I understand why some farriers place an importance on the skills associated with forging horseshoes. It seems that the people making shoes have no problem using manufactured nails. Are there contests requiring handmade nails? Is it assumed that machine made nails are of better quality than handmade nails? Everyone who uses horseshoe nails can describe some characteristics of the nail- harder softer, more bending, better clinches, thicker shaft, head shapes. I would think the same rational used to support handmade shoes (the ability to customize the shoe to the individual hoof) might also be true for nail fabrication, but even the best shoe fabricators use machine made nails.
There you go Pat, asking those troublesome questions again. Exactly how much time did you spend in the Principle's office?
In the very first shoeing making they made also the nails in the Roman, Celtic times/Dark ages. Crude as they were and they were thick than they are today. Blacksmiths were considered gods back then; and the trade was kept secret. Middles ages or the age of enlightenment wasn't it or about 1700's?? that they started making nails from a press at the time. Machine made shoes started in early-mid 1800's with the rim shoe.
Imagine Pat if you had to make the shoes and the nails i dont think there would be to many horses shod
I have been researching the topic of handmade vs. machine made hoes and I have some great quotes from the time period (1880s) about the cost effectiveness of utilizing handmade materials vs machine made materials. There are certainly farriers who objected to machine made shoes, but there were also farriers who objected to machine made nails. Is there skill associated with hand making a nail? According to some accounts of the time period the answer is "yes". Smitty, I would imagine most farriers could apply a set of keg shoes faster than they could make and apply hand made shoes- but many still use hand made shoes.
I was generally one of the good kids, but your comment has some truth to it. I did get in trouble for questioning some school policies. I was suspended for knowingly breaking a stupid rule.
Choice of section clips when we do make some we go 12, 12 1/4, 12 1/2, 12 3/4 and so on so as you know David we can get a good choice of fit
Yep every 1/4 of an inch, do you remember 3/4 by 1/2 with the shallow fullering for the heavy road work!!! used to buckle my stamp unless it was sparkling. The boss was fond of a wide range in that section.
I knew it, Pat. I used to make the Priest and Sisters of Mary, a little nuts, in my time, by politely asking "those kind " of questions and expecting the answers too.
smitty, I think it was the apprentices and horseshoers that did that; and it was the master blacksmith that made the shoes and taught; and making the nails was the exercise of the apprentice blacksmith working in the fire for the first few years.
"A blacksmith made nails during his off time (slow time); in a larger shop nails were made by an apprentice. Sometimes an old farrier who could no longer bend over to shoe horses would act as a specialized nail maker. One informant, a long time horseshoer, told about a "gypsy" type of people that in the "old days" traveled from shop to shop making horseshoe nails (Lebour 1986)." From What the Horse left behind, R. Morris 1988
Pat, are you suggesting Blacksmiths made nails specific to a foot just like we may make a specific shoe for a foot?
Eric, I just don't know. It seems different sized shops had different procedures- sometimes the nails were made in advance, sometimes they were made for each horse. There are several accounts for steel types and cooling techniques required for nailing into hard hooves.
ok so, besides hardcore traditionalists who always want to do things the traditional way. What is it in a machine made nail you can not accomplish?
