Support Your Local Blacksmith

[RJSakowski]

Ahhh! , that's perhaps why there is a difference.
I'm a country boy born & bred , strong in the arm & thick in the head.
I'm from Yorkshire England so was Mr Wellborne Smith his native language would have been Victorian Yorkshire & earlier , the village we lived in was at Tattershall Lincolnshire where he settled after WW1 .

What would we country bumpkins know of such high brow educated scribes as HWL who didn't know their way around the terms of the ancient crafts .
I doubt Mr Wellborne Smith would have ever left the Yorkshire village save for shoeing horses in the first world war somewhere with is regiment & coming to Tattershall to set up business with a Tattershall pal he met shoeing military horses somewhere in France .

This is from the search Medeaevil blacksmith

Description of a Blacksmith ForgeA Blacksmith forge is a workplace where metal is worked by a blacksmith by heating and hammering via a furnace consisting of a special hearth where metal is heated before shaping The name of a forge was also referred to as a a smithy. A Forge wagon was a wagon fitted up for transporting a blackmith's forge and tools. A Portable forge was a light and compact blacksmith's forge, with bellows, etc., that may be moved from place to place.

My wife is from Castle Donington in Leicestershire so I am well familiar with English colloquialisms. While HWL was an American author, the term forge in reference to a blacksmith's furnace actually traces back to Middle English in the 16th century.
I have known old gentlemen such your Mr. Smith (interesting that his name is Smith; I trust that blacksmithing was a family tradition going back to the Doomsday book and beyond). I have little doubt that he was exceedingly skilled at his craft. Those that I met were.

 

[russevertz]

I tried a cam shaft once and it crumbled. Probably cast rather than forged originally...
You may find a forged one though.