Rural Blacksmith

Winter Snow on the Blacksmith Shop.

2011-12-15T13:29:00.000-05:00

Winter is here in Central New York as we head into the Holiday Season.

Warmest Holiday wishes from all of us at the Peleg Fields Blacksmith Shop!

Candlelight Evening at the Blacksmith Shop - 2011

2011-12-08T16:00:00.003-05:00

Our busiest night of the year is Candlelight Evening, Saturday Dec. 10th, 2011. Thousands of candles and several bonfires will light up our grounds at this yearly event.

Many visitors make a special trip for this event each year. It is the only chance to experience the whole Museum after dark! The Museum opens at 3pm and closes at 7pm.

It will be a busy night in the Peleg Field Blacksmith Shop. We will have 6 blacksmiths working in the shop Saturday night.

Our projects will include making large door hinges and forging a large cross pein sledge-hammer head. It should be a good night with lots of big iron being heated in the fire and worked at the anvil.

If you come to Candlelight Evening swing through the shop and say hello. We may not be able to talk long as we will have a lot of irons in the fire! Come enjoy the candlelight, firelight, and hot mulled cider! Best wishes for a Happy Holiday from all of us in the Blacksmith Shop.

Blacksmith Tool Making: Forging a Flatter.

2011-11-23T12:00:00.007-05:00

One of the more unusual tools used in Blacksmithing is the Flatter. It looks like a strange square hammer, but is really a tool that is held on the iron and struck with a hammer. It is used to smooth out bumps and hammer marks from the finished iron.

This is a difficult tool to forge due to the huge difference in size between the square working face and the body of the tool. They could be made by forging from one piece or by forge welding two pieces together. We made one by forging it from one piece. Blacksmith Eric is shown in these pictures.

The starting size was a bar 1.25 inches in diameter. That was upset while hot until it reached 2.25 inches in diameter. That requires the difficult and repetitive work of upsetting.

The body of the flatter then needs shaping. The hammer hole is hot punched through the body.

The tool is hot filed to get closer to the finished shape. After it has cooled it can be filed to the finished shize and shape.

The flatter will be cleaned up, get a wooden handle, and be put into use.

Tool Making: Forging a Tobacco Spear

2011-11-10T12:00:00.006-05:00

At the Peleg Field Blacksmith shop we get to make or repair a lot of tools. This year the Lippitt farm experimented with Tobacco, a crop once common from Conneticut through New York and the Genesee reigion.

What is a tobacco Spear? It is a removable point put on a sawn piece of lathe. It allows you to harvest the tobacco by drying it on a stick hanging from the rafters. The point is threaded through the heavy stalk the and plants are hung to dry on the lathe.

How was it made? The hollow socket is made by cutting 16 gauge sheet metal to match our template. It is folded hot into a flattened cone-shaped tube. The edges overlap and will be forge welded.

Forge welding a hollow object presents some difficulties. How can you hit it to weld without crushing it? We made a mandrel that fits inside the socket and holds it while welding. That worked fairly well.

Socket and point parts.

The socket is fluxed and forge welded. Then the point, which is forged from solid bar, is inserted into the socket and that is forge welded into place.

Welding the point

The finished Tobacco Spear was sent down to the farm and was used in our harvest.

First Snow at The Farmers' Museum, Fall 2011

2011-10-28T09:43:00.000-04:00

In the Leatherstocking Region it isn't unusual to get the first snow before Halloween. Our first good snowfall was the evening of Oct. 27th. The morning of Oct. 28th dawned clear and snowcovered.

The Empire State Carousel looks smart decked out in snow and still flanked by fall foliage!

It looks frosty in the Historic Village today.

The Lippitt Farmstead has a blanket of white.

Buck and Bright are out in the snow, and are complaining that they haven't gotten their morning hay yet!

The First Snow makes for a pretty day at The Farmers' Museum. Most of this snow will be gone by the end of the day. It is just a taste of what is still to come.

Making Hammer Handles - Splitting out the wood.

2011-10-24T09:51:00.000-04:00

In the traditional Blacksmith shop at The Farmers’ Museum we make and repair tools as needed. Several times a year we need to make a new ash hammer handle. We have discussed in the past how a Froe is used to split out the billets of wood to make the handles. Then we use the drawknife and Shaving Horse to shape the handle. But where to we get the billets of wood to start with? They don’t look like modern lumber.

We are fortunate to have many acres of forest as part of our farm. This fall both Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee brought high winds to our area this fall (2011). Several mature Ash trees were uprooted in the woods. As the damage is cleared we put aside some logs to make tool handles and other things. One foot, two foot, and three foot sections went in the shed to make hammer and sledgehammer handles.

Using an axe, a sledge and wedges, and a mallet and froe we split up the wood into billets to dry for future tool handles. First the logs were split into halves, then quarters, then eighths. Sap and heart wood is split off if it looks weak. Knotty pieces not good for handles go into the kindling pile.

The Froe is used to split off the bark and wet cambium layer. The resulting billets are sqaure or keystone shaped in cross section. This will let the handle billets dry evenly and be less likely to check.

Some may be used for hammers. Other to make chisel, screwdriver, or file handles. It is good to have a stockpile against future need.

Blacksmith's Coal: Filling the Coal Bin for another year!

2011-09-19T09:44:00.000-04:00

Each year our shop uses about two tons of bituminous coal. Our fires are burning in the forge seven days a week for half the year, and are busy throughout the winter months as well. Each fall it is our chore to refill the coal bunker. It is a woeful site to see an empty coal bin! You can see the line from the coal when full on the bricks of the upper right side of the coal bunker.

The Fields Blacksmith Shop coal bunker built into the hill behind the shop. It is like a stone and brick tunnel that goes 14 feet into the hillside underground. There is no way to put coal into it from the outside. All the coal is hauled through the shop and into the bin using a wheelbarrow.

The coal to fill the bin is waiting outside the shop. We shovel a wheelbarrow full of coal and wheel it through the shop. Weave it around the anvil and tools then push it up a ramp. Keep pushing hard as it plows through the coal and stop when you reach the back wall. Pull one of the removable sides off the wheelbarrow and dump it sideways. As the coal piles up the roof is too low to dump the barrow forward!

Keep loading and pushing the wheelbarrow. It takes 15 shovel loads to fill the wheelbarrow. Each load make a small difference in the pile. It may take around 100 loads to get it all in. Here is what the pile looks like after 35 loads have been taken into the coal bin. We are making progress! Only 65 more trips!

After bringing in 5 wheelbarrow loads a shovel is used to level the pile in the bunker. You have to make a path for the wheelbarrow to drive up the coal to dump the next 5 loads! Keep piling it up until the wheelbarrow won’t fit over the coal and starts hitting the roof. Then keep filling in front of the pile until the coal bin is full.

It is a long and steady job to fill the coal bin for the next year. It usually take us about two weeks. We try to do at least an hour of moving coal each morning. It is better to move the coal in a light rain, as then the damp coal doesn’t make any dust. It isn’t much fun loading coal in a cold September drizzle. Hopefully we will get it done before October. At least when it is done the coal will be stored accessible from inside the shop and dry. We won't have to go outside in the winter and shovel a path through the snow to get some coal!

Coal is something that warms you twice. You are warmed once when you move it and again when you burn it! If you visit the Fields Blacksmith Shop you can see for yourself how much progress we have made, and how much is in our coal bin.

For the want of a little forged hook - Making Hardware at the Blacksmith Shop.

2011-08-10T11:13:00.000-04:00

Our Blacksmith shop has played a restoration and repair role within The Farmers’ Museum since 1946.

We never know what project will come in next for repair or what will need to be made. One of the smallest jobs this July was a request from the Farmers for a small hook. It proved to be a small job with an important effect!

The Farmers came to the shop and said,

“We need a little forged hook.”

I asked, “Why to you need a hook?”

They replied, “To hold a string.”

I wondered, “Why do you need to hold the string?”

They replied, “To hold the door.”

I asked, “What door?”

They replied, “The Brooder House door."

"What does the Brooder House do?"

“It holds the hen that sits on the eggs.”

So it turns out they needed a hook to hold the string,

They needed the string to hold the door,

the door to that closes the Brooder House,

the Brooder House that holds the hen,

the hen that sits on the eggs,

the eggs to hatch eleven chicks!

Which the little hen did!

So indirectly my little hook led to there being eleven new Dominick chicks at The Farmers’ Museum! Little things like forged hooks and unhatched eggs can have big results.

Introduction to Engraving Steel - Classes coming in August and October 2011!

2011-07-31T11:35:00.000-04:00

We teach a wide variety of classes in traditional craft at The Farmers' Museum. I am particularly proud to offer a new class on engraving steel using traditional hand tools. The instructor is Paul Spaulding, Master Blacksmith and the engraver of our Scottish Pistol Project. He will guide students through the theory and methods of engraving steel. Each class will have a maximum of 6 students. All will have a full set of tools provided to practice engraving.

The Introduction to Engraving Steel with Hand Tools is a two day class. The cost is $150 for a two day class with group and individual tutorials. It is offered August 6th and 7th, as well as October 8th and 9th. The August class has openings. For more information or to enroll call The Farmers' Museum at 607-547-1461.

Students will learn tips on how to design and lay out projects, and the basic methods of using a hand engraver and hammer to engrave steel. Attention will also be spent on how to choose the type of engraving chisel for the work as well as how to sharpen, hold, and use the engravers.

You are not likely to have mastered engraving by the end of the course but will have a firm foundation to begin practicing on your own. If you have an urge to try your hand at engraving steel using simple traditional tools this may be the place to start!

Making Tools for the Anvil: Bottom Swage

2011-03-24T14:24:00.000-04:00

One of the pleasures of blacksmithing is the ability to make new tools as needed. We needed some bottom swages for use in the anvil to complete a current project. We made them as needed. This is just one way to make them, as it suited the tools available in our traditional shop.

Start with a piece of steel with enough mass for the tools. In this case we used a piece of steel cut from a hammer head. Square it to the desired size and start the job.

Any tool used in the anvil needs a square stem to hold it in place in the square Hardy hole of the anvil. We achieved this by fullering the piece down to the desired size using a handled fuller, a striker with a sledge hammer, and the anvil.

Fullering the hardy stem:

Here you can see we have the hardy stem well formed:

Once the hardy stem is done, it is time to shape the working end. The face of the tool is taken to a forging heat, placed in the hardy hole, and the appropriate sized groove sunk into the face by driving a tool into the hot steel.

Sinking the die impression:

We cleaned up the forged die with a rasp (file) while it was still hot.:

Then we examined the die for problems or areas that need more work:

Here is the finished die and one of the collar pieces it was created to shape:

Some projects require making more tools than others. Our ongoing weathervane project has led to the making of custom tongs and two sizes of bottom swage tools for the anvil. Now that we have these tools, it expands the options of tools that can be used for future projects.

Old Anvils

2011-02-01T14:00:00.003-05:00

The 1827 Peleg Field Blacksmith Shop is lucky to be so well-equipped with anvils. They are the fundamental, cornerstone tool of the shop.

Our oldest anvil is probably much like one that Mr. Peleg Field would have seen and used during his apprenticeship in the 1780’s. It is an English pattern “5^th foot” anvil. That nickname comes from that fact that it has 5 feet, not 4! Chunky and squat, this style of anvil was made by teams of trained smiths working to forge the anvil from up to 11 pieces of wrought iron and then forge welding a steel plate onto the face. While often only around 120lbs, this would have been a blacksmith shop primary anvil in the 19^th century. This style with the 5^th foot harkens back to features found on anvils in the 17^th and even 16^th centuries.

This Vulcan Works anvil from Sheffield is a transitional anvil (below). Probably made in the late 18^th or first third of the 19^th century, it bridges the gap between the small and squat older style and the larger and longer London or American Pattern. This anvil still has the small horn of the earlier style but also has the thinner heel of the London Pattern.

The Peter Wright anvil below was made in London, England in the mid-19^th century. It is the shape that most people recognize in the United States as a modern anvil. It is around 155lbs. The larger horn and long thin heel of the anvil face makes this a versatile tool. This is the anvil we use at the front forge in the Field Blacksmith shop.

At the back forge is a larger anvil made in the same style as the Peter Wright at the front forge. Larger than the previous anvil, it is around 180lbs. You can feel the benefit of that extra mass when using it. It provides a very solid surface for larger work like hinges and wagon parts.

Anvils were such common tools in daily life and last such a long time, that there is a surprising amount of diversity among old anvils. Unlike other items that are 150 to 300 years old, anvils are generally considered tools rather than antiques. With good care, these anvils will be in use as we work and demonstrate to the public for decades to come.

The Weathervane Project, Part II: Forging diamonds.

2011-01-24T11:00:00.000-05:00

Our Weathervane Project has several different shapes as part of the design. C-scrolls, tulips, and diamonds are repeated themes. Let’s look at how the diamond forms are created at the forge.

They are formed from low-carbon steel bar that is ¼” by 2” by about 5” long. The first 3" will be used to form the diamond shape and the rest formed into the tail approximately 5/8" thick and 2.5" long.

The diamond shape is forged out of the bar over the edge of the anvil. This takes several heats and goes faster with assistance from a striker with a sledge hammer. This one is half done:

The finished diamond then is forge-welded to the crossbar. That is done by two smiths working together to hold and weld the pieces together into a finished bar.

The welded bar is quenched in water and cleaned up.

The diamond is then framed by two scrolls to create a form of a Fleur De Lise. This one doesn't have the final collar yet but is still quite striking in silhouette.

Happy Holidays 2010

2010-12-28T13:49:00.000-05:00

As we head through December toward the New Year snow has been falling and the days are getting shorter and darker. The wood stove in the Blacksmith shop makes a cheerful smoke plume in the morning.

Each day we light the wood stove and also the coal forge. Here the coal fire is just starting to burn well.

Happy Holidays and best wishes for a safe, happy, and prosperous New Year!

Weathervane Project: Part I

2010-12-15T10:57:00.000-05:00

The Peleg Field Blacksmith Shop at The Farmers’ Museum is building a Weathervane. This isn’t our first weathervane project, but it will be the largest and most detailed. A Weathervane made in the Field shop sits atop our own roof! The weathervane features a running horse of copper held by a forged steel armature. With a flowing mane and tail held high, it is a good mascot for our shop. This weathervane is not an artifact from the past. It was made in the last decade by a highly skilled Blacksmith and volunteer at our shop.

An ongoing project has been to make a Weathervane based upon the original on the New York State Historical Association Research Library. The NYSHA weathervane was made in the late 1960’s. Its signature element is the beautiful copper quill that is the vane. The quill is all made of worked brass and copper. It shows a masterful touch with detail.

At the Peleg Field shop we have been working on a reproduction of the NYSHA weathervane. It is a formidable task due to the detail and size of the project. As the project continues we will have more installments on the Weathervane Project!

Weathervanes were a specialized item made by skilled craftspeople. If you appreciate the artistry and whimsy present in weathervanes then check out the blog from our sister institution, the Fenimore Art Museum. There are some amazing weathervanes shown in discussions on American Folk Art.

“T’was the Night before Christmas” –Making Christmas in the 19th Century.

2010-12-02T13:55:00.002-05:00

The Farmers' Museum reopens to the public on Saturday, December 11th for Candlelight Evening. Since we are preparing to celebrate the season in 19th century style, I thought it would be appropriate to revisit the poem that helped to define Christmas as an American secular holiday.

Clemet Clark Moore was a scholar, a published author of literary translation, and a poet. He seems to have been a serious and scholarly man of wealth, privilege, and influence. It is intriguing that this man of gravitas and serious mein is attributed the poem that helped solidify and define the American Christmas tradition of the 19th century.

A Visit from St. Nicholas

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro' the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar plums danc'd in their heads,

And Mama in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap —
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.

Away to the window I flew like a flash,

Tore open the shutters, and threw up the sash.

The moon on the breast of the new fallen snow,

Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below;

When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,

But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny rein-deer,

With a little old driver, so lively and quick,

I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.

More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,

And he whistled, and shouted, and call'd them by name:

"Now! Dasher, now! Dancer, now! Prancer and Vixen,
"On! Comet, on! Cupid, on! Donder and Blitzen;
"To the top of the porch! To the top of the wall!
"Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!"

As dry leaves before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of toys — and St. Nicholas too:

And then in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.

As I drew in my head, and was turning around,

Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound:

He was dress'd all in fur, from his head to his foot,

And his clothes were all tarnish'd with ashes and soot;

A bundle of toys was flung on his back,

And he look'd like a peddler just opening his pack:

His eyes — how they twinkled! His dimples: how merry,

His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry;

His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,

And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face, and a little round belly
That shook when he laugh'd, like a bowl full of jelly:

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laugh'd when I saw him in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,

And fill'd all the stockings; then turn'd with a jerk,

And laying his finger aside of his nose

And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose.

He sprung to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,

And away they all flew, like the down of a thistle:

But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight
Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

—Clement Clark Moore

The poem was first published in 1823 in The Sentinel newspaper of Troy, NY, and was immensely popular by 1845. There was even debate over whether Moore was really the author. That stems in part from the initial publishing being done anonymously. Moore included the poem in an anthology of his work published in 1844.

The light and cheerful poem is quite different from his more scholarly and serious writing. He noted that it was written for his children, and only published at their insistence. Not only does this poem provide a glimpse into the development of American conceptions of Christmas as a secular holiday, but also an unexpected glimpse into the home life of a scholarly and private 19th century gentleman.

Warm holiday wishes from all of us at The Farmers' Museum.

Mending Farm Tools at the Blacksmith Shop

2010-11-23T12:19:00.000-05:00

Every tool that is used at the Lippitt Farmstead can wear and need mending. Some of the agricultural tools used with our horse and oxen at The Farmers' Museum have been in use since James K. Polk was President! At the Peleg Field's Blacksmith Shop, we use the same traditional metalworking methods to repair the farm equipment as was used in their original construction.

Recently, the seed roller was brought to the shop by our ox team Jigs and Buckwheat. It had a broken metal bracket. We removed the bracket and began repairs.

The broken bracket had new steel forge-welded in place. Then the bolt holes were punched, and the bracket bent to the proper shape. That should be as good as new!

Horse drawn farm equipment often had parts that deteriorated throug use and were designed to be replaced. Unfortunately for us, sometimes the company that made the replacement part has been out of business for a century! We can usually figure out how to make the needed part at the Blacksmith Shop. Over the course of a year we have done major repairs on the plow and the seed roller, and smaller repairs on the spring tooth harrow, ox cart, and ox yoke. This illustrates to us how necessary the Blacksmith would have been to a farmer in the 19th century.

Draft Power: Fall work for the oxen.

2010-11-15T11:30:00.001-05:00

Fall is a busy season for the farmers at The Farmers’ Museum. The last of the late summer crops are cleaned up and cleared from the fields. Our draft animals get used for a wide variety of work. Cutting corn stalks and hauling crops to the barn for the winter is one large job.

Oxen hauling corn:

Our oxen have also been busy hauling other crops. They have hauled the fall pumpkin and mangle wetzel (fodder beets) to the barn for winter cattle feed. The oxen also played a major part in our Tractor Festival in October to haul oats from the barn to the threshing machine, and then take the straw and cleaned oats back to the barn.

Oxen hauling oats:

Another essential task is to clean up the fields, plant fall crops, and prepare for the future. The ground in the fields needs to be plowed and harrowed to prepare for the next spring’s growing season. These activities plow under and composts crop stubble and prepare the soil for the next crop. Jigs and Buckwheat (the oxen) have pulled the plow and the harrow to condition the soil and make a smooth seedbed.

This fall our main field is planted to winter wheat. This hardy crop sprouts quickly in the fall and develops strong roots before the arrival of winter snow. It stays alive but dormant through the winter.

In the spring ,when the snow melts, these winter cover crops grow quickly. They can be grown to full harvest before any other crop is ready. The oxen will be used then to haul shocks of wheat in from the field, and to again plow the field for the next crop.

Jigs and Buckwheat at Field's Blacksmith Shop:

Jigs and Buckwheat have been put to hard work this fall. They are now fully grown, and are learning to do real work. They have plowed, harrowed, and rolled the fields and have done their duty hauling crops to the barn. You could say they have been pulling their own weight around the farm! Our next blog will look at the repairs we have done to the farm equipment at The Farmers' Museum in Field's Blacksmith Shop!

A Blacksmithing Conference: The SOFA Quad-State Roundup!

2010-11-09T09:24:00.001-05:00

Where do blacksmiths go on vacation? To a blacksmith’s conference of course! The largest annual Blacksmithing conference in the U.S. is held in late September each year by the Southern Ohio Forge and Anvil blacksmithing group. The conference is call the Quad-State Roundup, and is held at the Miami County Fairgrounds in Troy, Ohio.

One of the attractions to the event is the sale of new and old tools. Hundreds of blacksmiths and tool collectors bring items to sell off the tailgate of their trucks or trailers. There were more old anvils, old tools, and new blacksmithing tools in one place than I had ever seen before.

The blacksmithing demonstrations are the heart of this event. Each year it has four presenters demonstrating traditional ironworking, bladesmithing, architectural ironwork, and artistic smithing. Each year there are different demonstrators doing work of the highest quality. The 2010 Demonstrators were Marsha Nelson, J.W. Randall, Caleb Kullman, and Whitney Potter.

Caleb Kullman Demonstrating:

This year the SOFA organization dedicated a new stone and brick forge in the Traditional Blacksmithing building. The featured demonstrator was Marsha Nelson, a very talented blacksmith from Kentucky. The Farmers’ Museum is very proud to say that she is an alumna of our shop and worked with Master Smith Paul Spaulding in the early 1980s. Here is Marsha, the first demonstrator to use the newly dedicated forge:

Marsha’s demonstration guided the watchers through the making of forged cooking utensils. Spatulas, forks with flow-in brass ornamentation, and ladles were demonstrated. She was a very popular demonstrator, and the three sets of bleacher in the workshop were often full.

Marsha demonstrated forging a cooking fork:

She brought to the demonstration a piece made during her time at The Farmers' Museum, complete with our shop touchmark:

Skimmer with beautiful pierced brass bowl:

Spatula with flow-in brass ornamentation:

The conference never seems long enough to see everything. In addition to the tailgate sales and the wonderfully organized blacksmithing demonstrations, the conference is a place of great comraderie among smiths. I renewed old friendships and met a lot of people.

My thanks to the Southern Ohio Forge and Anvil and the dozens of volunteers that make the Quad State Roundup such a wonderful yearly event.

2010 Tractor Festival at The Farmers' Museum

2010-11-02T14:05:00.001-04:00

Columbus Day Weekend of 2010 saw a new event at The Farmers’ Museum. For almost 70 years our Museum has been preserving and demonstrating aspects of farm life in the 19th century. But now the 20th century is also part of our nation’s history. The new Tractor Festival showcases the tools, methods, and equipment used in the last century on American farms.

The day dawned frosty and cold. Columbus Day happened to fall on 10/10/2010!

Our Farmers outdid themselves. Oxen Jigs and Buckwheat hauled tons of oats from the barn to the thresher. The day could not have been more beautiful.

The Rumsey Williams wooden threshing machine was made in nearby St. Johnsville. For several hours each day the Farm staff and volunteers threshed oats from the straw. The oats were bagged for animal feed and the straw returned to the barn.

Dozens of volunteers brought their restored classics and working modern tractors and farm machines. There were too many to show them all here, but they ranged from machines made in the 1930s to the present.

A John Deere was present with a restored two-row corn picker! This machine attached all around the tractor and allowed it to pick field corn from stalks standing in the field! These were complex machines, and now are replaced by combines and corn choppers. It was great to see an example of this tool survive.

The largest tractor was a the local Cooperstown Holstein Corporation's John Deere with grain wagon. It was almost as big as our Farmhouse!

Tractor Festival will be an annual event. Be sure to join us on Columbus Day Weekend 2011 (October 8 and 9) for an even more exciting event.

The Scottish Pistol Project: Part V – Engraving the Stock.

2010-09-29T09:11:00.000-04:00

The Scottish Pistol Project continues!

Our research project to make a pistol in the style of the 1740 Pitcarn Pistol has continued through the summer of 2010. During the first year of summer Saturdays the team rediscovered how to make the hollow steel stock. The second year they forged, welded, and reamed the barrel. The third year they made the intricate parts of the lock mechanism. Finally, in the fourth summer of the project, they have been fitting, assembling, and engraving the components. Here are two pistols that have been filed smooth and white but are not yet engraved.

They are still a work in progress. The engraving is done by hand in the blacksmith shop using a chasing hammer to strike a tiny chisel called an engraving chisel. Here is the engraving on one side of the pistol.

Here is the detail of the engraving on the rams-horn butt of the the pistol grip. This work is exacting and slow.

This shows the engraving down the spine of the pistol grip. The piece is continuously curving which makes the engraving very difficult. As the angle of the metal changes, the angle of the engraving chisel must also continuously change.

The work on the pistol is continuing on Saturdays through the end of October 2010. If you visit The Farmers' Museum, come to the Blacksmith shop and see the techniques used in this project!

Cleaning in the Blacksmith Shop

2010-09-24T11:10:00.000-04:00

It was busy summer full of projects and visitors at Field's Blacksmith Shop. Now that fall is here, it is time to tackle the dirt and clutter that accumulated in the corners and the windowsills. A shop using coal forges has a lot of dust and grit. On most days our doors are wide open for the public to visit as well . That contributes to grit and leaves blowing into corners of the shop. It take some work to get it all cleaned out!

Our museum's maintenance department is very thorough at keeping our shop looking good. Over years of work, many parts of projects, scrap iron, and display pieces had accumulated on the flat surfaces in the shop. Recently, we sorted and stored several hundred pounds of tools, scraps, and half-completed projects that were cluttering the windowsills and corners. That provided room for the cleaners to get to our beautiful windows. Coal smoke and dust had given them a frosted glaze. The Maintenance crew gave the windows a thorough cleaning. The result was a startling improvement! I hadn’t realized the windows were that dirty.

A youth volunteer spent the morning of one day sorting and sizing the nails we made this summer. He neatly stacked them in the appropriate bin. Now we are ready to provide nails for internal building restoration projects and repairs.

The fall cleaning improved the working conditions in the Field's Blacksmith shop. Light is always at a premium in a historic shop. Now we have more elbow room and more light with which to see details of our work.

Fall is in the air at The Farmers' Museum.

2010-09-08T11:14:00.000-04:00

The summer of 2010 set a lot of heat records here in Cooperstown. July equaled past August records for the number of very hot days, and then August was even hotter. But now in the wake of Hurricane Earl a Canadian cold front has swept through town. The high temperature dropped from 97 to 67 in one day! Our staff are busy with all of the chores that need to be done before Fall fully arrives.

The end of summer tends to be right around Labor Day in this part of New York. The trees are turning to fall colors. Sunrise is coming late, and the shadows are still long as I roam the Museum grounds in the morning.

The hay and corn are turning from green to rich brown and grays as they dry in the fields. Our oxen have been putting on their winter coats even though the days were in the 90s! Autumn is coming regardless of the weather today.

Scottish Pistol Part IV: Lock Mechanism.

2010-09-02T10:42:00.000-04:00

The summer of 2009 was the 3rd year of our Scottish Pistol Masterpiece Project. The 4 smiths working on the project had completed a barrel the previous summer, with the finish work occurring over the winter. Now it was time to make the flintlock mechanism for the pistol.

The lock mechanism is both complex and finely fitted. Every part was forged from wrought iron bar or steel. For this style of pistol, the lock plate has a standard shape, but not a set size. The forged and filed lock plate is fitted precisely to the forged and filed stock. The internal parts of the mechanism are forged from iron bar and then filed to shape as well. Here are rough forgings for the springs.

The end result needs to fit so precisely that engraving can flow over the stock and right onto the lock plate as if it were only one piece of metal. The pivot points were located and drilled. Then work began on making all of the parts. Illustrations of how a flint lock mechanism works can be seen at here.

On the outside of the lock mechanism are the hammer, the pan, the frizzen, and the frizzen spring.

Another array of parts are located on the inside of the lock plate and are responsible for making the hammer fall when the trigger is pulled. The sear and sear spring connect the trigger to the hammer mechanism. The sear’s job is to prevent the hammer from being actuated until the trigger has been pulled. Once the sear is tripped, the mainspring throws the hammer and flint forward into the frizzen, and hopefully creates sparks that fire the powder in the pan and the main charge in the pistol.

Each of these parts has been forged from wrought iron or steel. The rough forging is shaped to the final size in a long, slow, painstaking process using files. Sometimes it isn’t clear how to best forge the piece. In that case several methods and multiple blanks are forged until one is close enough to create the final part.

Creating the lock for the pistol is a very challenging project. The shape of each part and the location of each mounting hole and each screw effects every other part. Changing the shape of a sear, hammer, or spring by 1/32th of an inch can make the difference between a pistol that fires and one that doesn’t. The Scottish Pistol Project has been an exciting chance to research and build a lock using the same materials and tools as the Gunsmiths in Doane, Scotland in 1740.

Traditional Hinges on Doors and Gates

2010-08-12T15:30:00.000-04:00

The repair and replacement of historic hardware is a steady part of our job at the Peleg Field Blacksmith Shop. When a garden gate needs new pintles to hold the hinges, or a barn hinge needs repair, we do what is needed. Here is a pictorial tour of some of the many kinds of hinges at The Farmers’ Museum.

Dimmick House gate with beveled barrel, self-closing pintle hinges.

The solid and workmanlike hinges on the Field Blacksmith Shop door.

Dr. Thrall’s Pharmacy Garden gate with a graceful pintle and gudgeon:

The Lippitt Farm Smokehouse door.

And the 4-hinge split door to the sheep pen in the Brooks Barn, with sheep!

As you can see, traditional hardware is alive and well at The Farmers’ Museum. It is not complicated to make, is easily maintained, and lasts for centuries. If the hardware on your garden gate should fail, don’t come unhinged! Fire up a forge and make some traditional pintles and gudgeons.

Scottish Pistol -Part III - Welding the barrel.

2010-08-02T16:35:00.000-04:00

Our Masterpiece Project from 2007 to the present (2010) is a long-term research project to rediscover the methods used to build an all iron and steel Scottish Pistol. The previous articles of the Scottish Pistol Project discussed the history of the Pitcarn Pistol, it’s role in our Revolutionary War, and the first challenges of making our pistol.

After completing the stock, the next challenge was to forge-weld a barrel for the pistol from wrought iron. The raw material was real wrought iron reclaimed from an old ox cart wheel's tire. Wrought iron forge-welds well at a high temperature, and is somewhat self-fluxing. The iron is taken to a high welding heat in the coal forge, fluxed, and then forge welded into a tube using the anvil and a swedge block. The logitudinal bending is started in a swage block or between the face and step of the anvil. About one hammer width is rolled at a time, trued up, and forge welded.

The wrought iron is welded into a tube with a small pilot hole down the center. After welding, a pass in the swage block helps to create a smooth, cylindrical barrel.

The next step is to turn the now round bar into a barrel. These pistols were smoothbore, so we don’t need to worry about rifling. The small pilot hole must be enlarged to make a finished bore. Our only “power tool” is a foot-treadle lathe. It isn’t able to generate the horsepower to drill out a .52 caliber bore. Instead we remove a small amount of metal at a time using reamers.

A succession of 6 or more reamers are used in the foot treadle lathe to turn the initial welded pilot hole into a round and true bore. This takes up to 45 minutes per pass and up to two days for the whole process. At the conclusion of the process the barrel has progressed from an irregular .30 caliber bore to reach our target bore diameter.

If there is no visible weld seam, the barrel may pass. A visible seam at this stage will condemn a barrel to display status. Here is one that failed inspection. Note the spiral line. That is not rifling, but rather is a flaw in the wrought iron. This barrel had internal flaws and slag inclusion in the iron. The only thing to do is to start over with another piece of iron and forge another barrel.

Here is the interior view of a barrel that passes inspection. Hurray!

Once a barrel has the desired interior bore, the work commences on the exterior! These pistol barrels are highly ornate. They are turned on the lathe to true the interior to the exterior. Then the round rings or “wedding bands” are turned. Much of the rest of the fluting, carving, and design is done with files and engraving chisels. It can take several days to complete the exterior of the barrel.

The next step is to carefully make the breech plug and to file the barrel to precisely fit into the forged stock. That has been done on the barrel above. Our next article on this project will discuss making the lock mechanism that will fire the pistol.

Scottish Pistol Project - Part II

2010-07-28T11:36:00.001-04:00

Field's Blacksmith shop is in the last quarter of a project to reproduce a traditional Scottish Pistol. You can read about the start of this project here. The task of the first summer of the project was to rediscover how the stock of the pistol was created. Hollow, and made of one piece of sheet iron, the secret of how the apprentices and master gunsmiths of Doanne, Scotland constructed this pistol, remains a secret. The Smiths leading the project researched and developed a pattern for the stock. It took a lot of trials and adjustments.

Here is an image of the pattern for the stock:

The stock, or frame, of this style of pistol is forged from one piece of flat steel. There is no wood in the pistol. This form of pistol frame involves bending, folding, and stretching a flat piece of steel to create a hollow 3-dimensional frame. The secret method of making this part would have been passed from master gunsmith to apprentice in the gunsmithing community of Doane, Scotland. Their method does not seem to have been leaked or written down, so we had to rediscover it by trial and error. This took a year of Saturdays and involved making over a dozen tools that would be needed to re-create the frame. The pattern was adjusted again and again until it yielded success.

This was particularly difficult due to the need to create both the pattern and the tools needed to shape this complex piece.

The next step is to file the stock smooth and begin the engraving. The engraving is laid out with a pencil or a scribe, and then is engraved into the steel. It is a precise job that requires patience and skill. It will take most of the Saturdays of 2010 to finish the engraving and the final fitting of the pistol.

This has been a long term project. We only work on it in the shop on Saturdays during the summer. We are now entering our 4th, and hopefully final, summer. The pistol frame is fully formed, filed, and is slowly being engraved. If you visit this on a Saturday this summer (2010) you will see the smiths at work finishing the engraving and final fitting for our Scottish Pistol Project!

Sharpening the Scythe by hammer and stone.

2010-07-19T15:00:00.000-04:00

The old saying tells the farmers to “make hay when the sun shines.” That isn’t a metaphor, it is job advice. Our farmers at The Farmers’ Museum harvest hay, winter rye, wheat, oats, and barley! All of those crops are harvested with a scythe. Cutting starts early in the morning with the dew on the grass which makes the hay heavy and easier to cut. The farmers take breaks for water and to sharpen the scythe. It makes for a long day in the sun , heat, and dust.

The working end of the scythe is a blade of hand hammered steel between 18 and 33 inches long. It is used with a curving, sweeping motion rather than a chopping motion. On a traditional farm, a scythe gets several weeks of use each year. They get dull in use, and need to be sharpened up to several times an hour.

The farmer reaping hay or grain would have to stop work in the field when the scythe gets dull. They stop several times per hour, throughout the day, for sharpening. That would often be done using a whetstone -- a cut piece of naturally abrasive stone that is used to hone the edge.

The blade periodically needs more than honing with the stone. It needs to be peened out to thin the edge. This achieves several things. It fills in any nicks and dents in the blade. It re-profiles the edge to a nice thin taper. Finally, it prepares the blade for a final honing to achieve a razor edge.

Here is Farmer Wayne peening the scythe blade in the blacksmith's shop.

This peening is done on a scythe anvil. This is a small, portable anvil that can be driven into the top of a stump or fencepost and be used in the field. These were used by farmers in many countries. The name for them in German is a “denglestock”, because the little anvil dangles from the farmer’s belt on a cord.

Scythe anvil:

The days were long and full for a farmer during harvest season. Cutting hay and grain was always done on sunny days to allow the grain or hay to dry. Their work was long and hot. The days were long and hot for the blacksmiths as well as we repaired the farmer's scythes, mended wagon wheels, and reshod their horses. The reward from long hours of reaping was a barn full of hay and grain. A full barn provides the promise of prosperity in the comming year.

Winter Rye:

The Scottish Pistol Project - Part I.

2010-07-15T09:12:00.001-04:00

The Peleg Field Blacksmith shop has undertaken a number of challenging projects over the years. Our current Masterpiece Project involves building a Scottish Pistol inspired by one that played a role in the American Revolutionary War. This project is to research and recreate the methods of building a Scottish all iron and steel pistol using methods accurate to the 18^th century.

Our project is inspired by the surviving pistols of British Marine Major John Pitcarn. He is the officer that ended up commanding the troops launching the raids on Lexington and Concord. Those are regarded as the first battles of our war for independence, and the first shot fired in anger is referred to as the “Shot heard around the world”. That shot was attributed by some as having been fired by Maj. Pitcarn from one of these pistols.

From a blacksmith’s perspective, this pistol presents several technical challenges. It is a muzzle loading, black powder flintlock type. The entire pistol, including the frame and stock, are made of iron and steel. The whole pistol is filed until it is smooth and white, and then is thoroughly engraved in detail.

Here is an image of the engraving process:

Our project to build a Scottish-style 1740’s pistol began in the summer of 2007 and is led by Master Smiths Paul Spaulding and Robert Cerny, with able assistance from smiths Robert Manker and Travis Edgington. They began by researching what is known about this style of pistol, making tools, and producing the major components. The major challenges were forming the stock, forge-welding the barrel, creating the flintlock mechanism, and performing the engraving. Future installments of this series will detail those challenges. Stay tuned for updates appearing occasionally until we have completed the Scottish pistol --lock, stock, and barrel!

Wrought Iron

2010-06-25T14:15:00.001-04:00

The term “wrought iron” has come to mean different things to different people. To a blacksmith, it refers to a raw material, not a type of work. In the first half of the 19th century, much of the nation’s wrought iron was made in the mountains of Pennsylvania and in the Adirondack Mountains of New York. It was made right on the mountainside where it was mined, and was smelted in a furnace called a bloomery. The newly smelted iron was called a bloom.

Wrought iron contained a small amount of a rocky impurity called “slag” which was silica from left over from the rocky ore. The more the iron is forged the more the impurities are worked out of the iron. As it was forged out, folded into layers, and re-welded it became more refined. Iron could be refined through the stages of muck bar, merchant iron, single refined, twice refined, and triple refined. Each refinement produced a finer grain within the iron and silica.
Here is a refined bar:

One way to identify wrought iron is to cut a bar partially through and then break it. If the break looks fibrous and stringy, it is likely wrought iron. You can see that in this cut piece:

Wrought iron is very tough, malleable, and forges nicely. However, it cannot be hardened for a good cutting edge. That requires steel--an alloy of iron and carbon. Here is a traditionally forged hammer head that has a wrought iron body and a steel face forge welded on each end:

Wrought iron was the main material used by blacksmiths until the late 19th century. The Bessemer process of making steel directly from ore was used by Carnegie Steel, and was responsible for making steel cheap. As steel became more affordable in the late 19th century it helped produce a profusion of tools and hardware made of steel. Wrought iron continued to be made through the 1940’s but it never regained prominence as the primary metal of industry.

Link by link, chain by chain.

2010-06-17T09:16:00.002-04:00

Traditional blacksmith’s work is particularly satisfying when the item to be made is real and needed. Such is the chain maker’s lot. Forged chain was an essential tool that was in demand. It was used with horses and oxen to pull farm wagons, logging sleighs, and stone boats. Chain was used to anchor ships in the harbor. A forged chain was even strung across the Hudson River during our Revolutionary War to keep the British from sailing up river. Chain today is largely made by automated machines. But for over 1000 years (900 to 1900AD) chain was made link by link through craft and skill.

I have been making chain for the farmers to use with the oxen. Each link starts out as a 7-inch length of 3/8th-inch round bar. It is bent to a U shape. Next, the link is prepared for forge welding. The ends are scarfed to a wedge shape and overlapped. They are heated and fluxed with borax to prevent iron oxide from impeeding the weld. Working on the anvil and over the horn, the link is welded to a solid link and forged to a nice even oval shape.

When the smith has turned two-thirds of his pile of U-shaped links into nice welded ovals, the chain assembly begins. Two welded links are scooped up with an open U. The ends of that link are welded making a 3-link chain. Once all of the links are joined in sections of three links each, then the smith starts joining sections of 3s together with an open link to make chains of 7 links. Then, he joins two 7s with an open link to make 15s, then those to make 31s, and finally two chains of 31 with an open link makes a chain of 63 links. Then, he might add a nicely forged hook to each end.

If all went as planned the chain is now 63 links, two iron rings, and two iron hooks! It should be very close to 12 feet. That is just right to use with oxen to haul the stone boat or the harrow in the field.

Throughout history chain was needed and highly valued. But it was also utilitarian and commonplace. Therefore, the chain maker’s work was essential and difficult, but carried no great prestige. If a swordmaker produced a blade with 500 layers of forge-welded steel, they were respected for having created a masterpiece. If a chain maker produced a chain with 500 forge welds they have made a 100 foot chain. It is just a half week's work. Tomorrow, he would begin to make another chain link by link, foot by foot! And be careful with those welds because everyone knows chain is only as strong at it's weakest link!

Spring Horseshoeing

2010-06-10T08:49:00.001-04:00

Our Percheron draft horse, Zebediah (Zeb), came to the shop recently to have his hooves trimmed and shoes reset. Why is this done? The same horseshoes that protect his hooves from excess wear and damage also prevent them from wearing as they grow. Every two months he is visited by his farrier to check his hooves, trim them to proper length, and get new shoes as needed.

Dan and Zeb

The old shoes are removed. Then Zeb’s hooves are trimmed to a proper length and angle. Any problems are corrected. Then the shoes are adjusted to fit. Zeb’s shoes are hand forged, and each one is fitted to that foot. The front shoes are shaped differently from the hind shoes, and the lefts are different from the right.

Shoes may be used a second time if they aren’t too worn. Even shoes being reused are adjusted to fit the newly trimmed hoof for a perfect fit. Zeb’s shoes are hot fitted. That means that after the hoof has been trimmed and rasped smooth, the warm shoe is pressed to the horn-like hoof. A puff of blue smoke drifts away. A black line shows where the shoe has perfect contact on the hoof. Any white marks are spots the shoe isn’t in contact, and needs to be corrected to prevent the shoe from working loose and being thrown. You can see in the pictures that Zeb is relaxed, and that it doesn’t hurt him at all.

After the shoes are perfectly formed and fitted, each is nailed on and clinched. The nails are specially formed to fit well and stay in the hoof wall. It doesn’t hurt Zeb any more than getting your hair cut hurts you. The whole purpose of shoeing is to prevent the pavement and abrasive gravel from damaging and hurting his hooves.

Zeb really doesn’t mind the shoeing. Once the shoes are well fitted and nailed in place Zeb is ready to work. If you visit, look for Zeb at noon pulling our farm wagon. He is an essential and popular part of The Farmers' Musuem.

A good day’s work in the Blacksmith Shop

2010-06-04T16:00:00.001-04:00

The Fields Blacksmith Shop is both a historic building open to the public as well as a workshop producing restoration hardware for the Museum and items to sell in Todd's General Store. As a result, our work is both different from a shop in the 1840s, and from a modern ironworking shop. We produce accurate hardware and tools for restoration and upkeep of the Museum structures through use of traditional methods. We do, however, live in the modern world. Last week a little girl was visiting with her family. After looking around the blacksmith shop, she asked where I slept! She was a little disappointed to hear that I don’t live in the Museum.

Our day always starts with building fires and planning the work for the day. That can include a number of projects. We generally have a short demonstration project, a medium length repair or production job, and a long-term large project underway each day. When children arrive and want to see blacksmithing, we make nails, pot hooks, or other small quick items. Those are used internally or sold in the store. We use around 2,000 nails each year just maintaining our own buildings!

When visitors are patient we work on more complicated projects like trivets, tool-making, or historic repair hardware like hinges. Finally, when the shop is quiet, we work on the largest and most complicated projects. Currently, that includes making a large weathervane. It will have around 40 separate forged and decorative parts. I’ll post more about that project soon. Here are some weathervane components:

At least once each week an emergency repair arises within the Museum. In the last week, we have made parts for the broom maker’s winding machine, helped the printer to cut type, and made display hardware for the Todd's General Store. We could easily get jobs like making nails to repair a door, parts for a latch, or repairing a tool for the farmers. Last week, we cleared a space in the shed for our farrier to shoe Zeb, the farm horse.

There's always something new to do at the Blacksmith Shop!

Worn out, broken down, rusted, and busted!

2010-05-24T15:22:00.000-04:00

Our blacksmith shop is 183 years old. Several more of our buildings are more than 200 years old. At the shop we have had to become skilled at fixing things that are worn out, broken down, rotten, or busted! Hinge pins wear down, latches get bent, tools break, and even floorboards wear through. A small but important part of our trade is to make the hardware, fasteners and tools needed to get our museum in fine fettle.

The most humble yet unavoidable need is for nails. We make a number of kinds of forged nails. Rose headed nails, common nails, two-penny nails, ten-penny spikes, and door nails perfect for clinching. Last year we used around 2,000 hand-forged nails. Once, when doing a major repair, our shop needed to make that many in two days!

When the farmers repaired the 1830’s plow, the wooden plow beam was worn, rotten, and missing hardware. Our replacement utilized the dimensions of the original and the rust stains indicating missing hardware.

Old hardware and tools often have corroded, bent, and broken bolts. Making new bolts, nuts, and washers is part of the restoration process. We replace fasteners with new ones made using the same methods and tools as the original part.

The Farmers’ Museum has a dozen buildings that are nearing two centuries of daily use. Our craftspeople and farmers are working daily using traditional tools. For the blacksmith shop it is not a question of whether things will get broken and need repair, but rather a question of what will need fixing today!

Spring Chores at the Lippitt Farm

2010-05-10T14:30:00.000-04:00

Spring brings a wide array of chores at the farm. It is time to prepare for spring planting and for all of the new animals that will be born. The gardens and fields must be plowed to break ground for spring planting. The farm grows vegetable, grains, hops, and hay for the animals. One chore is plowing the fields and garden plots. Here is the first plowing with the newly repaired 1830's plow! Farmers Wayne and Marieanne are working with Zeb our Percheron to plow a garden plot outside of the Lippitt farmhouse.

The farmers fertilized the hop yard with compost last fall, and now are putting up the poles for the hop vines to climb. This year's hop vines will be trained to climb the wooden poles.

Spring is also the season of births on the farm. Our Cayuga ducks, Dominic chickens, and turkeys are laying eggs. The farmers are encouraging broody hens to sit on the nests and hatch more young for the farmyard. The ducks have made a nest and are sitting on it dilligently.

Daisy Mae is a Milking Shorthorn cow and provides milk for the farmhouse to bake, make butter, and cheese.

Daisy Mae had a calf in mid-April. The calf is 3 days old is this picture. Help name our new calf!

Our sheep have just started lambing. Here are the sheep enjoying the sunshine and one of the triplets born 4/26/2010.

Spring on the farm is a season of constantly changing weather, hard work, and pleasant surprises.

Fresh Tilled Soil: Using the 1830’s Horse-drawn Plow

2010-04-29T08:06:00.004-04:00

Repair to 1830’s Horse-drawn plow has been a year long project here at the Blacksmith Shop. Our previous blogs tell the story of it’s return to use for the Lippitt Farm.
http://ruralblacksmith.blogspot.com/

When plowing day came Farmer Wayne was as excited as a kid on Christmas. It was cool but sunny on Wednesday when the Zeb and Farmer Marieanne came to the Blacksmith shop with the Stone Boat to pick up the plow.

They brought the Stone Boat through the village to Peleg Field’s Blacksmith Shop to retrieve the repaired 1830's plow.

The Stone Boat was used to carry the plow down to the garden patch outside of the Lippitt Farmhouse.

Next the plow was unloaded and attached to the Singletree attached to Zeb’s harness. Farmer Marieanne Coursen is the Teamster holding the lines. Farmer Wayne Coursen is the Ploughman guiding the plow. Here they are turning a furrow. This 1830's plow is newly repaired, and has turned a furrow in a lifetime.

First furrow!

The plow needed a few small adjustments to reach the proper depth. The Depth Gauge wheel helps guide the plow to the desired depth.

Zeb our Percheron is an old hand at plowing. His knowledge and Marieanne’s handling of the lines allowed the Ploughman to end the furrow, turn the plow, and start a new furrow going the other direction. It is an exciting ballet to see a 1,700lb horse make his turn while the Teamster is at the other end of 20 foot lines!

They are plowing a garden plot outside the Lippitt Farmhouse. Vegetables are grown and stored in the root cellar to be used in our traditional hearth cooking. The Farmers and Zeb plow the furrows back and forth.

Farmer Wayne, Farmer Marieanne, and I are happy to see the plow working so well. It took over a year to research and perform the repairs on the plow. Here's to a good day's work!

Old Tools and Hidden Secrets: An 18th Century Dutch Wheeled Plow

2010-04-23T13:30:00.000-04:00

What secrets can be told by the archeological traces of use and wear on old tools? Sometimes a surprising amount. One of the rare and old tools in The Farmers’ Museum collection is an 18th century Dutch-pattern wheeled plow.

This plow is over two centuries old, and represents a style of plow technology brought here by settlers of Dutch decent. Plow technology was rapidly evolving, and only one generation later this style was no longer made. But a working plow is a valuable item, and the great wear to the wooden parts of the plow suggest it was used for a considerable length of time. All plows of this era were made of wood, iron, and steel parts. The wooden parts would wear and be repaired or replaced by the farmer or blacksmith.

The wear patterns on this plow are interesting. The heart of the plow is the plow point. It is a very complicated forging made up from multiple parts of wrought iron welded in the forge. The smooth and rounded edges of all surfaces document years of abrasion and wear from plowing.

This early style of plow was made in a time when iron was terribly expensive. Anything that could be made from wood instead of iron was made from wood. Not only are the handles and main beam wood, but even part of the moldboard that turns the soil is wood.

Years of use have taken their toll. An iron bracket connects the front wheel truck to the plow beam. The bracket is held in place by friction and a wooden peg. Look at the wear of the wooden wheel carriage into the hardwood of the beam! Years or even decades of use have worn a groove over an inch into the hardwood beam.

The underside of the wheel truck is a hardwood block. This block would be pushing through dead weeds and also be rubbing on the dirt and sod of the previous row’s furrow. We think of grass and plowed dirt as soft. But look how every surface of this block is worn, rounded, and shaped by the abrasion of soft dirt and grass! This piece is probably original to the plow when it was made.

What a grand old tool. The evidence of wear on the handle, plow beam, iron point, and wheel truck tell part of the story of this old girl and the farm family that used her. A family made their living and earned the grain for their daily bread by use of this plow. It is with great respect that we preserve her so that her story can be read by future generations.

Finishing the 1830's horse-drawn plow

2010-04-16T10:14:00.000-04:00

In March of 2009 the Lippitt Farm staff at The Farmers’ Museum brought an 1830’s plow to the Field’s Blacksmith Shop. The plow was in rough shape. It had been purchased at a local antique store for use in demonstrations. Only the core parts were intact. The moldboard, plow point, and shin were fine. We have been working on it as time allowed for a year and a month. Here is Farmer Wayne polishing decades of rust from the mouldboard by scrubbing it with an old soft brick:

All of the wooden parts and most of the bolts and brackets were rotten, rusted, worn or missing. Here is the original wooden beam. It still retained the holes and rust stains to indicate where hardware was missing. Our task became to figure out what parts were needed and to make them.

We set out to repair the plow using historically accurate methods and to put it back into use at The Farmers’ Museum. Farmer Wayne carved a replacement wooden plow beam by using the decayed original as a model. Here is the new beam and some of the newly forged bolts.

I made plow bolts, carriage bolts, and a 24-inch long by 1/4” stretcher bolt, and nuts. We also made the gauge wheel bracket.

Our last forging project is the largest. We are forging a replacement knife coulter blade. This is the part of the plow that cuts the sod and roots before the plow rolls the soil and sod over. It is a heavy piece. We have forged it using two and three smiths at a time. The finished part looks simple but will have taken about 16 hours of work.

This plow is a great example of plows as used in the 1830’s. It has probably not been used in the last 80 to 100 years. Our plowing is about to start. We plow our gardens, hop fields, potato field, and grain plots. Returning this piece of historic equipment to use has been a long road. My thanks to the farmers Rick, Wayne, and Marieanne for making this project possible. I think the farmers are even more excited than I about the chance to put the 1830’s plow to use!

The maiden voyage of this tool will involve adjusting the bite and the draft of the plow. That controlled the width of the plowed strip and the depth of cut. Zeb our Percheron draft horse will pull the plow for this test. It will be hard work, but he is a plowing veteran. This is his 13^th year of plowing at The Farmers’ Museum.

After Zeb helps us to fine-tune the plow it will be used by our team of oxen. Jigs and Buckwheat have never had such an important and difficult job to do at the farm. They will earn their hay this summer!

Check back soon. We will post a video later this week of the 1830’s plow being used once again!

A Good Morning on the Farm

2010-04-07T11:00:00.001-04:00

Here is a guest blog post by Marieanne Coursen, one of our farmers at The Farmers' Museum. She wants to share a behind-the-scenes view of a morning on the farm in spring!

I always enjoy starting the day on the farm, especially, of course, if it is a beautiful spring day! The sun is still low in the sky and is streaming into the barns.

The animals still spend their nights inside, so they are pleased to see me since it means time to go out and eat!

We put hay outside for Zeb, our draft horse, the cattle, and the sheep and then they can all head out to their paddocks.

The ducks are laying eggs like crazy this time of year. They always lay their eggs on the floor in the henhouse in the morning. This morning I found a duck hen on the nest of eggs behind the door inside the house. There are about a dozen eggs there already, so I am not sure if she was laying an egg or is thinking about setting. Yesterday, a chicken hen was on this nest of eggs and she really had that "broody" look about her so I thought she might have taken on the task of hatching the eggs. Hopefully, someone will take on this responsibility at some point so we can have some ducklings.

Our turkeys have also begun laying eggs. So far, I have been collecting them and they are used for cooking. One day soon I will set up some nesting areas inside the turkey house and then we will let them keep their eggs and hatch some poults.

I love watching the turkeys come out for the day, the toms strut their stuff while the hens browse for yummy tidbits in the fresh spring grass. Our two tom turkeys are looking quite handsome these days.

Once all the animals have been attended to, we have one more chore. We need to keep the smoke going in our smokehouse at all times. Wayne, Rick and I are always challenging each other to see who can fix the fire just right so that the smoke continues all the way through the day or night. If it is still going when we get to work in the morning someone will have earned some bragging rights!

Once the morning chores are done we take a coffee break and then go back to work. This time of year we are focusing on getting fields and gardens ready for planting.

Would any blog fans like to join me for morning chores? We have a craft class called “Farm Chores,” available at individual and family rates. It is an opportunity to get a closer look at the animals here and to go behind the scenes and see what goes on here at the farm before the ticket office opens. Arrangements can be made by calling Kaaren Wyckoff at (607) 547-1410. Just make sure to wear muck boots and some work gloves. I look forward to some company for morning farm chores!

19th Century Poetry Slam.

2010-03-30T16:56:00.001-04:00

When Washington Irving was a young man in 1803, he traveled from Albany to the frontier hamlet of Ogdensburg. The journey was made to view land in which he planned to invest. To get to Ogdensburg on the shore of the St. Lawrence River was a trip of epic proportions.

Irving traveled with some fellow land speculators from Albany up the lightly settled Mohawk valley. They then traveled overland from near Utica to the headwaters of the Black River. Then they followed the Black River Valley north, as there was no road yet north of Rome. At the village of High Falls (now called Lyons Falls, N.Y.) he boarded a scow that carried him north with the river current. In two days he and his companions had traveled 42 miles, and disembarked at the hamlet of Long Falls (now called Carthage, N.Y.) Still 60 miles of travel from his destination, they sought lodging in the only Public House in the village.

To say that Irving was unimpressed with his accommodations on the frontier would be an understatement. He dubbed the Inn by the title, “The Temple of Dirt”. Upon leaving he scribbled this on the plaster over the fireplace mantle,

“Here Sovereign Dirt erects her Sable throne,
The house, the host, the hostess are all her own.”

Some years later, Judge William Cooper was also traveling through Long Falls, and stayed in the same Public House. Cooper was, himself, the namesake and founder of the town of Cooperstown, and no stranger to the conditions of the frontier. He penned a reply to Irving’s complaints on the same wall. He wrote,

“Learn hence, young man, and teach it to your sons,
The wisest way is to take it as it comes.”

There you have it, Northern New York’s first Poetry Slam! Washington Irving went on to become famous for his stories like Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle. Judge Cooper became a prosperous and influential figure in N.Y. His son James Fennimore Cooper would also become a famous author, known for his Leatherstocking Tales featuring adventures on the New York State frontier.

Tool Making at The River Forge

2010-03-15T14:32:00.005-04:00

Even blacksmiths have some time off. On mine this winter, I visited friends and helped make some tools. My friend Marty Snye is proprietor of The River Forge near Ogdensburg, NY. The Farmers’ Museum shop uses 1840’s tools and technology. Marty’s shop uses a wide variety of tools. In some ways it is like jumping forward a century from the 1840’s to the 1940’s. On this project we were using a combination of hand tools and powered machines.

We worked on making some tools for use with his anvil. His anvil is an English-made Peter Wright like one we use in the Fields' Shop. To make the large cut off hardy, it had to be forged from a larger piece of high carbon tool steel. That would need at least two smiths with sledgehammers in the Fields' Shop.

Marty, however, has a Little Giant Power Hammer. Designed in the last years of the 19^th century and likely made before the 1920’s, Marty’s mechanical hammer has a 25lb. reciprocating hammer die that hits the iron up to 3 times per second. While not stronger than 2 men with sledgehammers, the mechanical hammer never gets tired and doesn’t take coffee breaks!

Here Marty is using the Little Giant to draw the solid bar of tool steel out into a wedge-shaped cutting tool. He has welded a piece of pipe to the tool steel to handle it while hot, and will cut that off later. When the finished cutting edge is done, it is then welded to a previously made base that is fitted to sit tightly in the hardy hole of the anvil. The finished tool fits well and is ready to cut some hot iron and steel! The new hardies are on the left and right, with two older hardies in the middle. The ones we made are larger than his old ones, and are ready for some work!

Finding Blacksmith’s Tools

2010-03-09T16:47:00.000-05:00

Where can beginning blacksmiths find tools? That is a simple question with a complicated answer. Here in the northeast, local farms date to the early19^th century. Farm auctions, antique stores, and junk shops may have some useful tools. There are also a growing number of vendors selling new blacksmith’s tools over the internet. Finally, hardware stores and Sears still carry blacksmith’s hammers, punches, and chisels.

I often recommend that people interested in blacksmithing try it before buying a lot of tools. Meet the blacksmiths in your area, look for educational blacksmithing organizations locally, and go to a hammer-in or take a class. The national organization for blacksmiths is the Artist Blacksmith Association of North America. My sidebar has links to several blacksmithing organizations in NY. Setting up a shop is a commitment of time and money. But a hobbyist can start with only a few basic tools to get started.

The core shop tools of blacksmithing are the forge, anvil, and vice. The core hand tools are the hammer, tongs, chisels, and perhaps a hacksaw. After you have those basics, the tools you need will be determined by what you are doing. Many smiths today use propane-fired portable forges rather than a coal fire and bellows. Each style has benefits and drawbacks. Talking to other smiths and taking classes that let you use a variety of tools can help in the decision-making process. Buying new tools, making tools, and refurbishing old ones for another generation of use is part of the fun of blacksmithing.

Casting Pewter Spoons: Part II

2010-03-01T09:08:00.002-05:00

The Farmers’ Museum is also the home to the Cooperstown Graduate Program in History Museum Studies. This is associated with the State University of New York at Oneonta. Recently the students came to the Blacksmith Shop to learn how to cast pewter.

An important part of metal working, particularly casting, is to use the appropriate safety equipment. Required equipment is proper clothing, eye protection, gloves, and an apron. We also have additional equipment such as full-face shields. Here is part of the class modeling their safety glasses and goggles!

The students worked in teams with a Blacksmith “assistant” tending the fire. This workshop is one of many they will undertake to familiarize themselves with the methods and results of traditional craft. The molten pewter is poured into the mold and then removed after it cools. The new spoon is then examined for flaws, voids, or other imperfections.

If the spoon meets the initial inspection it is then taken to the workbench or vice. There the flashing is filed away and the spoon smoothed and polished. The students worked hard and most made several pours to get a spoon that met their standards. Then they worked to finish and customize their spoons. I appreciated their good humor and hard work.

Of course in a class like this the pewter spoons are just the byproduct of the larger mission. The real lessons were about working with artisans, the nature of craft, dealing with failure and trying to succeed when some variables are beyond your control. A perfect spoon requires a flawless mold, clean metal at the perfect temperature, steady hands, and a perfect pour of molten metal into the mold. It is important to strive for perfection while accepting that you may not get there. These are lessons to augment those from their academic studies.

I can’t resist ending with a cryptic quote from the movie The Matrix:

“Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth. What truth? There is no spoon. Then you'll see, that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.”

Sugaring Off Starts in March!

2010-02-26T10:08:00.000-05:00

We are still in the heart of winter when preparations begin for making Maple Syrup and Maple Sugar. But Sugaring Off holds the promise that the trees know spring is on its way. The sap flow that will awaken the trees from their winter sleep and cause buds to burst into leaves is also the flow we tap to make syrup. Maple syrup is distilled sunshine and the promise of winter end.

Our farmers are busy washing buckets, sorting spiles, and preparing the ox cart for another seasons work.

The fire arch will be rebuild on the grounds, the boiling pan and pots scrubbed clean, and firewood stacked for another seasons work.

To see this late-winter burst of activity come to our Sugaring-Off Sundays, every Sunday in March. Admission gets you a free Pancake breakfast with real maple syrup. After breakfast you can wander the grounds, watch the farmers collect and boil sap, and visit with me in the Blacksmith Shop!

Casting Pewter Spoons: Part I

2010-02-23T11:46:00.000-05:00

Our blacksmith shop does some metalwork beyond just forging iron. One recent project is the casting of pewter spoons using bronze molds. We are fortunate to have both original and reproduction spoons molds. These are bronze two part molds. A clamped mold is in use on the left, and an open mold is lying to the right in this photo.

Pewter is a low temperature alloy of tin. We use modern, lead-free pewter. It is melted in a steel ladle over the fire in the coal forge.

The halves are clamped together. Then molten pewter is poured into the mold. When the mold has chilled it is opened to reveal the spoon.

Not every pour results in a perfect spoon. Skill and knowledge play a part in successful casting. The metal must be at the right temperature and free of dross. The pour needs to be smooth and uninterrupted. If the mold is not clamped tightly it leaks molten metal! These can all lead to an incomplete spoon. Sometimes the failures become interesting sculptures!

Winter Weather

2010-02-16T11:04:00.000-05:00

It has been a moderate winter for The Farmers’ Museum, regardless of the storms that have set records on the East coast and in the South. The Farmers' Museum is located slightly South and an hour’s drive West of Albany. Our snow storms are more likely to come from the Great Lakes than from the Atlantic. With about two feet of snow on the ground and the temperature dropping into the single digits, it has been an average winter for us. The frost and snow does provide a beautiful but austere background for our historic buildings.

Our barns may be over 200 years old, but still do the job of keeping out the wind and snow. The sparrows take advantage of the barns to find a warm perch.

The sheep are kept inside if the wind, snow, and cold are too fierce. But they are naturally well equipped for the weather and like to be outside most days. As ruminates, they spend much of their day eating. A little snow doesn’t bother them!

The Blacksmith’s Duel

2010-02-03T07:47:00.002-05:00

Blacksmiths are under-represented in our literature, history books, and stories. The village blacksmith is now part of history. But there are some great stories about blacksmiths if you know were to look. The story below is about real people, but I suspect it has been remembered with a little more flair than accuracy. It is a great story.

ONE of the famous duelists of early New Orleans was Bernard Marigny, a member of one of Louisiana's oldest and most influential families, who was a master swordsman and a crack shot with a pistol. He was elected to the state Legislature in 1817 as a member of the House of Representatives and took an active and a leading part in the many disputes that arose between the Creoles and the Americans. At the same time Catahoula Parish was represented by James Humble, a blacksmith and a former resident of Georgia, who was noted for his great stature -- he stood almost seven feet in his stockings. The Georgian replied to one of Marigny's most impassioned speeches, and made various allusions so pointed and personal that the Creole considered himself grievously insulted, and challenged the blacksmith to a duel. Humble sought the advice of a friend.
"I will not fight him," he said. "I know nothing of this dueling business."  "You must," his friend protested. "No gentleman can refuse a challenge."  "I'm not a gentleman," Humble retorted. "I'm only a blacksmith."
HUMBLE was assured that he would be mined both politically and socially if he declined to meet the Creole. His friend pointed out that as the challenged person the blacksmith had the choice of weapons and could so choose as to put himself on equal terms with his adversary.
HUMBLE considered the matter for a day or two and then sent this reply to Marigny: "I accept your challenge, and in the exercise of my privilege, I stipulate that the duel shall take place in Lake Pontchartrain in six feet of water, sledge-hammers to be used as weapons."
SINCE Marigny was less than five feet and eight inches tall and so slight that he could scarcely lift a sledge-hammer, this was giving Humble an equal chance with a vengeance. The Creole's friends urged him to stand on a box and run the risk of having his skull cracked by the huge blacksmith's hammer, but Marigny declared that it was impossible for him to fight a man with such a sense of humor. Instead he apologized to Humble, and the two became firm friends.”

Quoted from Great American Folklore : legends, tales, ballads, and superstitions from all across America. Compiled by Kemp P. Battle ; illustrated by John M. Battle. Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday, c1986. Pg. 121, 122.

The Farm, the Chickens, and the Hawk!

2010-01-25T10:31:00.005-05:00

Farms have always had the challenge of being part of the larger ecosystem. That tie to the larger world has been a challenge for the Lippitt Farm this winter. First in December a Fox spent several weeks trying to eat our Cayuga Ducks. Raccoons raided our barn and ate over a bushel of seed corn. Now in January a Hawk has been preying upon our Chickens. Our farm seems to have exactly the same problems that our predecessors would have had in 1845. It isn’t easy to keep wildlife from seeing the farm as a source of food!

Our historic farm has a lot of livestock and poultry through the winter even though the visitors are not here to see them. That is because many of our animals are rare or historic breeds. If we want to have them we must raise them ourselves. The farmers are working at the farm and are in the barns every day. Their vigilance prevented the fox from succeeding, and led to the capture and relocation of a chicken-thieving hawk!

Here is a first-hand account of our adventures with the hawk from Marieanne Coursen, one of our farmers:

I saw a hawk sitting on the barnyard fence. I scolded it and it flew off only to land on the fence on the other side of the Brook barn. That night I had a terrible time getting the chickens into the henhouse. Three of them were hiding in the sheep pen and would not be chased out. I thought sure they would come out once I let the sheep in but no. I finally managed to get them out and into the henhouse. Then I had to search for the rest of the chickens. I found a few more cowering in corners but came up short of 2 of them.

On Thursday we discovered a hawk in the granary. It would not fly out. Just kept flying in the peak and did not want to come down low enough to fly through the door. I took a few pictures of it and they are attached. Isn't it ironic that a hawk got the chickens after all the trouble with the foxes and raccoons?

The hawk ended up spending 2 nights in the granary because it just would not fly out. On Thursday Ray (the trapper) caught it with a net and took it away. I wish it could have stayed because the sparrows got pretty scarce while it was around.”

We think this was a Sharp Shinned Hawk or a Coopers Hawk. If any readers are knowledgeable on the subject please reply and let us know the breed of this hawk. Just as our predecessors would in 1845 we can only respond by being vigilant and keeping the barns locked up tight at night. Hopefully this will be the end of our adventures with hungry wildlife this winter.

Blacksmiths Seeking Knowledge: Traveling to Conferences and Hammer-ins

2010-01-20T13:40:00.007-05:00

In two weeks time I have made two trips, spent 6 days driving, and covered 2,400 miles to get to Blacksmith’s conferences and Hammer-ins. My travels illustrate the lengths to which Blacksmiths will go to network and add to their skills. There are events large and small at all times of the year and all across the nation. This is the culmination of a long road that began with the first National Blacksmithing Conference in 1973.

One on one tutorial classes such as we offer at The Farmers’ Museum are one of the fastest ways to develop new skills. Memberships in educational organizations are another good way to learn new skills and meet others interested in blacksmithing. There are over 50 organizations nationwide. All hold educational workshops called “hammer-ins”. They may teach everything from basic skills to advanced classes in forge welding, tool making, or other needed skills.

Here are a few notable Hammer-in’s and events planned for this year by organizations that seek to preserve and teach about blacksmithing.

April & September 2010. Northeastern Blacksmiths spring Hammer-in at Ashokan, NY. http://www.northeastblacksmiths.org/index.htm

April & October 2010. New York State Designer Blacksmiths Spring & Fall Hammer-ins. More information should be available on the web site in coming months. http://www.nysdb.org/

June 2-5^th, 2010: Artist Blacksmith Assoc. of North America’s conference in Memphis, Tenn. This is huge event, with demonstrators and attendees for around the world. http://www.abana.org/business/Conference_division.shtml

Sept. 24, 25 & 26 Quad State Conference 2010: Southern Ohio Forge and Anvil’s Quad State Roundup. This may be the largest annual blacksmithing event in the U.S., and possibly in the world. There are at least 4 demonstrators presenting at a time, near 1,000 guests, and is a great place to find new and old tools. http://www.sofablacksmiths.org/

This is just a small sampling of the conferences and learning opportunities this year.

Blacksmith Conferences

2010-01-12T21:25:00.018-05:00

How can someone learn more about blacksmithing? Find and join the nearest blacksmithing organization. The U.S. is fortunate to have a nationwide organization (ABANA) as well as more than 50 state and regional organizations. These are non-profit groups run by volunteers with the goal of preserving and teaching the art of blacksmithing.

I have just returned from the "6^th Annual Bill Gichner Memorial Hammer In" held by the Mid Atlantic Smiths Association. It is an example of the best features of a mid-sized blacksmith’s conference. The conference was held in a huge maintenance barn on a family farm in Maryland. The conference started with a huge Friday dinner and continued until after lunch on Sunday. Meals were provided as part of the conference fee, and I have never eaten better at a conference. The shrimp boil was my particular favorite.

There were two demonstrators that demonstrated by turn in 1.5 hour stints. The demonstrators, Kim Thomas and Pat Livengood, focused on methods to make classic elements of European inspired ironwork. Their work can be seen at: http://www.mastersinwroughtiron.com/. They worked right in front of the crowd, answered questions, and even held a slide show of their work in the evening after dinner. Easygoing and skilled demonstrators, they engage the audience and shared a tremendous amount of knowledge.

Pat Livengood started smithing as a farrier, and still works with the speed and dispatch of someone working on a deadline. A horse will stand for you only so long! His work at the anvil shows how to move metal smoothly and precisely. Pat’s demonstration featured using a 10 inch metal ring as the frame for beautiful ironwork. Here is an example of his work:

Kim Thomas’s presentations focused on using modern structural iron to provide shortcuts to making accurate German inspired scrollwork. He used a number of drawings to demonstrate how to train your eye to see the simple forms within a complex form. If you are interested in Colonial American or European iron then their demonstration is worthwhile.

The Lippitt Farm's animals in winter

2010-01-06T14:00:00.002-05:00

Winter at The Farmers’ Museum is a slower time of year. The animals may not be seeing large crowds of people, but do have to face the challenges of a winter in the frozen North. They have warm stalls and coops for the evening but generally go outside every day.

The Dominick Chickens patrol the barnyard looking for dropped grain. If there is a cold breeze they head into the Sweet-Marble Barn.

The rooster was in the doorway of the Brooks log barn. He puffed up for protection against the cold, and was balancing with one foot drawn up to keep warm. Silly looking, isn’t he?
The sheep have thick, luxurious fleeces. The Cheviot Sheep look almost round with wool.

The Southdown Sheep have wooly faces and look ready to face the cold.

Zeb our Percheron horse has grown a thick winter’s coat. He looks pretty stoic eating in the field.
We have three more months of winter. The animals at the Lippit farm look well prepared.

Happy New Year!

2010-01-01T12:10:00.000-05:00

Two Thousand and Nine has been a busy and productive year in the Peleg Field's Blacksmith Shop. I want to thank all who volunteered, visited the Museum, and visited our blog this year. Your support has made it a good year for us despite the worldwide economic concerns. May the New Year bring to you good health, happiness, and prosperity.

Here are a few pictures of the Museum in late December to round out our year. The sun was trying to shine through a snow storm. On these dark winter days the snow gives everything a luminous glow.
Best wishes to all,

Steven Kellogg
Peleg Field's Blacksmith Shop.

Monarch of the Forest

2009-12-18T15:56:00.003-05:00

Nineteenth century farms included not just farm fields but also woodlots and forest. Ours at The Farmers’ Museum does as well. This farm has been used for about 180 years. Some of our current forest stands where once sheep pastured in the 1840’s.

You can see a legacy of that by the existence of this massive White Pine. This king of the forest started life in an open field! You can tell that by the open spacing of the branches, the twin trunk and how it grew outward instead of upward. That happens to trees growing in full sunlight that do not have to compete with other trees for sun. You can also see its great girth when compared to the size of a person.
This massive tree sprouted in a pasture’s edge and quickly grew too big for the sheep to eat. It grew upward and outward into a large spreading pine. We know sheep and cattle were grazed on this hill, and they likely took advantage of its shade. At some point in the last century a new fence was built about 100 feet away. Saplings sprouted, and a new forest grew up around this mature tree. You can see it is now bracketed by trees that may themselves be fifty or more years old.

School Snow Day in Cooperstown

2009-12-16T17:20:00.000-05:00

Last week, wide ranging storms dumped snow from Wisconsin to Massachusetts. Cooperstown schools took a “snow day”, which means students did not have to attend. Our Museum is officially closed to the public on snow days, but little actually changes in our winter schedule. I am still working in the blacksmith shop.

Life also goes on as normal at the farm. The cattle still need tending, the chicken and ducks get fed, and Zeb our horse goes out in all but the fiercest storms. Here is Jigs, one of our oxen. He looks like he is wondering, “What’s a snow day?”

Vistas from The Farmers' Museum

2009-12-11T09:56:00.001-05:00

Here are some views of The Farmers’ Museum from a vantage point most visitors don’t get a chance to see.

The lane through the Farm’s pasture:

The cupola of the Carousel from above:

Zeb the Percheron down in the pasture:

Cooperstown and the Otesaga viewed from the top of the Farm’s pasture:

Forging Big Iron

2009-12-09T16:21:00.000-05:00

Some days I forge nails and hooks from delicate pieces of ¼ inch mild steel. Some days the iron I work is a little bigger!

Part of the fun of blacksmithing is learning to solve the problems presented, no mater how large or small. This part is about 12 pounds and is made from a bar of ¾ inch by 1 ½ inch mild steel. It has been folded in half and is welded to itself.

The weld was needed to make a piece of iron that is large enough for the project. The next step is to punch a square hole punched in the center. That was done with a square punch and a helper with a sledge hammer.

Now I am shaping it. It is one small part of a larger project. I will leave the explanation of what it may become for a later post.

December 1st: Snow at The Farmers' Museum

2009-12-03T09:20:00.003-05:00

December is coming in with a bang at The Farmers’ Museum. Our first real snowstorm started at about 8am on December 1. At first the snow was just small icy flakes falling from the grey sky. But within minutes large fluffy flakes were coming down.

I took a picture of the Lippitt Farmhouse before the snow began. Here is a picture of the Farm as the snow started. I interrupted the farmers during their morning chores to get a picture. The snow built up fast on their hat brims!

Finally here is a picture of the Farm covered in snow. This was quite a way to start the month of December!

Swift Red Fox

2009-12-02T16:17:00.000-05:00

This November we had a new visitor to The Farmers’ Museum. It was a red fox. He had been visiting each dawn and dusk. The farmers are getting nervous, because foxes and farmers get along like, well, like a fox in the henhouse!

I was walking down a hill, and watched the fox retreat from an attempt to surprise our Cayuga ducks. Our farmer saw the fox stalking nearer. He yelled, the ducks jumped into the pond, and the fox left without a Thanksgiving dinner.

Birch Bark: amazing natural tinder

2009-11-25T14:11:00.000-05:00

Every day in Field's Blacksmith shop starts with making a fire. Today most people use newspaper to start their kindling. I like to use birch bark. When we have birch firewood I break off the bark and save it.

It can also be found in the woods when a birch has fallen and rotten on the forest floor. Even when the wood has decayed the bark is still intact and useable. Don’t peel bark from live trees as it can kill them. There is plenty available from dead trees.

Birch bark is touch and contains natural oils and resins to protect the tree. Those same oils and resins make it an excellent fire starter. A small piece will make a big flame and burn for a minute or more. I use it to start my kindling wood.
Once the kindling is burning well I add coke and get the fire burning bright.

Fall at Lippitt Farm

2009-11-20T15:22:00.000-05:00

The weather has been mild for the first two weeks of November. Frosty nights and sunny days have been the rule. We are bustling around to finish the fall projects. The farmers’ crops are all in the barn. It is time to get ready for the long winter.

The fall crops have been harvested and plowed under. Planning for next year’s crops has begun. The winter rye has been planted, and is sprouting well. It will be the first grain harvested next spring.
At the blacksmith shop we are finally finishing repairs to the 1830’s plow. It has new nuts, bolts, brackets, and will be getting a coulter knife. The oxen will get to use it in the spring.

Industrial Blacksmithing at the Library of Congress

2009-11-18T15:16:00.000-05:00

The Library of Congress has the world’s largest collection of primary documents, including videos and films, to tell us about the past. Here is a link to a video filmed in 1904 at the Westinghouse factory.

They were creating a massive turbine and generator. I wonder if it was for the power house at Niagara Falls, N.Y.?

The men are doing an amazing job. They are in the process of turning an iron bar into a round ring with a circumference of 16 to 20 feet. The bar they are forging into a ring appears to be about 3 inches thick and about 12 inches deep. It must weigh several tons. In the first 2 minutes of the film they are hammering together a scarph where the two ends of the hot bar overlap. The 4 men with sledgehammers are making the initial weld using only muscle power. At the bottom right corner of the picture frame there should be a clock counting elapsed time. Watch at the 1:30 point when 3 men are striking with sledge hammers and a fourth man jumps in to hammer in time on the work.

At the 2:20 point a man, possibly the head blacksmith, jumps inside the hot ring to operate the chainfalls! The ring still has a section several feet long that is over 1600 degrees Fahrenheit. He guides the effort to push the ring back into the fire and then starts lowering the chainfalls. Watch again at the 2:55 point when he is hoisting the multi-ton ring out of the fire with the chainfalls. Watch his arms. He has a blacksmith’s build, with forearms bulging as large as his biceps. Then the men push and pull it on the chain falls to the next working station.

Then the ring goes to the steam hammer! At 3:15 it is being struck by the steam hammer. That machine uses a steam piston much like the one in a locomotive to raise and slam a 500lb. hammer head into the ring once each second. The steam hammer is being used to finish the weld and forge the ring down to an even thickness. That causes a bulge in the width of the ring. A man places a cutting tool called a hack under the hammer at 3:52 to cut off the excess metal and return the ring to the needed dimension.

What details are hidden in the larger film? There is a special type of anvil called a bridge anvil in the shot at 1:17. It probably weighs more than 300lbs. and is used for large industrial work like this. Finally the ring goes back to the anvil at 4:25 for finishing by hand held hammers and tools. At 4:46 they throw a thin plate of steel onto the weld and then hammer it into place. At 5:52 they are using sledges to strike a tool called a Flatter to smooth the outside edge of the ring.
What an amazing job. Surviving films like these provide a window onto daily life in another time.

Seasons Change at The Farmers' Museum

2009-11-11T15:11:00.000-05:00

Fall is upon us at the Farmers’ Museum. There are a number of images that appear in my minds’ eye when reflecting on the season. Children playing in piles of leaves. Frost on the grass. Harvesting the last pumpkins. The first snow on wet leaves.

Traditional Hardware: Ram's Horn Wingnut

2009-11-06T10:00:00.000-05:00

What do you call a fastener for a threaded bolt that can be tightened and loosened without tools? A wingnut, of course! Here are the steps to make a ram’s horn wingnut.

Select your starting bar of a width that allows the desired final hole to be drilled and tapped. I am using ¼ x 1 for a nut that will fit a ½ inch bolt. But I will slit and drift my hole and therefore need less width than if the hole is drilled.
Forge out a taper to make one of the wings. I forged mine to 4 inches, about the width of my anvil. It is often useful to use the anvil as a measuring device. Then start the other end, leaving enough material for the nut between the two scrolled ends. I left about 1 1/2 of material.
Drill the hole. Tap it after all the forging is done.
Make the ram’s horns by rolling the end like a cinnamon roll. I do it by forging it tightly over the edge of the anvil. Scroll it like the first.
Here are the parts from start to finish.

Your Turn! Readers Respond

2009-11-04T14:52:00.000-05:00

The Farmers' Museum started blogging in early 2009. As I write this in the fall of 2009 we are approaching 1000 readers per month. The only change I’d like to see is to have more response from you, the reader!

Did you visit the Fields Blacksmith Shop at the Farmer’s Museum this year? What were we working on when you visited? It has been a long and busy summer. The shop has made thousands of nails, many sets of hinges, door latches, nuts and bolts, ox cart parts, and has shod the horse 4 times! We have also made hundreds of coat hooks and other items for sale in Todd’s General store. What were we making when you visited?

We also have hundreds of readers that have not visited the Museum, and many that are not even in the United States!

Our online visitors come from nearly every state. New York, California, Michigan, and Nebraska! Go Cornhuskers! Please feel welcome to post and say hello! What is your home State, Province, or Country? We have regular viewers in the U.K., Canada, Poland, South Africa, and a large contingent in Australia! We also have a growing readership in Sweden, India, Korea, and Japan! Hello and welcome all. What questions do you have about The Farmers’ Museum, Cooperstown, or New York State? Do you have any farm museums near where you live?

So, drop me a line. I’m looking forward to your feedback, posts, and pictures! You may respond to this post or through our Facebook page at: http://www.facebook.com/farmersmuseum. Feel free to write on our wall or post a picture of your visit!

Fall Creatures at The Farmers' Museum

2009-10-30T08:53:00.000-04:00

Fall leads to spotting more wildlife at The Farmers’ Museum. Geese fly low overhead on their way to and from Otsego Lake. The turkeys at the farm get restless and strutting. The chickens are hunting down the last of the summer bugs. I don’t know if all birds have little birdy dreams about flying south, but the chickens and turkeys definitely get agitated this time of year.
The squirrels are roaming the lawns looking for nuts to hoard. Raccoons left muddy paw prints on my trash can. This spider was creeping along the sidewalk of the More House. I don’t know where he plans to hole up for the winter, but I hope it isn’t in the Blacksmith Shop!

Wheelwright’s Masterpiece: Wooden Ox Cart Wheels

2009-10-28T11:01:00.000-04:00

All wooden wheels are not the same. Wheelwrights made them in every shape and size. Wheelbarrow wheels are among the smallest. Cart wheels can be tall and thin while wagon wheels can be thicker and heavier. Two wheels in our collection stand in a class of their own. These are the wheels for the strongest of ox carts. Look at the massive pieces of elm used for the wheel hubs, the ash spokes as thick as your arm, and the wide wrought iron tyre.
How is a wheel made? The center of the wheel that bears on the axle is called a hub. The hub was often tough, split resistant wood like elm. The hub has a hole for the axle bored through it, and has up to 14 holes for the spokes that connect the hub and the outer part of the wheel. The wooden outside rim is made up from sections of wood called the felloes (often pronounced either fellows or fellys). In the wheels of the early 19th century each felloe was supported by 2 spokes. The whole thing is bound with an iron band called a tyre (tire).

These wheels are survivors from an era long gone. The stout ox carts could have been used to haul the heaviest of cargo. An ox cart with wheels like these may have had up to 4 oxen yoked to it and carried a load of several tons. Cooperstown would have received coal and steel deliveries from the nearby Erie Canal using this kind of cart.

Clean Sweep at Lippitt Farm

2009-10-23T08:56:00.000-04:00

There are a lot of traditional crops at the Lippit Farm. This year saw winter rye, wheat, oats, barley, buckwheat, corn and hay grown in the fields. But there was a less know crop as well: broom corn! The Westcott Shop houses a broom-making shop. Broom corn is a relative to sorghum, and the part used to make brooms is the bushy seed-bearing fan at the top of the plant.

Here is crop in the field. It looks much like most corn crops, but take note the fan of fibers at the top of the plant. When the corn is ripe the tops are bent over while still on the plant. This speeds the drying process to create a usable product to make brooms. Broom corn drying in the field would have been a common sight in the 19th century. Broom-making, like most trades, produced a local product for sale in the immediate area.

My Experience at The Farmer's Museum.

2009-10-21T09:00:00.000-04:00

Enjoy this guest post from Young Interpreter Jacob Efthimiou. You can read more about the program here.
“Are you ready for another exciting day in the Blacksmith Shop?” questioned Steve as he and I prepared to leave the Creamery, where the morning staff meeting had been held moments ago. It was another Wednesday; and during my summer, that meant turning into a 19th century blacksmith’s apprentice for the day. Upon arriving at the blacksmith shop, one of my first jobs was always to clean up after the previous day’s fire. This job consisted of setting aside the coke (reusable coal) to start the next fire, and putting the clinker (fully burned coal) in the ash bucket. Next, the fire was started using birch bark, small thinly cut kindling, leftover coke, and a few puffs of air from the bellows. My Wednesday would then launch into a fun and exciting day of making hooks, nails, chain links, and all manner of things. Another important part about being a good interpreter is communicating with the public. I explained many times that kids ages twelve to fourteen can write essays, be interviewed, and then possibly work at The Farmer’s Museum over the summer. Thanks to Steve, now I can pursue the trade using my grandpa’s old forge. I am so blessed to have had this opportunity and will try to stay in practice throughout my life. Maybe I’ll even volunteer at The Farmer’s Museum next year.

Heating and Cooling the Blacksmith Shop

2009-10-14T10:15:00.000-04:00

The Fields' Blacksmith Shop at The Farmers’ Museum is used during all months of the year. Visitors frequently ask how we keep it cool in the summer and how we keep it warm in the winter. Any accurate answer would include defining cool and warm in an early 19th Century building.

From April until early July it is cooler in the building than the outside temperature. That is a product of working in such a strongly built stone building. The building is made of around one hundred tons of stone. The rear wall and coal bin are build below grade into the hillside. And finally, the shop itself is in the shade of a large, tree lined ridge much of the day. While the shop was originally built in the village of New Berlin, it was tucked into a similar hillside. The builders understood those advantages. The shop enjoys natural cooling well into early August. The shop only becomes truly hot for about 2 weeks in August.

Our shop is used not just in the summer, but in the fall, winter, and spring as well. Cooperstown, NY has a long and cold winter. Nights are below freezing from November to March, and lows dip below 0F in the depth of winter. How do we keep warm? The smoke and hot air from the forges goes right up the massive chimneys. Radiant heat from the fire does warm the smith, but does little for the shop. Our wood-burning stove carries the burden of heating the shop.

Our stove is an exact reproduction of an original in the Museum collection. Reproductions were made of the original stove so that it could be preserved. This style of stove is usually called a “box stove”, as it is rectangular and is made of 6 cast iron panels. Large and stout, it can hold 4 chunks of oak or ash wood at a time. October through December, and March through May it can heat the shop. From late December to early March is just gives you a better grade of cold!
During the coldest months the stove creates a pocket of warm air within the larger workshop. That is usually just enough. The work in the shop is very physical. It is common to shed layers while working at the forge until by lunch we are working in just long sleeves. That leads to the question of defining “warm”. By February the shop’s stone walls have cooled to below freezing, and wear a permanent coat of frost. In a modern workplace 50 degrees F. would be seen as punishing cold. In the 19th century it would be quite warm for physical work.

It is more than 1/8th of a mile from the parking lot to the Blacksmith Shop. Our daytime temperature in February can be below 20F. By the time visitors or staff come charging into the shop and stomp the snow off their boots the shop seems nice and warm! At the end of the day when the light is fading, the tools have been returned to their places and the forge fire is low. We pull a chair up to the desk by the stove. As we make note of the tasks awaiting us the next day one thing in certain: each new day starts with a new fire.

Todd's General Store

2009-10-09T14:33:00.000-04:00

One of the roles of the Peleg Field Blacksmith Shop is to supply iron goods to Todd’s General Store. Built of stone in 1828, the store’s Greek Revival architecture is a distinctive element within The Farmers’ Museum. I like how the appearance changes through the seasons.
Jeheil and Lemuel Todd were part owners in a cotton mill and store in the Village of Toddsville. The store was a company store and later a General Store selling all manner of merchandise. It continues that role at the Museum.

Today Todd’s serves as both a gathering place and a general store within the Museum. Our historic trades supply a significant part of the inventory. That includes ironware from the Fields' Shop, brooms from the Wescott Shop, books and publications from the Middlefield Printing Office, and lotions, extracts, and salves from Dr. Thrall’s Pharmacy.

Making a Bolt for the Door

2009-10-07T12:30:00.003-04:00

There is always something interesting underway at the Fields' Blacksmith Shop. About 2 months ago the museum carpenter visited the blacksmith shop. Three hundred nails were needed to build two new hay loft doors for the 1790 Morey Barn. I made the nails and then went on to other projects. A month later he returned to have 4 pintle and gudgeon strap hinges made. You may have read my previous post about making them. As they neared completion he reminded me that he needs 20 square headed bolts, square nuts, and hand cut washers to mount the hinges. Another project!

Bolts are forged hot from a bar of iron or steel. These are made from 1/4 inch round bar. Each bolt is made from 4 inches of bar, and will be 3 inches long after the head is forged from the bar. The threads are cut onto the bolt when it is cold using a threading die.

Nuts are made by punching holes in a bar of steel. Then the sections are cut off the bar. Finally they are threaded using a tap.
Here is a Blacksmithing joke:

How do you know that a dog belongs to a blacksmith?
When you startle him he makes a bolt for the door!

Ha! Bolt for the door. Priceless!

Blacksmith Coal, Part III

2009-10-02T09:37:00.000-04:00

Soft Coal. Bituminous Coal. Coke. This is the fuel of the Blacksmith shop.

Our shop has two large stone forges with wood and leather bellows. When originally constructed the shop probably used hardwood charcoal as fuel because it was available locally and coal was not. Since charcoal can’t be stored outside through the winter without degrading there is a stone and brick fuel vault build onto the back of the shop. That allowed charcoal to be stored without fear of fire or decay.

By the 1840s mineral coal from Pennsylvania was available by way of the Erie Canal. That is the fuel we still use today. The forges consume more than a ton of coal each year. Each fall we refill the coal bin with another year’s supply. Coal is dumped in a pile outside of the shop. We then move several tons into the shop each fall. I will haul the coal in one wheelbarrow-full at a time. It takes about 50 wheelbarrow loads to fill it for another year. The work is worth it, as there is a sense of security in seeing a full coal bin!

The Peleg Field Blacksmith Shop is 182 years old, and has been in service at least 170 of those years. This may be the 171st time fuel has been hauled into the bin by labor and the sweat of the brow. By continuing these traditions of shoveling coal, lighting the daily fire, and working at the forge I am continuing the work of the generations of Blacksmiths in the shop before me.

All Yoked Up - Ox Team at the Farm

2009-09-30T09:30:00.000-04:00

Ox team Jigs and Buckwheat were calves born here on the farm. Farm staff Historic Interpreter Marieanne Coursen has trained and worked with them since they were young. Oxen are trained and used differently than horses. Oxen wear a wooden yoke over the shoulders that harness their massive strength. The pair were put in the first training yoke when 6 months old. They now perform jobs like hauling in our maple sap for sugaring and pulling the cart.
Oxen are trained to work by their drover, who combines voice commands with taps from a switch. Patience and determination are good traits in an ox drover. While less volatile than horses, oxen need constant guidance and direction through voice and body language. There are no reins on an ox team, and your little switch is more suited to getting their attention that forcing compliance. Oxen work for you because you are the head of the team. They either want to please you or resign themselves to the truth that you won’t stop pestering until they do the job at hand.

Watching an ox team back a cart into a barn is a good lesson in perseverance. The oxen know what you want to do, but don’t really like backing into a space they cannot see. Even though they may do the job every day, they know there could be something lurking in there! The drover’s command and presence has to overcome their resistance, and they let the teamster be their eyes as they back the cart into the stall.

Blacksmithing Book Review: Edwin Tunis - Colonial Craftsman

2009-09-25T13:31:00.000-04:00

Few books provide a more approachable or more attractive presentation of traditional American Craftsmen than Edwin Tunis’ Colonial Craftsman. Written in 1965, this classic has been republished in a large, soft cover format. The hundreds of beautiful drawings and line illustrations throughout the book are the feature that makes the book a stand out.If you have ever wondered about the tradesmen who made shoes, bound books, or worked metal prior to the Industrial Revolution this book can provide illumination. The tools, the buildings, and workers at work are all presented in the illustrations. The text provides discussion of the social, economic, and cultural roles of each line of work. Many obscure trades and methods are presented as well.

Like Shoes on an Ox!

2009-09-23T16:19:00.003-04:00

The Farmers’ Museum has more draft power than just our horse Zeb. There are also Jigs and Buckwheat, the Devon Shorthorn Working Steers. Oxen were a much more common source of draft power in the 1840s than in the present. Oxen are strong, readily available on the farm, and able to thrive on feed a horse wouldn’t eat. Today, they have a reputation for being slow. While it is true that they don’t have the gallop of a horse, oxen have good speed while pulling heavy loads like plows and logs.

Most people know that horses wear shoes to protect their hooves from wear and to improve traction. Many don’t know that oxen can be shod as well. Oxen have a split hoof, and can wear two shoes on each foot. Thus a fully shod ox wears 8 shoes. We have a couple of forged ox shoes at the blacksmith shop. For a look at how ox shoes were traditionally forged in Northern Europe try viewing this 1923 film: “Nail and Ox shoe Smith”. It is almost ten minutes long, and requires a high speed connection to stream the video. (It is embedded below, but you can also follow the link)

The first two minutes show a rural smith in Sweden making nails. The rest of the film documents two smiths forging first nails, then ox shoes. They make both a normal ox shoe and a winter shoe called an “Ice Nail”. The winter shoes have an iron spike on the bottom for traction. This black and white film seems to be part of an effort to document rural and disappearing trades. The smith and striker work very smoothly and fast. You can tell they have made hundreds of these shoes by the way they handle their tools.

Making handles with a spokeshave and froe

2009-09-18T09:58:00.000-04:00

Blacksmiths are one of the few tradespeople that are able to make most of their own tools. The blacksmiths in the Fields' Shop have a tradition of making their hammers. Once you have made the hammer head, where do you get the handle? From the woodpile, of course!

Any ash wood found in the woodpile is set aside for making tool handles. Billets are split out of the firewood using a froe. Then the wood is shaped while sitting at the shaving horse. That is a traditional workbench used to hold pieces of wood while it is shaped to make wagon spokes, or in this case, hammer handles.
The billet of wood is first shaped using a drawknife. The tool is pulled toward you and shaves large slices of wood away. Next a spokeshave is used to take finer shavings of wood off the billet. The handle eye, neck, and body are shaped and smoothed. Finished handles are set aside for use, while the wood shavings produced are saved to start our daily fire.

Thanks to volunteer Michela Lachance for demonstrating the process!

Why do horses need shoes?

2009-09-16T09:55:00.000-04:00

Zeb was at the Fields' Blacksmith Shop recently to have his shoes pulled, his hooves trimmed, and the shoes reset. Why do horses need shoes at all? Some don’t. If a horse is working or pulling heavy loads on abrasive ground like our gravel roads then their hoof may be wearing faster than it grows. It that goes on long enough they will wear down their hoof wall and their hooves will hurt. Shoes protect their hooves from wear and the horse from lameness.

Why then does Zeb need to have his shoes removed and reset? Because his hooves have grown over the last 6 weeks. They do not get worn down because of his steel shoes. The hooves need to be trimmed to a proper length and angle. Here is Zeb getting his nails done!
Does getting the shoes nailed on hurt the horse? No. If it did he wouldn’t let us do it again and again. Here is Zeb and Dan our Farrier. They have been working together for twelve years. Zeb appears to be having fun, and is trying to pull out Danny’s shirt. Yuck, Horse slobber!

Hinges, Pintles and Gudgeons

2009-09-11T14:32:00.001-04:00

The Field blacksmith shop is making hardware for hayloft doors for the Morey Barn. Our shop has been reproducing hardware for the museum’s historic structures since 1946. The barn is near the blacksmith shop and houses the Children’s Barnyard. During the summer a small herd of sheep, goats, chickens, and Annabelle the calf live there and greet children.
This has been a fun project. The hinge starts as an 18 inch long bar of steel. The barrel or eye of the hinge strap is forged and rolled. A sizing pin is driven through the eye to make sure it is the proper size. This round hole that rides on the hinge pin is traditionally called the gudgeon.
Then the bar is drawn out at the hammer and anvil. That takes nearly an hour. The next step is to forge the pintle, which is the other half of the hinge. It has a spike that gets driven into the barn beam and a pin (the pintle) upon which the gudgeon rides. Most people call this a strap hinge, but it is more properly a pintle and gudgon strap hinge.
The doors and hinges that we are replacing have worn out from more than a century and a half of weather and wear. If my hinges last as long they won’t need to be replaced until the year 2159!

Harvest Festival!

2009-09-09T14:28:00.000-04:00

Most agricultural communities in the 19th century had some form of Harvest Festival. This may have been celebrated as a County Fair, a barn dance, or even religious celebrations. We even have a National Harvest Festival in the form of Thanksgiving. For what else is a harvest festival than a giving of thanks for the harvest of food and crops that will keep you though the long winter’s nights?
The Farmers’ Museum continues this tradition with our own Harvest Festival.

Draft Power: Big Zeb and the wagon at the farm

2009-09-04T11:31:00.001-04:00

Zeb the Percheron is our draft horse. He does a lot of work at the Museum. He pulls the plow in the field, cultivates the crops, and draws visitors around the Museum in our wagon. Zeb has been with us for more than 12 years. A gentle giant, he endures both hard work and the petting from hundreds of children.

Horses wear horseshoes for a number of reasons. Increased traction for work is one. Correcting equine orthopedic issues is another. Zeb gets his hooves trimmed and new shoes as he needs them every 6 weeks. Here is the Farrier setting a new shoe.
Throughout the summer Zeb is harnessed to pull the wagon from 11:30 until 1:30. He usually works 5 days a week, rain or shine. As we head into fall he will pull the plow to turn under the stubble from the summer crops. That will help prepare the soil for planting Winter Rye, which will be our first crop harvested next spring. The agricultural cycle of preparing the soil, planting, and harvesting will continue to turn with Zeb’s help.Throughout the summer Zeb pulls the wagon from 11:30 until 1:30. He usually works 5 days a week, rain or shine.

What is a froe? Tool making in the blacksmith's shop.

2009-09-02T11:23:00.000-04:00

We have just completed a blacksmithing class at The Farmers’ Museum. This was a two day blacksmithing tutorial for two students. The diverse background of our students makes the classes a lot of fun. One of the projects we made in the class was a froe.
The froe is a simple tool that is struck with a mallet to split wood. Historically they were used to split shingles from a round of cedar trunk. In the Field's Blacksmith Shop we use one to split ash wood for hammer handles. One of my students builds and repairs musical instruments. He built a froe to split wood to make violin soundboards! Tool making is great strength within the blacksmith’s trade. We can build the tool to build just about anything. If we need nails, we make a nail header, if we need shingles, forge a froe, and if more timber is needed we forge an axe.
To use a froe you place the blade on top of the piece of wood you wish to split. Strike it sharply with a wooden mallet or maul. Twist the handle to control the direction of the split, and split the wood into two pieces. You might say you twist the handle to and froe!

Book Review: The Village Blacksmith

2009-08-28T12:05:00.000-04:00

The book The Village Blacksmith by Aldren A. Watson presents a classic overview of the role of the blacksmith in American small town life. First published in 1968, Watson’s text and artistic line drawing details show the work and methods of the village smith.
Watson had a rich carreer as an author of books on craft, an illustrator, and a painter. Educated at Yale, he claimed to be self-taught in craft and art. Living in Vermont, his work looked to the past and emphasized the nature of American craft and craftsmen.

The illustrations that accompany the text are simple but elegant. They capture the tools and hardware of the shop. This book does not teach how to be a blacksmith, but about the blacksmiths of the past and their lives. It has a solid grounding in craft and history. His text and illustrations detail how to build a brick forge and bellows. The appendix also includes excerpts from Blacksmith’s Day Books to show the type of work done and the prices charged for the work. Watson’s book is interesting to read, and provides an overview rather than comprehensive detail. He discusses the production of wrought iron, the tools used by the smith, and the hardware and tools make in small shops throughout American history. It is a nostalgic but informed look back at an earlier time.

This book is available used, and has been reprinted as The Blacksmith: Ironworker and Farrier. It can be found here.

A short biography can be found here.

Summer Harvests

2009-08-26T11:54:00.000-04:00

By mid-August summer has peaked in this part of New York, and the Lippitt Farmstead is harvesting crops to store for the winter. It has been a good growing year with plentiful rain. The farmers here at the Museum grow the crops to present traditional farm life, but also because they are needed and used. Our animals will live this winter on the hay grown this summer.

Some of the grains will go to the farm and some to the farmhouse. They will be used to make pancakes and bread. Barley and hops are used to demonstrate making the weak, bitter “table beer” made on farms.

The hops were traditionally used both on the farm and sold as a cash crop. In the 19th century this region’s hops were sold to brewers all over North America!

Our corn is still filling out. Most of it was traditionally harvested late and dried as a grain. Dried corn could be ground into cornmeal or used whole in chowders and soups.

Late summer’s harvest is one of the busiest times on the farm. Our summer is long, but our first frost is coming in about a month. There is a lot to do and harvest before then!

Reap What You Sow

2009-08-15T09:15:00.000-04:00

Hundreds of fourth grade boys come to the blacksmith shop each year and many of them ask if we make swords. After their initial disappointment I try to lure them into a discussion of the farmers’ scythe. A well-made scythe blade is lighter, sharper, and harder to forge than a sword. A sword may never be called upon to make a crucial cutting stroke, while every stroke of the scythe is important to the farmer. A farmer in the 1840s may have carried his scythe in the field for several weeks each year, swinging its razor edge through hay, rye, barley, oats, and wheat. From before dawn until dusk the strokes of the scythe harvesting fodder and grain put security in the barn and money in the bank. (whetstone for sharpening a scythe blade)

Day-long use of a scythe is demanding work. It is not particularly hard to swing the scythe once. But a farmer reaping (another word for cutting) in midsummer may easily make 30,000 strokes with the scythe. To do that you must use more than your arms. The reaper’s whole body twists with each stroke, coiling and uncoiling from shoulders to waist. Harvesting day after day requires a reaper to become as efficient with the blade and snathe (handles and shaft of the scythe) as an Olympic swimmer is with his stroke. Each stroke, breath, and step is a synchronized movement. No motion is wasted.
The Lippit Farmstead has grown a prize crop of grains this year. Here is a picture of their Wheat and Oats, which won 1st prize in the Otsego County Fair.

At the farm, the scythe has been used to mow hay and reap rye, barley, oats, and wheat. A second crop of buckwheat is growing now and will be mown in September. These grains formed the foundation for daily life in the 19th century. Barley brewed your beer, buckwheat pancake broke your morning fast. Wheat and rye made your bread. This just shows that the old adage is true, you reap what you sow.

Flint and Steel

2009-08-07T11:41:00.000-04:00

A flint and steel would have been a common tool in the 19th century. A steel “striker” is used to strike a piece of chert or flint. The resulting sparks are caught on a piece of charred cloth or other easy to light tinder. A small glowing coal forms. That ember is used to light tiny shavings of wood, which in turn is used to light your kindling. Lighting a fire took patience and skill.

The striker is forged from high carbon steel and is quenched hard. The sparks are caused by the flint scrapping tiny slivers of steel from the striker. Friction heats them up and they burst into flame, making tiny sparks. Those sparks are burning over 2,000 degrees F.

A flint and steel is fun to experiment with, and would still work to light your fire. One of my fellow staff members is shown in these pictures, and uses his flint and steel daily through the winter to light his fire. It took him less than a minute after starting to strike flint and have burning tinder. I envy his skill. I don’t use one as often or well, and am thankful for matches.

Dew on the Buckwheat

2009-08-05T11:36:00.001-04:00

The weather this summer has provided challenges for both farmers and travelers. We seem to shift from bright sunshine to torrential rain every two days. While that has made it difficult for farmers to harvest their crops, the crops themselves are lush and green. Our Museum has rarely looked more green and inviting. The July sun usually bakes the grass brown by the first week of August. Not this year!

Here are a few pictures of the Museum behind the scenes from the first week of August, 2009.

The Carousel looks beautiful framed by the trees.

The historic Village looks freshly washed by yesterday’s downpours. There is fog rolling off the mountains above the Lippit Farm and Otsego Lake. There is dew on the Buckwheat. It was planted less than 3 weeks ago, and has sprung from the ground with great vigor.

Summertime!

2009-07-31T09:39:00.000-04:00

It has been an unusual summer this year from the viewpoint of a traditional farmer. We had three frosts that came at the end of our normal window for such things, surprising those who had planted their gardens early. The spring rains came on time, but never ended. June and July rarely saw 3 sunny days in a row. July had the coldest average temperatures since record keeping began. Farmers have had great difficulty getting their hay and grains harvested. They need at least 3 dry and sunny days in a row to do so. Our hay and rye will be harvested well past it’s peak. That will create some difficulties feeding livestock this fall. The barley has been cut and the oats and wheat are ripening. The oats must be ready, as our chickens and a wild bird are into the oats.

Despite the cool weather and frequent rains, some plants have thrived and put on lush growth. Buckwheat was planted last week, and has exploded out of the earth with vigor. Our hops are thriving as well. Hops were grown in this region, and supplied much of the nation with the natural preservative and flavoring for beer. Hops were also used to produce yeast cake for baking bread, and as a medicinal plant. So while there may be less barley with which to brew, the resulting beer will be well flavored and the loaves of bread will be light and airy!

Another link in the chain!

2009-07-29T09:31:00.000-04:00

My daily blacksmithing demonstrations this week have included forging a welded steel chain. A strong chain was an expensive, necessary, and valuable tool in 1845 rural America. Chain was used to pull a stoneboat with your oxen, to pull stumps out of the ground, and to remove stones from your field. It could be used to skid logs, to raise timbers to build your barn, or as a trace chain to connect your horse and wagon. Chain was the strongest and most durable hauling tool available.

Our chain is being made from 3/8th inch diameter low-carbon steel rod. This is the closest readily available equivalent to the wrought iron bar used in the 1840s. Each link starts out as a piece of rod 7 inches long. The first step is to hammer a scarph (steep taper) on each end. The scarphed ends allow the link to be welded with the fire, hammer, and anvil.

A chain of 25 feet in length will need about 127 welded links! They are assembled three at a time. One open link is used to connect two welded links. The open link is then welded shut to make a section of three links. Two sections of three are then welded together with an open link to form a chain of 7. That short chain is then welded onto the longer length.
The chain is currently 9 feet long, and I will be adding 4 sections to it today. I can make a seven-link section per hour while talking, and add about 3 feet of chain per day. Our oxen, Jigs and Buckwheat, should have their new chain in another week.