{"id":1790,"date":"2011-06-04T22:36:33","date_gmt":"2011-06-04T13:36:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2011-06-04\/1790"},"modified":"2011-06-04T22:36:33","modified_gmt":"2011-06-04T13:36:33","slug":"not-meant-to-be-trying-my-hand-at-metalsmithing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2011-06-04\/1790","title":{"rendered":"Not Meant to Be: Trying My Hand At Metalsmithing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\nNOTE<\/b>: 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.\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 85mm f\/1.4 — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>125 sec, f<\/span>\/1.4, ISO 3200 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nme\nRuining a Perfectly<\/span> Good Piece of Steel<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

During our visit to Pierre Nadeau's smithy<\/a> in\nthe middle of nowhere of Japan's Wakayama Prefecture, Pierre let me have a\ngo<\/span> at smithing. He normally<\/span> makes Japanese swords, but set the bar a little<\/span>\nlower for my first try.<\/p>\n\n

He grabbed a length of #3 rebar, which is round with pronounced ridges\nall along, and told me to square it. The instructions<\/span> were as simple as the\ntask: put the part you'll work on into the center of the forge and turn on\nthe forge blower. Once the thing is red hot (but before it gets white hot),\ntake it out, hold it at 90° to the anvil, and pound for all you're\nworth until it cools. Then repeat.<\/p>\n\n

Once I said I understood, he said “okay, call me when you're done”, then\nhe went off to work on the cold forging I posted<\/span>\nabout<\/a> last month.<\/p>\n\n

Zak kindly took photos with my camera.<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 85mm f\/1.4 — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>200 sec, f<\/span>\/1.4, ISO 200 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nGetting Fired up<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 85mm f\/1.4 — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>125 sec, f<\/span>\/1.4, ISO 1000 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nLots of Pounding<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 85mm f\/1.4 — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>125 sec, f<\/span>\/1.4, ISO 2000 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nMore Heat<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 85mm f\/1.4 cropped — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>125 sec, f<\/span>\/1.4, ISO 900 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nMore Pounding<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

I'd like to say that I was a smashing success, but I was<\/span> pathetic. I'd pull the<\/span> glowing bar from the fire and start pounding it flat on top, only\nto see it inexplicably deform to the side. Inexplicably<\/i>. You can't\nexplain that. So, I'd turn it<\/span> on its side to pound out the deformation,\nonly to see it deform further, in all three dimensions and perhaps a few<\/span> I\ncan't<\/span> number. Trying to get the steel to act the way it was supposed to was\nlike trying to herd cats, while blind. In a downpour<\/span>. At night.<\/p>\n\n

“How hard can it be?” I kept<\/span> thinking, believing that I'd eventually get\nthe hang of it. To his credit<\/span>, Pierre refrained from laughing at me, mostly.<\/p>\n\n

Furthermore, I now understood<\/span> why Pierre had given me a choice<\/span> between a\nlight<\/span> hammer and a lighter<\/span> hammer. I scoffed<\/span> at them both, taking the\nheavier of the two. It was very<\/span> light, and I could<\/span> swing deftly without the\nslightest bit of effort. At least<\/span> at the beginning. My right<\/span> arm was\nscreaming a different<\/span> tune after hundreds of swings. Of course, I kept a<\/span>\nnonchalant tough-man attitude that I'm sure was most convincing.<\/p>\n\n

In the end I should have had a nice square rod ending with a curved<\/span>\nhook, but I ended<\/span> up with something with the general shape and appeal of a\nsnake<\/span> that had been run over on the highway.<\/p>\n\n

In private shame I laid down the hammer and the newly-minted junk I had<\/span> just\ncrafted, and retrieved my camera from Zak....<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 14-24mm f\/2.8 @ 14mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>50 sec, f<\/span>\/2.8, ISO 640 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nNow Haunted<\/span>\nby my stunning display of ineptitude\n<\/div>\n\n

While I was there, I took this<\/span> shot of the automatic-pounder thing that\nI'd mentioned in the earlier posts, from the user's perspective. It was very<\/span> dark, all the more because of the strongly-backlit situation, but\nafter futzing around with it in Lightroom, I end up<\/span> with a gritty<\/span>\nindustrial feeling that seems appropriate to a 100<\/span>-year-old smithy...<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 14-24mm f\/2.8 @ 14mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>50 sec, f<\/span>\/2.8, ISO 250 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During our visit to Pierre Nadeau's smithy in the middle of nowhere of Japan's Wakayama Prefecture, Pierre let me have a go at smithing. He normally makes Japanese swords, but set the bar a little lower for my first try.<\/p>

He grabbed a length of #3 rebar, which is round with pronounced ridges all along, and told me to square it. The instructions were as simple as the task: put the part you'll work on into the center of the forge and turn on the forge blower. Once the thing is red hot (but before it gets white hot), take [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1790"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1790\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}