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Warning: That ren faire anvil demo in Elizabethtown was rough
Took my nephew to the Renaissance Faire in Elizabethtown last Saturday and watched this smith try to draw out a leaf on a fireplace poker. He kept stopping every 30 seconds to rest his arm, and the heat control on his forge looked way off. The piece ended up looking more like a spear than a leaf. Anybody else ever cringe watching public demos that make the trade look harder than it really is?
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umab351mo ago
More like a spear than a leaf"... yeah, I bet the blacksmith was going for that "rustic medieval weapon" look instead of garden decor. Sounds like he forgot the part where you actually have to heat the metal properly and not just wave the hammer around until it looks vaguely pointy. Honestly, those demos are a gamble sometimes, you never know if you're gonna get a real craftsman or a guy who watched a YouTube video the night before. At least your nephew got a story out of it, even if the poker went straight to the "maybe we just hang it on the wall" pile.
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Try grabbing a cheap propane torch from a hardware store and practice on some rebar first.
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