Blacksmith
Bangladesh
Using arm-power to pummel the hot iron, and boy-power to squeeze the bellows fueling the fire, this blacksmith shop in Bangladesh turns out sickles and knives and farm implements.
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Using arm-power to pummel the hot iron, and boy-power to squeeze the bellows fueling the fire, this blacksmith shop in Bangladesh turns out sickles and knives and farm implements.
Share your story
mark writes:
He's drawing down a sickle blade. At this heat (which the smith knows from the colour of the hot metal) the steel is soft enough (but still bloody stiff if he's useing carbon steel scrap, such as a piece of broken car-leaf-spring) that he can squash and spread the metal with his hammer, thinning it out progressivly to the edge. (He'll finished it with a stone when cold.) The thinning also makes it wider, so this is also a good thing to do to worn sickle instead of wasting the blade. He'll just grind a new bevel. This may be the case here as the tool appears to already have a stem & handle. Also, if, on his final heat he continues to hammer the metal till it is fairly cool, he will pack the grain structure producing a denser, longer lasting edge.
The elongated hammer with an off-centre handle is very similar to those used by smiths making cutlery in the west; it's quite ergonomic. He's using a bit of railroad track for an anvil (manganese steel-work hardens as he uses it.) The other anvil/stake has a great many uses but I suspect that this line of enquiry might become quite tedious to a non-smith.....
[Not at all. Keep going. -- KK]