If you just look at the blacksmith’s name, it can tell you a lot about one. Black comes from the color of the iron that they smite which means to strike with force. Tools Blacksmiths used many tools in colonial days. One important tool was the anvil (See image on left). It was a very heavy iron block, and blacksmiths put iron bars on it to hammer them into the finished product. Other tools regularly found in a blacksmith’s shop where bellows, hammers, tongs, swage, file, and punch. Bellows (See image on right) produced a strong breeze, and were used to make a fire burn faster. Large hammers were used to smite the iron, and tongs were needed to grab hot coals and iron. Swage was a big block with many holes in it, and could hold hot iron bars …show more content…
The answer to that question is simple, they made. They made shoes for horses. They made latches and hinges for doors. They made cannons for war. They made farm tools like hoes and plows for farmers. They made hammers and nails, shovels and axes, spoons and forks, pots and pans, cowbells, knives, kettles, locks, gates, swords, hatchets, anchors, chains…….. You name it, a blacksmith probably made it. Types of Blacksmiths Many blacksmiths were needed in urban, or city, areas where they made more door latches, hooks, kettles, kitchen utensils, and sewing tools than a blacksmith in a rural, or country, area would. Rural blacksmiths would make products more fit for life on the farm. This includes nails, spikes, plows, shovels, hoes, and axes. During the Revolutionary War, however, blacksmiths were desperately needed to make cannons, gun parts, and knives. Horseshoes were amongst the most important products made by a different type of blacksmith. These special blacksmiths that only made horseshoes were called farriers (a modern farrier is seen on the …show more content…
The process of printing a single book took four jobs, all the tools mentioned in the paragraph above, and twenty-five hours of hard work….... per page. Let’s start at step one, setting the type. Typesetting was done by the compositor who probably had the toughest job. First, the compositor took his/her composing stick and walked over to the table with all the type on it (as seen to the left). The compositor then started to put letters of type onto the composing stick. There was a rule that that you had to put the type in the composing stick backwards and upside down, since that was how the press worked, and because of this rule, typesetting took twenty-five hours to make one page. After the compositor set the type on the composing stick, he/she would put it on a wooden tray or galley, that was brought over to an iron frame where it was locked into place. Finally, the compositor took the iron tray and put it on the bed of the press. This is where the compositor’s work ends and the beater’s and presser’s starts. The beater and presser work as a team. First, the beater takes his/her ink pads, dabs them in ink, and carefully pats the type with equal pressure. This is a difficult job you have to be skilled at to do because if just one letter has a little bit more ink than the rest, it can turn out to be a disaster. Next, the presser places paper on the type, and moves the bed under the platen (shown on the right). The presser then