Cy Swan: 1940's California, Dude Ranching, Forged in Fire

okay now you want me talking yes I use these large bearing races and the balls you can make a pretty decent smaller knife out of the balls that are out of them they're excellent steel I recycle a lot of stuff that way I grew up in Southern California my dad had always had a blacksmith Forge he was from Rhode Island and he'd worked in a livery stable and livery barn and on the farms and stuff they always had their forges to repair and shoe horses whatever so we always had a Ford's there on the place they ended up in Visalia and he farmed there for quite a few years and went into the army there in about nineteen seventeen sixteen yes and what went to France and was wounded and but made it through I really don't know a whole lot about it he didn't talk about it ever till right till the day he died almost but I do know that it bothered him and he said we did such terrible things during the war and they were right down in the trenches with the Germans and it bothered him just that yeah that was all that was all he just told me that one thing he says I don't know what's going to happen we did such terrible things and he was a kind of a gentle person he didn't I didn't like that I started doing all the killing on the farm probably from the time I was 12 years old he was a schoolteacher but he always had a little little farm and created animals and bought and sold whatever he like trading Southern California and I was a kid was a pretty neat place there were miles and miles a mile open wild country clear through the San Fernando Valley we shot rabbits we camped we fished and a big reservoir up there there were truck farms and alfalfa fields and hell it was even deer down there the Japanese had vegetable farms and flower gardens and one day in the early 40s I don't remember what it was a year was but all of a sudden they were gone every last one of them they pack them up to the internment camps and to him away and I was very curious as to what had happened to him because one day they were there and the next day they warned I was probably six yeah we were aware I went through high school in San Fernando and as I said it's a totally different place and environments and it is now I was able to spend my summers in the mountains in a pack station that my dad had worked in in summertime and then when I got to be 16 I got a job working in a garage doing mechanic work he had bought me a Model A Ford when I was 14 that had been in a wreck he paid $15 for it I spent the next year tearing it apart scrounging in the junkyard for parts putting it back together got it running good rebuilt the motor when I got to be 16 I sold it for $35 what a 1936 v8 I thought I was living now which I had my model a back 1971 roadster rumble seat and all the roadsters the kids liked because they built hot rods out of them to see the hands and stuff you could buy them for 10 or 15 dollars we used to cut them off and make what would be considered a dune buggy now out of them run all over the Angeles Crest Forest with them instead of sticking with mechanicing then you at some point went back to the cattle yeah but after you know when you're farming the way I was farming your mechanicing you're always trying to fix the baler you're trying to fix a tractor and more machine broken and I got away from the blacksmithing because I learned to weld and use the torch and it was much easier but when you had a big big part to heat there's nothing like a coal fire to bring it up to where you can work with it and all day was cutting torch or a rosebud when I bought the ranch up here after we left Grass Valley we had a Ford to blacksmith shop there but it didn't really do a whole lot of Smith and we just used it you know it was it wasn't that hard to explain it it was just it was something that was always there if you needed it it was there my dad had a pretty nice eye pretty sure it with a hey bud an anvil and when I left there I brought it up here and I traded it for a dog because there was already an anvil set up in the blacksmith shop at the ranch and two weeks later I shot the dog I had a thousand hit a sheep with no dog and I was kind of desperate the bad dog's worse than no dog I picked up a little bitch at the pawn pound I don't know what she was doing there she was a grown dog she didn't know what you were telling her but she sure knew how to work sheep she was dedicated and hardworking and I could get her up on their backs and run her through the over the top of them when I was working in the in the barns trimming feet the stuff was here and she was just hell of a dog she didn't have a whole lot of force when I come to the cattle but she'd stay right with it I don't understand why it takes them so long I really go they've got six hours to make a knife hell I work with mystery metal holla doc but again you see because I do it wouldn't be a big thing to me some of them have never that one show they'd never seen a cold fire ever in their life they didn't know how to light the damn thing what do you do now coach they've got four stations set up they're pretty nice they've got power hammers they've got presses they got grinders I don't know what all's there but it must be a brutal environment because I've seen several guys just absolutely fade away and one of them is a JD Smith I took lessons from him on makin Damascus 20-some years ago and he's a hell of a Smith he flat ass give out yeah just gave out another big heavy guy melted and quit so it must be pretty damn hot in that Ford one thing I don't understand and it bothers me about the show nobody ever quenches our or nobody ever he treats the blade they quench him they harden them and then that's it well if you take a fully hardened blade and put them through some of the rigors that of their testing they're going to crack they're going to break they're going to shatter my dad had had worked for a outfitter pack outfit up in the Sierras and in Mammoth Lakes and then he started going to the ocean to run the summer camp he ran a summer camp for kids and I went to the ocean one there with him and I decided I'd rather go back to the mountains so he arranged it for me to go up with Andy and Al Taylor and spend my summers in the mountains and I got on the bus Greyhound bus I was 14 in San Fernando with a duffel bag a saddle a 38 and a 3030 and I rode two up to Mammoth wasn't to Mammoth Lakes it was you know there was a junction out on the road I can't remember the name of it right now and they came down and picked me up and I spent the summer up there come fall when I had to go back to school well I shot horses I led dudes around I broke some mules just everything you do in a pack outfit well the dudes would just take for rides the pack outfits we used to take people way back into the pack backcountry and set up a camp and they'd stay there for a week or so on fish and we had an inflatable boat that we're taking an air and I'd stay in there and roll and cook and do whatever I had to do to keep these people happy one time I had they they ran out of cigarettes about Wednesday and they thought they were going to tough it out well about two days later things were getting pretty tight in camp yeah I had to go back out it was an eight eight and a half hour hard ride horseback so sixteen hours straight I was back with their cigarettes and everything was happy again and way back up in this years in a place called Golden Lake up above mammoth up yeah up above mammoth there the camp was at purple Lake and then we could go up to Golden Lake to catch these golden trout which aren't anyplace else so anyhow we I came out my the night we were in the morning we were supposed to come out my horses were gone my horses mules were gone and by the time I found them it was probably 10 or 11 o'clock and I got them back up and got him saddled and got the packs on him and headed out he got plumb dark and I mean plumb dark I was riding the boss's old Arabian mayor called sugar she's white and I could seen nothing I mean nothing for probably two and a half hours I had four people and three pack outfits three three horses three meals with packs 14 15 okay I knew that she was cutting across some of the trails and and missing some of the really long switchbacks I felt that in my mind but I couldn't see nothing I mean I couldn't it was just I was virtually just a passenger so along about eleven o'clock she stopped and I kicked her and she wouldn't go and I got off and we're at the back gate she was standing at the gate behind me I told him I said you just hang on and they'll follow him they told the boss that boy is wonderful why he must see in the dark like a cat the boss he says yeah yeah he knew absolutely knew that I had no idea who I was or at least two hours and I got 20 bucks right then I decided I probably was never gonna smoke I don't need to cut that off at the bout the right Lake I'll make sure it's nice and straight and we can go to the grinder after I got out of high school I moved my brother-in-law gone up to Grass Valley with he's with my sister and they were running a dairy up there and I was somewhat misbehaving myself from doing a little too much drinking and they wanted me out of it any alley I went up for Grass Valley I met an old cowboy named Chester Lonnie he had a summer permit I started helping him and then I'd help him drive cattle and gather cattle and stuff and another outfit up there that was related to chester named ralph alderman asked me if I wanted to go cutting timber well I knew how to run a chainsaw but that was about it but he had to have a partner because the insurance company had kind of cracked down on him and wouldn't let him work by himself so anyhow I went to work with Ralph I cut timber for a couple years making awful good money but I've been helping Chester in the wintertime and I had a few cows Papa bought a ranch the air little ranch and I had a few cows of my own and Chester said you want to go to work for me well I quit a job I was making $50 a day I went to work for 150 a month we'll make a lot of sense does it yep but I was working for one of the best old-time cow man that there was and I learned an awful lot about cattle we were seven days on the road going and coming driving the cattle the mountains one year he and I did it with just two mules and a pack outfit rather than having the truck and trailer and somebody cooking 380 cows just the two of us pack of mangy dogs the were ranked and mean so different the dogs I have up here are pets [Music] a ping of death I don't think so it was cold now this is just kind of an all-purpose knife it's it's really handy for opening up a belly you can slide it right along under the hide and it'll peel it open it's got a good entry you can cut into the throat or peel peel the head away and get into the Atlas joint it's just it's just a real handy configuration not quite as as good a Skinner as the other one but it will do the skinning and it's it feels good to the hand would be good in the kitchen it's a it would be dandy for paring peeling cutting up meat good camp knife for around the camp and fire whatever you needed to do it's just an all-purpose general good knife nothing that won't much won't do [Music]

Channel: Essential Craftsman

Views: 175,943

Rating: 4.9724088 out of 5

Keywords: Cy Swan, blacksmith, 1940s, california, forged in fire, forgedinfire, pack, pack outfit, outfit, cowboy, ranching, knife, bladesmith, custom, real, authentic, valley, pine, cy, swan, essential craftsman, diy, craftsman, anvil, forge, blower, coal, fire, dude, ranch, dude ranching

Id: 8Hq40zsvQ_w

Length: 20min 43sec (1243 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 10 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/Crealone]

I need a nice truck first haha maybe after college ill get one of these bad boys, however my friend's with dump trailers all travel to Michigan (I live in Ohio) because they're 3,000$ cheaper than everywhere else but I don't believe they're great northern. And both of them have had issues with the hydraulic system and both of their trailers are no more than 2 years old and they just use them to haul mulch, AND they're manufactured in the USA, I'll recommend this one to them.