Williamsburg Update #10
Josh Rachita, Historical Interpreter
*Josh is interning for the summer at Colonial Williamsburg.*
July 26, 2021
Hello
all!
It was another great week here in
Williamsburg. I got back from the Outer Banks earlier in the week. My family
was supposed to attend the Roanoke Lost Colony play, but it unfortunately got
rained out. It was cool to be able to see where those infamous events took
place. In the shop this week I worked on a flesh fork, and I am very pleased
with how close it is to the piece I was copying.
This week I also went to the
Rockefeller Library here at Colonial Williamsburg. The library is open to the
public and has some really great resources. I, of course, enjoyed the books on
ironwork and blacksmithing. While there, I skimmed through a few sources that I
knew we talked about in the shop. It’s always good to have read them yourself
instead of just regurgitating information from other people. I also checked out
a book on enslaved blacksmiths in Louisiana in the 19th century,
which I am hopeful will help me understand Joshua Houston better.
There is a lot of muscle memory
involved in blacksmithing so with tooling changes, it can be a challenge to
adjust. I had just gotten used to my new nail header I had made (which was the
third time this summer I’ve changed headers) when I chipped it last Sunday. I’m
not completely sure why that happened, but I reforged it. I will start tomorrow trying to clean it up
to be able to use again. I will try and temper it back farther this time, so it
won’t be quite as hard.
As for the flesh fork, I am very
pleased with how close I got to the original piece. The “original” is actually
a copy another smith did of the 18th century fork back in 2008. It
is a complex item to file because the tines are round and there are several
bends in them. In the picture, you’ll notice that my tines are slightly longer.
This was purposeful because the master of the shop noted that the 18th
century piece likely wore down over time. Though I am still shooting for a more
exact copy next time, I am pleased with the improvement throughout this summer.
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