WEBVTT - Blacksmiths? You got that right! 0:00:00.400 --> 0:00:03.320 Hey, everybody. I don't know if you've heard, but we 0:00:03.440 --> 0:00:06.800 have a book coming out finally, finally, after all these years. 0:00:07.280 --> 0:00:09.880 It's great, it's fun. You're gonna love it. It's called 0:00:09.880 --> 0:00:14.400 Stuff You Should Know Colon, an incomplete compendium of mostly 0:00:14.600 --> 0:00:19.759 interesting things, and it's twenty six jam packed chapters that 0:00:19.800 --> 0:00:22.880 we wrote with another guy named Knowls Parker, who's amazing 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:28.000 and is illustrated amazingly by our illustrator, Carl Manardo. And 0:00:28.040 --> 0:00:30.760 it's just an all around joy to pick up and read. 0:00:31.080 --> 0:00:33.159 Even though we haven't physically held in our hands yet, 0:00:33.200 --> 0:00:35.560 it's like we have Chuck in our dreams so far. 0:00:36.200 --> 0:00:38.640 I can't wait to actually see and hold this thing 0:00:38.720 --> 0:00:41.640 and smell it, and so should you, so pre order now. 0:00:42.159 --> 0:00:44.199 It means a lot to us. The support is a 0:00:44.320 --> 0:00:47.160 very big deal, So pre order anywhere books are sold. 0:00:48.680 --> 0:00:50.960 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of My 0:00:51.159 --> 0:00:59.440 Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, You're welcome to the 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:02.560 podcast Time Josh Clark, and there's Charles w Chuck Bryan 0:01:02.680 --> 0:01:05.319 over there, and Jerry's out there somewhere, and this is 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:08.200 Stuff you Should Know. Did I tell you about my 0:01:08.240 --> 0:01:13.040 new hobby that started yesterday? I'll bet I can guess 0:01:13.560 --> 0:01:18.160 watching blacksmithing videos. Yeah, I was gonna say the same thing, man, Like, Um, 0:01:18.200 --> 0:01:21.560 I don't have any desire to blacksmith myself. Nope, I 0:01:21.720 --> 0:01:25.640 just like watching these videos. There's something really amazing about them. Yeah, 0:01:25.680 --> 0:01:29.120 there's one. I don't know if you watched. It's on YouTube. 0:01:29.120 --> 0:01:33.479 It's called Blacksmithing Forging a Bearded Axe. No, I didn't 0:01:33.520 --> 0:01:37.120 see that one. Oh god. It just reminds me of 0:01:37.160 --> 0:01:41.360 the the sort of the lulling of that show how 0:01:41.360 --> 0:01:44.319 it's made. But I watched this video and and most 0:01:44.360 --> 0:01:46.960 of them have some sped up stuff too, because blacksmithing 0:01:47.000 --> 0:01:51.040 takes so long that a thirty minute video, I mean 0:01:51.120 --> 0:01:52.720 half of it is in fast motion, so it just 0:01:52.760 --> 0:01:55.640 goes to show you and it's edited, and they always do. 0:01:55.880 --> 0:02:00.000 They always put it to yakety sax. But it's just crazy, though, 0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:04.640 when you see how long it takes to make this 0:02:04.760 --> 0:02:09.440 one axe, and then you think about outfitting armies. Yeah, 0:02:09.520 --> 0:02:12.239 it just feels like it was every other person a 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:16.520 blacksmith and did they just do that? Yeah? I get 0:02:16.560 --> 0:02:19.639 the impression. There was a Walt Whitman poem about blacksmith's 0:02:19.680 --> 0:02:23.040 and he was basically like they were the most important 0:02:23.040 --> 0:02:27.200 people in any community. Everybody loved them. They owed no 0:02:27.240 --> 0:02:30.120 one anything because they never had any debts, because they 0:02:30.160 --> 0:02:33.560 were so vital that anything they did probably was worth 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:36.760 ten times what anybody else could do for them. Um, 0:02:36.840 --> 0:02:39.920 and they seem to have been pretty amazing people on 0:02:40.040 --> 0:02:43.000 the whole. Yeah. I mean, and we'll talk about this more, 0:02:43.040 --> 0:02:46.040 but when you think about just nails, yeah, and how 0:02:46.040 --> 0:02:50.079 many nails built this country and the world, right, those 0:02:50.160 --> 0:02:52.560 nails had to be forged. Yeah. When you watch some 0:02:52.600 --> 0:02:54.520 of these Blacksmith videos and like you're saying, when you 0:02:54.560 --> 0:02:57.359 do see how long it takes to just make an 0:02:57.360 --> 0:03:00.640 average thing that you would like buy in a second 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:04.000 these days, it really gives you an appreciation for just 0:03:04.120 --> 0:03:07.880 what a sea change the Industrial Revolution was where this 0:03:07.960 --> 0:03:12.320 was automated and made converted to mass production. It just 0:03:12.360 --> 0:03:16.040 could have never happened before, and it didn't happen before, 0:03:16.400 --> 0:03:19.959 but it was up to the lone blacksmith to equip 0:03:20.080 --> 0:03:23.240 their entire communities with all this stuff. Is pretty cool. 0:03:23.600 --> 0:03:28.560 So are we gonna do blacksmith history first or the 0:03:28.680 --> 0:03:34.640 metal history first? Um, We'll do blacksmith history first, I think, Okay, 0:03:34.840 --> 0:03:37.720 I guess we gotta look at the name because if 0:03:37.760 --> 0:03:41.360 you if you look at other smiths, they were a 0:03:41.440 --> 0:03:45.320 little more specific. They were called bron smith's, um blacksmiths, 0:03:45.400 --> 0:03:48.560 or not called iron smith's, even though they work with iron, 0:03:48.560 --> 0:03:50.200 and most of the other smiths were named for the 0:03:50.200 --> 0:03:53.720 metal that they work with. Silver smith. That's a good one. Yeah, God, 0:03:53.760 --> 0:03:58.320 good silver smith. It's worth their waiting. Gold silver. Don't 0:03:58.320 --> 0:04:01.240 bring up gold to those, Oh no, no, But black 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:05.080 comes from well, we're not positive, but one explanation is 0:04:05.280 --> 0:04:08.280 blacksmith comes from the hammer scale or these scales. If 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:11.320 you're watching these videos, you'll see when they're hammering the stuff, 0:04:11.320 --> 0:04:16.240 these little tiny, chunky thin not chunky actually just little 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:19.200 chunks of thin scales are falling off every time the 0:04:19.279 --> 0:04:21.960 hammer it. That's the hammer scale. And it is black, 0:04:22.000 --> 0:04:24.159 and your hands get all black and your face gets black. 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:27.240 Or it might have just been because iron is black. 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:31.520 Typically it's it's pretty dark. It's dark enough, especially wrought iron. 0:04:31.600 --> 0:04:35.039 It's it tends to be black. So that's where they think. 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:38.680 One of those two reasons is where um blacksmith came from. 0:04:38.760 --> 0:04:41.839 And the name smith itself. We actually talk about this 0:04:41.880 --> 0:04:44.240 in our book that's coming out, you know. Um. In 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:47.159 the episode on Keeping Up with the jones Is, we 0:04:47.279 --> 0:04:51.280 talked about mean the chapter yeah, yeah, the chapter I'm 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:54.880 keeping um in our book, we talked about how keeping 0:04:54.960 --> 0:04:57.040 up with the Joneses could have very easily been keeping 0:04:57.120 --> 0:05:01.200 up with the Smiths, um, because the names are so prevalent, 0:05:01.240 --> 0:05:04.880 and in fact, smith is the most prevalent name in 0:05:04.880 --> 0:05:08.159 the United States, and it's all derived from blacksmiths. And 0:05:08.240 --> 0:05:12.880 just how many blacksmiths there were, because every community needed one, um. 0:05:12.920 --> 0:05:14.640 And then if you were in a large enough community, 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:18.080 you had multiple blacksmiths all working because one blacksmith had 0:05:18.120 --> 0:05:20.240 to do all this work to supply this one community 0:05:20.279 --> 0:05:22.840 with all this stuff, um, and they could only keep 0:05:22.920 --> 0:05:26.880 up with a certain size community, you know. Yeah, and uh, 0:05:27.040 --> 0:05:30.280 if you had an on site thing that you were doing, 0:05:30.480 --> 0:05:32.560 you had a blacksmith with you. If you were out 0:05:32.600 --> 0:05:36.400 at war in battle, you had blacksmiths there because not 0:05:36.520 --> 0:05:39.960 only do they create these weapons and the armor, but 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:42.320 they have to fix stuff. You know, after a big, 0:05:42.360 --> 0:05:44.880 long day of battle, you go in and trade in 0:05:44.880 --> 0:05:48.200 your sword and say fix this thing. And though smith 0:05:48.200 --> 0:05:51.360 he's gotta be working around the clock. Yeah, And they 0:05:51.360 --> 0:05:54.120 have like apprentices and help and all that kind of stuff. 0:05:54.160 --> 0:05:56.200 But but yeah, I mean, like the you get the 0:05:56.200 --> 0:05:59.680 impression that the community could come to a standstill when 0:05:59.720 --> 0:06:02.599 the the blacksmith was sick for a week or something. Yeah, 0:06:02.680 --> 0:06:05.680 and there were blacksmith's doing all kinds of work all 0:06:05.720 --> 0:06:08.039 over the place, so many that they eventually, um, and 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:10.960 this makes sense, would become a little more specialized. And 0:06:11.279 --> 0:06:13.520 horses were a big deal back then. We still love 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:15.400 horses today, but back then they did a lot more 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:20.280 for humanity then just look pretty and run around in fields. Now, uh, 0:06:20.360 --> 0:06:21.880 so they had to make horse shoes, and it was 0:06:21.920 --> 0:06:25.799 a very specialized set of equipment for making horse shoes 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:29.000 as opposed to just regular blacksmithing, So that was a 0:06:29.080 --> 0:06:32.920 very busy job. They were called farriers, and even when 0:06:32.960 --> 0:06:35.560 blacksmithing as a whole kind of went away, there were 0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:39.359 still farriers working. Because it's not like a shoe store 0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:41.920 where one size fits all. Well, shoe stores aren't one 0:06:41.920 --> 0:06:45.840 size fits all, but it's very specific to your foot 0:06:45.920 --> 0:06:48.719 size or your hoof size as a horse, So you 0:06:48.760 --> 0:06:50.800 can't just throw any old shoe that's close enough on there. 0:06:50.800 --> 0:06:55.320 You gotta make them all a cart basically made the order. 0:06:55.360 --> 0:06:59.360 I think in the fashion world, what's it called bespoke. 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:04.919 Oh yeah, that's the opposite of pretaport. And so farriers 0:07:05.000 --> 0:07:07.159 continue to work for years and years and years, and 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:09.760 I think there are people that still do fairier work today, 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:13.600 aren't they? Sure? Sure, just to show off. Sure, but 0:07:14.040 --> 0:07:16.760 I guess you kind of spoiled the ending. Blacksmiths aren't 0:07:16.760 --> 0:07:21.200 really around much today because of of industrialization, but they 0:07:21.200 --> 0:07:25.400 were Inoklyn, New York. Yeah, they are for about two 0:07:25.440 --> 0:07:30.920 thousand years. They were extraordinarily important to society. Um. But 0:07:31.160 --> 0:07:33.720 you know, society was around for for a very long 0:07:33.800 --> 0:07:36.920 time before blacksmith came around. So there's this this really 0:07:36.960 --> 0:07:43.520 important window in the historical development of human society that blacksmiths, 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:46.840 you know, existed in UM. Prior to that, you know, 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:50.600 we had tools, but they were mostly made of stone. Uh. 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:52.920 And then at some point somebody said, hey, if you 0:07:52.960 --> 0:07:54.840 put tin and copper together, you can come up with 0:07:54.840 --> 0:07:57.760 a stuff called bronze. And it's pretty great. You can 0:07:57.800 --> 0:08:00.280 make some pretty neat things with it. And one of 0:08:00.280 --> 0:08:03.280 the things about bronze is that it has a fairly 0:08:03.360 --> 0:08:08.600 low melting point, something like um hundred and forty two 0:08:08.600 --> 0:08:14.880 degrees fahrenheit degrees celsius, which you could get a hot 0:08:14.920 --> 0:08:19.640 camp fire to that that temperature to melt melt into 0:08:19.800 --> 0:08:23.960 molten liquid bronze, which means that you can create casts 0:08:24.000 --> 0:08:27.040 and molds, and you can pour that molten bronze into it, 0:08:27.080 --> 0:08:29.200 and as it cools, you've got a handy sword that 0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:31.360 you can make over and over and over again. So 0:08:31.480 --> 0:08:36.200 bronze fulfilled this purpose for tools for many thousands of years, 0:08:36.480 --> 0:08:38.800 so much of the um and and these metals were 0:08:38.800 --> 0:08:42.439 so important that we go back and call these historical 0:08:42.559 --> 0:08:45.640 ages by the name of the metal tools that were 0:08:45.640 --> 0:08:48.000 being produced. So you got the Bronze Age, and then 0:08:48.080 --> 0:08:50.800 that was eventually followed by the Iron Age. And one 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:53.160 thing that stuck out to me, Chuck, I hadn't realized before, 0:08:54.040 --> 0:08:58.840 is that um you think of history is progressing, you know, constantly. 0:08:59.440 --> 0:09:01.720 But the Bronn's Age, even though it was followed by 0:09:01.720 --> 0:09:05.080 the Iron Age, the Iron Age marked a period of 0:09:05.160 --> 0:09:08.559 cultural decline where the Bronze Age, which had come previously, 0:09:08.679 --> 0:09:12.440 was a period of cultural blossoming. But for the first 0:09:12.480 --> 0:09:15.400 several centuries of the Iron Age, it was a step backwards. 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:19.199 A lot of the classical or antiquity society is kind 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:22.040 of crumbled at about the same time. They think possibly 0:09:22.120 --> 0:09:26.920 because of um climate change or mass droughts and starvation, 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:29.800 kind of like the Maya. Yeah, so it's not like 0:09:30.720 --> 0:09:34.560 the iron cause that. But iron, like really good bronze 0:09:34.640 --> 0:09:37.240 is probably superior to iron in a lot of ways. 0:09:37.800 --> 0:09:40.120 I think iron is a little softer. Um, it might 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:42.439 rust a little quicker. It depends on what kind of 0:09:42.480 --> 0:09:45.080 iron you have for sure, Right, But the iron that 0:09:45.120 --> 0:09:48.440 they were using basically they started using, and you know, 0:09:48.440 --> 0:09:51.200 there's not like a demarcation line. Then there is some overlap, 0:09:51.240 --> 0:09:53.960 and no one knows exactly when the big switch happened. 0:09:54.000 --> 0:09:57.040 But it was cheaper and it was more readily available 0:09:57.559 --> 0:10:01.000 than bronze was, so they just started iron basically in 0:10:01.040 --> 0:10:05.200 its surpassed bronze. Yeah. The Greek's pin a semi mythical 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:09.600 group called the chala Bees who supposedly were absorbed by 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:13.120 the Hittites in Anatolia and Turkey, and that they were 0:10:13.120 --> 0:10:16.840 the ones who figured out how to mine iron because 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:19.920 originally there was iron stuff Like King Tut was found 0:10:19.920 --> 0:10:23.560 with the dagger made of iron, and it would have 0:10:23.600 --> 0:10:27.040 been even more highly prized than anything made of gold 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:31.679 in his entire tomb, because iron was so rare at 0:10:31.679 --> 0:10:34.560 that time, because the only source of iron on Earth, 0:10:34.600 --> 0:10:37.800 as far as humans knew, came in the form of meteorites. 0:10:38.000 --> 0:10:40.720 So you have to find a meteorite above ground to 0:10:40.840 --> 0:10:44.200 find your deposit of iron. So making a dagger out 0:10:44.200 --> 0:10:45.839 of that would have been that would have been a 0:10:45.960 --> 0:10:49.640 very special dagger. And then eventually they say, the calibies 0:10:49.640 --> 0:10:52.520 figured out now there's actually iron like in rock in 0:10:52.559 --> 0:10:55.600 the earth, and people started figuring out that you could 0:10:55.640 --> 0:10:58.560 take that rock and heat it to some pretty high 0:10:58.559 --> 0:11:02.559 temperatures considering and hammer it, and you can hammer the 0:11:02.960 --> 0:11:05.960 other stuff out, the ore out or hammer the iron 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:08.960 from the ore, and you have something approaching what what 0:11:09.080 --> 0:11:12.640 you would consider iron, something called bloom. Yeah, so they 0:11:12.640 --> 0:11:14.760 just couldn't get the fire hot enough basically at first 0:11:14.760 --> 0:11:17.400 to get to the iron point, but they could make 0:11:17.400 --> 0:11:19.840 out hot enough to get to the bloom and they 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:21.920 would put it in an oven known as a bloomery 0:11:21.920 --> 0:11:24.079 and it would kind of just roast out those impurities. 0:11:24.640 --> 0:11:27.080 Um had iron had slag, which is sort of a 0:11:27.120 --> 0:11:30.559 glass like byproduct that you you know, it's so funny 0:11:30.559 --> 0:11:33.480 that you just hammer the stuff out, but bloom would 0:11:33.520 --> 0:11:37.800 eventually uh when they I mean it worked Okay, you 0:11:37.840 --> 0:11:39.920 could heat it up, you could hammer it and it 0:11:39.960 --> 0:11:42.480 would get a lot of the slag out, and it 0:11:42.559 --> 0:11:46.280 was It was useful enough for tools. But when the 0:11:46.280 --> 0:11:49.840 blast furnace came around, when you really got larger furnaces 0:11:49.840 --> 0:11:53.400 and hotter fires that incorporated bellows to really get that 0:11:53.440 --> 0:11:56.839 oxygen in there and get it super super hot. That 0:11:56.920 --> 0:12:01.079 eventually allowed them to get that ore to pig iron, 0:12:01.520 --> 0:12:05.719 and pig iron was a pretty big advancement because from 0:12:05.720 --> 0:12:09.080 pig iron you could hammer that slag out to eventually 0:12:09.080 --> 0:12:12.160 get to wrought iron. Right, Um, I want to give 0:12:12.200 --> 0:12:14.760 a shout out to Harold the Smith h a r 0:12:14.880 --> 0:12:17.960 a l d. He wrote an intro to iron smelting 0:12:18.000 --> 0:12:20.840 that talks all about making bloom himself with pictures. It's 0:12:20.880 --> 0:12:23.840 pretty cool, it's sure. And the Abster helped us with 0:12:23.840 --> 0:12:27.079 this one, right yeah, big time. Thank you grabs stir Um. 0:12:27.280 --> 0:12:29.560 But with pig iron, that was like it was, like 0:12:29.600 --> 0:12:31.720 you said, like a pretty big change in that, like 0:12:31.800 --> 0:12:34.560 you could suddenly make much purer iron because we had 0:12:34.600 --> 0:12:38.080 a much hotter um furnace that we were working with 0:12:38.600 --> 0:12:41.240 and the thing about pig iron is in very much 0:12:41.280 --> 0:12:43.680 the same way as bloom. You've got to hammer out 0:12:43.760 --> 0:12:49.080 those impurities. And so to make pig iron into wrought iron, 0:12:49.480 --> 0:12:51.640 you would take this pig iron, which is pretty impure, 0:12:51.920 --> 0:12:55.120 heated up and hammer it with a sledge hammer over 0:12:55.240 --> 0:12:58.200 and over again. Heated hammer, heated hammer, very much the 0:12:58.200 --> 0:13:01.160 same process as bloom, but this at higher temperatures and 0:13:01.200 --> 0:13:04.400 producing a much pure iron, and then eventually you would 0:13:04.480 --> 0:13:08.440 have wrought iron. Um And they say that, they say 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:11.680 figured out how to use water hammers like water powered hammers, 0:13:12.360 --> 0:13:16.000 in part because of the plague of the thirteenth century. 0:13:16.559 --> 0:13:19.600 It killed so many people that they didn't have the 0:13:19.720 --> 0:13:23.840 human power any longer that they needed to hammer pig iron. 0:13:23.920 --> 0:13:28.320 So it made people devise um water hammers. Yeah, water hammers, 0:13:28.320 --> 0:13:31.320 steam hammers. Um. You know, if you look at these 0:13:31.400 --> 0:13:34.760 videos today, these these people in their in their shops 0:13:34.800 --> 0:13:38.280 and their sheds they have behind their house have it 0:13:38.280 --> 0:13:41.480 looks like hydraulics. I guess that are pounding this stuff. 0:13:41.600 --> 0:13:43.719 And at first when I saw that, I was disappointed. 0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:46.800 I was like, oh, man, but that's just the big 0:13:46.840 --> 0:13:50.840 initial work, Like there's still tons of hammer work by hand. 0:13:51.480 --> 0:13:54.640 Um because there are many many there's a lot more 0:13:54.679 --> 0:13:57.360 to it than that initial hammering right to get to 0:13:57.400 --> 0:13:59.480 the wrought iron stage. But I was at first I 0:13:59.520 --> 0:14:01.679 was kind of like, man, what they don't use They 0:14:01.679 --> 0:14:05.480 don't like swing a hammer anymore? Right now? No? No, there, 0:14:05.520 --> 0:14:09.560 there's just right. It's called work smarter, not harder. But 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:12.160 there are traditionalists who are like, no, you want to 0:14:12.240 --> 0:14:16.199 use a hammer. Um. But so the different types of 0:14:16.240 --> 0:14:19.280 irons that that humans have come up with over the 0:14:19.440 --> 0:14:22.000 over the ages, and this is a really important point 0:14:22.000 --> 0:14:24.400 I think we should point out here, Chuck, Like the 0:14:24.440 --> 0:14:28.960 blacksmithing um and all of the information and knowledge and 0:14:29.200 --> 0:14:32.200 like ways of working with different types of iron, different 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:34.840 techniques and actually coming up with different types of iron. 0:14:35.280 --> 0:14:39.000 All of that started with those people who figured out 0:14:39.040 --> 0:14:40.720 that you could take rock from the earth and hammer 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:43.920 the iron out of it, and just more and more 0:14:43.920 --> 0:14:47.040 people over the ages as it spread and continue to 0:14:47.080 --> 0:14:50.440 be around for hundreds and thousands of years um. All 0:14:50.520 --> 0:14:53.920 the people working with with metal contributed to that body 0:14:53.960 --> 0:14:56.360 of knowledge, and so that's I think one of the 0:14:56.400 --> 0:15:00.360 things that's so appealing about blacksmithing is that it is 0:15:00.520 --> 0:15:09.000 a genuine human technology that was created by humanity, you know, 0:15:09.200 --> 0:15:11.080 not just like a couple of people who had a 0:15:11.080 --> 0:15:14.200 really good idea. It was this this group of humans, 0:15:14.600 --> 0:15:18.680 countless humans, all working together over thousands of years, contributing 0:15:18.720 --> 0:15:21.640 to one another's knowledge. You create this body of knowledge, 0:15:21.960 --> 0:15:23.880 and I think that's what makes it so neat to me, 0:15:24.000 --> 0:15:27.880 so cool, and and like such a brute way of 0:15:27.920 --> 0:15:30.600 doing it, you know, those the finesse comes in for sure, 0:15:31.080 --> 0:15:32.920 and maybe that's what I like about it is both 0:15:33.920 --> 0:15:36.480 like it's swinging the heavy hammer, but it's also doing 0:15:36.480 --> 0:15:38.880 this really beautiful finesse work later on in the project. 0:15:39.560 --> 0:15:42.600 Really cool. So if we're gonna well, maybe let's take 0:15:42.600 --> 0:15:44.120 a break and then talk about the types of iron. 0:15:44.120 --> 0:16:16.880 How about that. Let's oh, all right, we promise you 0:16:16.920 --> 0:16:23.200 talk of iron types. There's iron maiden. Sure, there's um 0:16:23.520 --> 0:16:28.680 take your iron supplement. That's right, there's really just iron maiden. Yeah, 0:16:28.720 --> 0:16:30.640 I guess that's all. That's all you need to know. 0:16:32.160 --> 0:16:35.280 Iron types. They're based on the carbon content of the iron. 0:16:35.360 --> 0:16:39.080 So if you hear wrought iron, you might just think 0:16:39.160 --> 0:16:43.280 that's like the cool thing that your your stair case 0:16:43.320 --> 0:16:45.320 spindles are made out of. They are not made of 0:16:45.360 --> 0:16:48.240 wrought they have frought iron anymore, at least they used 0:16:48.280 --> 0:16:50.520 to be back in the day. But this is also 0:16:50.600 --> 0:16:54.120 called bar iron. It's about point eight I'm sorry, point 0:16:55.520 --> 0:17:00.360 or less carbon. And this is sort of from what 0:17:00.440 --> 0:17:04.159 I saw um back in the day. Just the main 0:17:04.760 --> 0:17:07.560 iron that they would mainly use for the most part, 0:17:08.240 --> 0:17:12.360 the wrought iron. Yeah, um. And the difference, the big 0:17:12.359 --> 0:17:16.359 difference between wrought iron and steel is that wrought iron 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:19.719 has um silicates in it that kind of ends up 0:17:19.760 --> 0:17:25.120 as like these fibrous filaments that get hammered into order 0:17:25.200 --> 0:17:31.080 basically by the blacksmith um from pig iron, which which 0:17:31.080 --> 0:17:35.040 gives it a certain structure. With steel steel um. Like 0:17:35.080 --> 0:17:37.040 you said, all types of iron are basically based on 0:17:37.080 --> 0:17:40.280 their carbon content. Steel has a much higher carbon content 0:17:40.359 --> 0:17:43.560 than wrought iron does, and so it doesn't need to 0:17:43.600 --> 0:17:45.879 be hammered like wrought iron does because it doesn't have 0:17:45.920 --> 0:17:48.760 these iron silicates that need to be arranged just so 0:17:48.920 --> 0:17:52.159 or else it will make it brittle. Um. Instead, because 0:17:52.200 --> 0:17:56.600 of this carbon um in it, it forms this kind 0:17:56.640 --> 0:17:59.920 of crystalline structure in the iron that makes it horror 0:18:00.560 --> 0:18:04.239 and durable. UM way way harder and more durable than 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:07.840 wrought iron. The problem is is because that that durability 0:18:07.880 --> 0:18:10.720 and the strength and hardness, um, it makes it more 0:18:10.720 --> 0:18:13.200 difficult for a blacksmith to work with down the line 0:18:13.240 --> 0:18:16.760 than it has wrought iron. But it's also a much 0:18:16.760 --> 0:18:20.400 more effective, say, battle acts than a wrought iron battle acts. Yeah, 0:18:20.480 --> 0:18:22.359 and like you said, it's not what we use on 0:18:22.359 --> 0:18:25.160 our staircase. Isn't wrought iron these days, it's not wrought iron. 0:18:25.600 --> 0:18:27.480 And the production of that and like a big way 0:18:27.560 --> 0:18:31.280 went out in you know, the century pretty much altogether 0:18:31.359 --> 0:18:34.919 went out with disco. Gosh, I wish it lesson to 0:18:34.960 --> 0:18:37.840 the seventies. So one thing we should say also to 0:18:38.080 --> 0:18:40.000 Chuck is we tend to think of steel is like 0:18:40.040 --> 0:18:44.320 a modern invention. Steel was perfected in in the modern times. 0:18:44.359 --> 0:18:46.119 It was like basically the thing that kicked off the 0:18:46.160 --> 0:18:49.320 Industrial Revolution, if I remember from our Robber Barons episode. 0:18:49.760 --> 0:18:52.879 But that's not to say that people weren't experimenting with 0:18:52.920 --> 0:18:57.560 steel long before that. It was just the scientific understanding 0:18:57.600 --> 0:19:01.119 of it was lacking in dead that was replaced by 0:19:01.119 --> 0:19:06.080 an intuitive understanding among blacksmiths of you know, what fuel did, 0:19:06.119 --> 0:19:08.880 what to steal what to iron to make it stronger. 0:19:08.880 --> 0:19:11.560 They weren't saying like Oh, if I use charcoal or coke, 0:19:11.640 --> 0:19:15.400 it's gonna make this a um a better steel than say, 0:19:15.600 --> 0:19:18.920 you know, um coal or something like that. That's right. 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:22.040 Then you've also got cast iron. If you have a 0:19:22.040 --> 0:19:25.160 a nice cast iron collection in your kitchen, it's gonna 0:19:25.200 --> 0:19:28.520 be two percent carbon or more. It's very brittle, so 0:19:28.560 --> 0:19:31.439 you're not gonna hammer cast iron. Uh. It is formed 0:19:31.440 --> 0:19:34.320 into shape by casting it. That's why it's called cast iron. 0:19:34.760 --> 0:19:36.920 And use a mold while it's molten and poured in there, 0:19:37.560 --> 0:19:39.879 and it's a great thing to cook with. Yeah, And 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:41.920 we would have never been able to make anything out 0:19:41.920 --> 0:19:44.800 of cast iron until those those bellows were introduced to 0:19:44.840 --> 0:19:47.480 the forge to to really bring that temperature up because 0:19:48.080 --> 0:19:50.200 at a very high melting point. Yeah, if you're gonna 0:19:50.200 --> 0:19:52.040 pour it, it's got to be super super hot. And 0:19:52.040 --> 0:19:55.119 we'll get to these temperatures in the different kinds of 0:19:55.160 --> 0:19:58.280 hot later on, which is very interesting stuff. Yeah. So 0:19:58.480 --> 0:20:01.399 we've got like the black that's a are working with this. 0:20:01.560 --> 0:20:04.240 They're figuring out that if you add like carbon or 0:20:04.280 --> 0:20:06.840 if you do this like if you if you um 0:20:07.080 --> 0:20:11.359 heat the iron to a certain temperature, um, it's and 0:20:11.359 --> 0:20:13.160 and then take it off and hammer it and then 0:20:13.440 --> 0:20:15.480 let it cool on its own. It's going to form 0:20:15.560 --> 0:20:19.200 one type of finished product if you um do something 0:20:19.240 --> 0:20:21.560 that's called quenching it, which is cooling it down in 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:24.240 a bucket of water and usually mineral oil these days, 0:20:24.560 --> 0:20:27.000 it's going to cool differently, so it's structure is going 0:20:27.040 --> 0:20:30.240 to form differently. Um. And again they didn't they were 0:20:30.240 --> 0:20:32.959 passing this knowledge on, but they weren't using terms necessarily 0:20:32.960 --> 0:20:35.360 that we were using. What's interesting to me is we 0:20:35.520 --> 0:20:38.359 use terms that they came up with, like quenching and 0:20:38.480 --> 0:20:41.440 slag and scale and that kind of stuff like those 0:20:41.440 --> 0:20:44.119 are all still very much around and it makes sense 0:20:44.119 --> 0:20:48.440 still even after having made the transition to industrialization, they 0:20:48.480 --> 0:20:50.880 still use words very much like that, if not those 0:20:50.920 --> 0:20:53.880 same words. Now do you mean quenching is in how 0:20:53.920 --> 0:20:57.440 a human might quench their own thirst? Um? Kind of 0:20:57.960 --> 0:21:01.040 kind of, But rather than turning up a bucket of 0:21:01.040 --> 0:21:04.439 water and mineral oil, you would plunge the iron, the 0:21:04.480 --> 0:21:07.720 hot iron, into that bucket of mineral oil and water. 0:21:07.880 --> 0:21:11.920 That's right, very cool stuff. Are you making a joke 0:21:12.000 --> 0:21:16.399 that I just missed a reference? Okay, No, I didn't know. 0:21:16.640 --> 0:21:18.320 I didn't know if you were saying the etymology of 0:21:18.320 --> 0:21:22.159 the word quench was from smith ing. Oh maybe, and 0:21:22.200 --> 0:21:24.280 that when we quench our thirst it's taken from that. 0:21:24.800 --> 0:21:29.639 Maybe it's possible, I mean smite. They think that the 0:21:29.680 --> 0:21:32.959 words smite and smith are from the same word, right, 0:21:33.000 --> 0:21:36.199 because smite means very biblical meaning or not meaning. But 0:21:36.680 --> 0:21:39.040 these are a lot in Bible times. To to hit 0:21:39.080 --> 0:21:41.919 something right, or yeah, to strike it to to to 0:21:42.040 --> 0:21:45.720 smite something's right, and that's what a smith does. Should 0:21:45.720 --> 0:21:47.960 we talk about tools? I think so. One of the 0:21:47.960 --> 0:21:50.800 cool things about blacksmith is that they when you get good, 0:21:51.080 --> 0:21:54.520 you just start making your own tools, man, and then 0:21:54.600 --> 0:21:57.480 neat tools to make tools. Yeah, you gotta start somewhere 0:21:57.480 --> 0:22:00.200 though though even yeah, you gotta lay down to little 0:22:00.200 --> 0:22:02.080 tot of money first. But I saw I saw this 0:22:02.119 --> 0:22:04.560 one blog post by a blacksmith who's like, look, if 0:22:04.560 --> 0:22:06.960 you're just starting out, just you know, get the bare 0:22:07.000 --> 0:22:09.159 minimum stuff, get some used things. See if you like 0:22:09.240 --> 0:22:11.560 it first, and then eventually when you get good you 0:22:11.560 --> 0:22:13.440 can invest a little money. Then you can just start 0:22:13.480 --> 0:22:16.040 making your own stuff, right, which is very cool. I 0:22:16.080 --> 0:22:17.840 did see there was one YouTube video that was like 0:22:17.880 --> 0:22:19.240 how to how to get going for less than a 0:22:19.280 --> 0:22:23.800 hundred bucks, some very basic stuff. So if you're gonna 0:22:23.840 --> 0:22:26.479 be a smithy, you're gonna need some things. It might 0:22:26.480 --> 0:22:28.800 be less than a hundred dollars to start. You're gonna 0:22:28.800 --> 0:22:33.080 need a forge, which is the heat. Um, there are 0:22:33.119 --> 0:22:35.360 different kinds, you know that the one that I saw 0:22:35.400 --> 0:22:37.760 the acts this is sort of a UM I don't 0:22:37.760 --> 0:22:39.960