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rsdsharp

(11,069 posts)
1. Pretty cool. I have a hatchet my grandfather forged.
Thu Jun 26, 2025, 04:17 PM
Jun 26

His name is stamped into it. The heat treat (if there was any) isn’t very good though, as the edge chips.

sdfernando

(5,811 posts)
2. So cool!
Thu Jun 26, 2025, 04:19 PM
Jun 26

My great grandfather on my dad's side was the town blacksmith....and my grandfather on my mothers side was a mason and built a church in the early 1900s that is still in use today.

Marthe48

(21,278 posts)
4. Like my husband's family
Thu Jun 26, 2025, 05:08 PM
Jun 26

But the masons were on his Dad's side and the blacksmiths were on his Mom's side. It's always fascinating to know some family history

democrank

(11,661 posts)
3. Kicking for Ptah's great grandfather
Thu Jun 26, 2025, 04:59 PM
Jun 26

These beautiful old tools are works of art. Your great grandfather was obviously very talented. We still have a blacksmith here in my little Vermont village. I have some blacksmith-made tools including a great old fire poker.

Thank you so much for posting this photo which I so enjoyed.

1WorldHope

(1,445 posts)
5. Can you imagine what is was like to live in that era?
Thu Jun 26, 2025, 05:35 PM
Jun 26

You have to make the tools, make the bricks, cut down the trees and make them into lumber.
I have often looked back at my dad building our house and having to use a hammer instead of a nail gun.
How could humans be so creative and so cruel at the same time?

H2O Man

(77,373 posts)
10. Very nice!
Thu Jun 26, 2025, 06:28 PM
Jun 26

Long ago, there was a blacksmith's shop on one edge of my lawn. In the 1790s, a turnpike heading west went by here; my driveway is part of what remains, and the shop was across from the stage coach station that is now my home. The things I've found are nice, but not even close to having some things your great grandfather made!

Recommended.

H2O Man

(77,373 posts)
15. Definitely!
Thu Jun 26, 2025, 07:04 PM
Jun 26

The day I moved in here, as my brother & I were putting up a backboard for my children, my 8-year old son started digging where the old barn had stood. He found the mill stone from a cloth & carding "factory" at the falls. As a teen future U.S. Senator Daniel Dickinson worked there. He married the daughter of a doctor who lived here. The room that was his office served as bedroom of my son.

Bristlecone

(10,811 posts)
12. Love this. What is the bottom tool used for?
Thu Jun 26, 2025, 06:47 PM
Jun 26

The one that has the long, u-shaped bar attached to a handle - that looks like it slides a bit.

H2O Man

(77,373 posts)
16. Used to mark angles
Thu Jun 26, 2025, 07:08 PM
Jun 26

on boards for cutting. My father was never without his, which had been his father's before him. His tools will soon be my children's tools, then grandchildren's.

This OP is really great. I appreciate his respect for those tools!

Bristlecone

(10,811 posts)
17. I appreciate that. I have my grandfather's tools
Thu Jun 26, 2025, 07:34 PM
Jun 26

And will give them to my boys. He worked for Lockeed in CA, and he would pick up their old tools for a song when they got new ones in the shop(s).

Lockheed scribed by hand on many, many wrenches and sockets.

H2O Man

(77,373 posts)
19. My grandfather came to
Thu Jun 26, 2025, 08:05 PM
Jun 26

the US in 1879. Dad was one of 14 siblings. He lived during the Great Depression. Although he had made a good living, he held on to some old habits. In the basement, he had a large number of coffee cans filled with bent nails. This, next to a large supply of new nails. My sister and I were laughing about this over the weekend.

It was fortunate I was in the basement that day. My mother was angry at my father for dying, and had packed his railroad collection into the garbage. Generations of my family had worked on the O&W -- at the time the most popular railroad for American train buffs. My father was a telegrapher, and wrote the last train order the night the O&W sit the bed. He had everything from his desk that night, and a lot of items from his father, including his gold watch. So I loaded those boxes into my automobile.

KT2000

(21,618 posts)
14. Beautiful!
Thu Jun 26, 2025, 07:00 PM
Jun 26

Not quite the same but my Dad melted down the aluminum on old lawn chairs and made bobbins for my Mom's sewing machine. There are other things too. They were self sufficient folks back in the day.

NBachers

(18,743 posts)
18. Real works of functional art. Can you imagine how long & hard he worked to become this proficient? The hardest is to
Thu Jun 26, 2025, 07:39 PM
Jun 26

make them look simple and easily done.

A Blacksmith at Work by Charles French Beauregard

Unwind Your Mind

(2,283 posts)
20. I have a number of my Grandpa's things
Fri Jun 27, 2025, 12:09 AM
Jun 27

Mostly garden tools but the coolest thing is the homemade hand truck, it still works

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