[Sca-cooks] turning hammer?- OT

[Stefan li Rous]

Phlip replied to me with:
> A turning hammer, Stefan (and Cadoc) is what farrier call it- a 
> rounding
> hammer is what smiths call it. I started as a farrier, so...
>
> All it is, is a hammer with one face convex and the other face flat. 
> As soon
> as my computer is working again, I'll send a picture. The edges of the 
> face
> are radiused so ou don't put dings and creases into the hot metal 
> you're
> working, and it's particularly useful for bending steel, as in 
> horseshoes "the hard way", as in edge on, to help make the curve at 
> the toe
> of the horseshoe. The head is usually about 32 oz/ 2 lbs-plenty of 
> heft for
> a hard blow, but not so heavy it will wear you out (the claw hammers 
> that
> everyone uses for carpentry are usually 16 oz, to give you some basis 
> for
> comparison).
<snip of usually unknown (at least to us city folk) info on horse 
shoeing.>

So how much of these details on horse shoeing and horseshoes also hold 
true for the medieval period?
Do we even know much about these subjects in period? I know there are a 
multitude of books - I've got several. But I've also not had time to 
read them.

I think an introductory article on horse shoeing and how it may have 
varied in period from today, would make an interesting article. For the 
Florilegium or elsewhere.

Was there a period variation of the game of horseshoes? Or is that just 
an 18th or 19th century creation? Boules is period and similar, but 
different from horse shoes.

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas          
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****