Begins
Working the Edge -- Aridagawa, Wakayama, Japan -- Copyright 2011 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/200 sec, f/2.5, ISO 1250 — map & image datanearby photos
Working the Edge
Inspection by the Master -- Aridagawa, Wakayama, Japan -- Copyright 2011 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/200 sec, f/2.5, ISO 2000 — map & image datanearby photos
Inspection by the Master
“Heh, This is Harder Than it Looks” ( I don't recall what he was really saying, but that's what I see in his smile ) -- Aridagawa, Wakayama, Japan -- Copyright 2011 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/200 sec, f/2.5, ISO 1250 — map & image datanearby photos
“Heh, This is Harder Than it Looks”
( I don't recall what he was really saying, but that's what I see in his smile )
A Little More Instruction -- Aridagawa, Wakayama, Japan -- Copyright 2011 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/200 sec, f/2.5, ISO 2800 — map & image datanearby photos
A Little More Instruction
More-Refined Shaping? -- Aridagawa, Wakayama, Japan -- Copyright 2011 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/200 sec, f/2.5, ISO 1400 — map & image datanearby photos
More-Refined Shaping?

This is, of course, the answer to the “What am I?” Quiz that will stump you from the other day.

Most of the products that the metalworker makes would not fit directly into any of these curves, so I'm not 100% sure on what they're for, other than some level of shaping. It's interesting to note that they're not used for the basic shape, but rather, that's done by many light taps at the edge of the wood.


One comment so far...

Greetings from California,

I like your black and white at the beginning of this post. For not a photo blog, your photography is improving all the time. Keep up the good work.

— comment by Joseph on May 11th, 2011 at 4:03am JST (12 years, 11 months ago) comment permalink
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