In the work of the blacksmith or ironworker, the forge and fire have been the main elements to convert iron into work tools and other useful. José Pérez, the ferrero d'Echo despite being retired, continues to light the forge of his workshop every morning with papers and firewood before adding the charcoal. So that it burns, because coal, both vegetable and mine, stone, does not burn by itself, in any way. Now is when we can add a little charcoal. This is charcoal, which I still make myself. And immediately bait for the coal to arrive. This is beech charcoal, which is the best. Now already primed with charcoal, we add the stone charcoal that is taken from the mines of Asturias. And this is the one that has more force to heat iron with much more calories than charcoal. Well, since we have the fire lit, ready to start forging, From a steel bar three acorns, we cut in half that is enough to make the auger, and we will throw it into the forge. This is cut with chisels, but the name of the blacksmith is tajadera, which has taken more blows to the head I "The gate is topped on one side by a sharp edge used to cut metal cold-being hit hard by the opposite side. We are going to throw it into the forge so that it begins to heat and begin to forge the bit. José has to heat the steel to 700 or 800 degrees of temperature, so the beginning of the process is quite slow despite using coal coal. This first heated, until it takes heat, eight or ten minutes. That the coal takes out the coal is the one that burns, the one that has strength, the coal that is good is the one that shines, The one that shines is the coal that later burns in the forge. The forging of the auger begins with the mouth or tip. This task consists of thickening or upsetting one of the ends of the steel bar until obtaining a sufficient volume of material to give it the shape. Emphasize a piece of iron, steel that is harder is worse than stretching. Because stretching, with the fat man, the assistant and I, well ... but emphasizing is very expensive. The upsetting consists of accumulating in one point of the piece all the steel material that is going to be used. It is a continuous work of heating the metal in the forge, followed by accurate blows until the mouth of the bit is given the desired shape. The mouth is made up of the conical worm, which is the one that penetrates the wood, and the lugs, which will open the thickness of the hole. In the flourishing era of wood extraction in the mountains, José manufactured a large number of augers in his workshop that he sent to Bilbao, Barcelona and Lérida. Mouth forging can take about eight hours of painstaking work to shape. The clavera is a matrix plate of holes that helps the worm to take the conical shape. Once the worm has been removed, now we have to start with the spiders, which are the ears that cut the wood. And you have to give them the inclination because the auger turns to the right. And we begin to twist it. Once the worm, which is the soul of the bit, has been forged, José will shape the earmuffs or gañas, which will eat the wood and drill the hole with a 45-millimeter caliber. Now with the clavera he is wrapping the gañas. Blow by blow the mouth is already taking shape. As the auger has to turn to the right, José is guiding the two winches at the same time in the same direction. That it does not come out crooked, that as it comes out crooked we have it amolau. Well, now comes the nicest thing to see it, but the difficult thing is what we have done, then the end of returning the win. But now comes the twisted one. When the mouth of the bit is ready, the ferrero d'Echo begins the work of twisting the plate. With this work, he tries to give it the shape of an endless stream that drags the shavings of the wood to the outside. When the bit starts to take shape, you can go backwards. But this principle is very delicate. As it comes out crooked we have already grinded it. Each time you heat the steel to twist it, insert the tip into the water so that it remains warm and does not deform when pressed on the screw. From the age of eleven when he began forging horseshoes, José learned the secrets of the trade with his father in the family workshop. The tempering of cutting tools, axes, knives, knives, augers, hooks, is made of steel. Dad always told me that the best temper in a fountain, but I am not going to bring a fountain here. José has to pay close attention during this process, as the good work will be guaranteed by the precision in the measurements of the bit. In the forge heats the steel, reaching the right temperature point to be able to twist it. He quickly takes it to the screw, passing it through the water, and there he turns it with the pliers, taking advantage of the malleability it acquires when it is red hot. And then it goes quickly to the anvil, trying not to lose heat, to hit the bit until it is as straight as possible. As José says: "by the eye of a good cubero". The auger has already been twisted and it must be prepared to hot weld the piece of the eye that José already has forged. We are going to prepare it to make the soup and splice it. On this occasion, the two pieces to be joined must be worked alternately, trying to make them fit together. This eye must be connected to the auger. Then we prepare it and we add a broth to it. Hot-melt welding consists of solidly joining two pieces previously heated to a certain temperature. Prepared this, we will put the eye here, press, we put it well and a mixture to stick it. The bit for the bit has been forged to wrap around the bit and the bit to be cast within it. "We throw it into the forge, we heat it and it stays together. Now is the mixture. The mixture is the system of splicing the irons. There is no welding and there is nothing. Then you prepare them, join them well. powders whetstone, which are made of sandstone and when removing sparks at full speed, which is about 1,200 degrees. the will draw already hammering now. and now when the iron is starting to sweat, we take, and what it does, the reason for this sand makes cleaning poor slag steel and calda, to the clean, binds. for welding the calda, José heats the junction of the two pieces at the maximum possible temperature without exceeding 1,000 degrees in which the steel would melt. We have finished the calda. Now I finish fixing the round neck so that it looks good, and the forging is finished, except for the mouth that we will return to the mouth again. Helped by his son Carlos with the mallo, José Holds the flat and places the union of the two feet in the correct position zas red hot, so that the solder is perfect. All the forging that is made in this smithy, I knew my grandfather and my father, they had this mark that I have not made. And all the forging parts have been marked with this. And now I'm going to do it in the auger. The inspection of the inside of the eye of the bit, through which a crossed stick will be inserted, is carried out with the small handle at first and then with the large one, leaving its surface completely smooth. The gañas, which are the two tabs that will cut the wood from the hole into chips, are still raw. With patient work of fine blacksmithing, José has to turn them over and straighten them, reduce their thickness and bend them square. It is already taking shape. When you add coal, it takes out a lot of flame and in this way it drowns a little so that it doesn't burn you, if not, the face stays. Due to its hardness, the steel has to be red hot to be able to model it with ease, because the moment the color wears off, it loses its malleability. In other words, this is 4 cm, 40 mm, the thickness of the plate that we have bent in a spiral. Well, here you have to have half more, so that it does not press and you can see it. But if we now take it from the outside to the outside, we will have to have 5 cm more on each side, the mouth is wider so that the chip can work when the bit is working. And then, so that it is centered, with this other compass, of the worm's bench, which then we will make the thread with a file, and then the file will finish doing it as it has to go. Before tempering, the last ones heated, so that the worm remains in place. Before hardening the bit, José reviews the union of the worm with the gañas and leaves both parts of the head of the bit perfectly delimited. The steel auger has two temples, one for the spiral, which must be strong in the water, but with a soft cherry red. And we will throw it in the water. And the other, once the auger has been filed, is added to the oil to make the mouth sweet and eat the pine wood. Now we are going to heat it up and throw it into the water. Well, once the mouth is already filed, we will temper it in oil. And now, with that temper, the steel bit remains with an elastic consistency, better than when it is left soft. But the mouth, as it is necessary to file it with the file and make the final cuts, it is necessary to remove the temper now that it stays out of the temper and we will throw the lime when it cools down. We leave it in the embers to make it even softer. Tucked there. And by not touching the air, the steel is more benign, say, softer. Well, the forge finished. Once the forging of the auger is finished, then now comes a matter of filing, filing that must be done all manually, the mouths, the jaws and the thread. And all by eye, here there is no modern machine, no lathe, or anything. The first thing to match is the shoulders. We call the highest part shoulders, which is the first thing it will start to eat when the hole is made in the pine. And if the shoulders are not even, the auger will eat more on one side than the other. This is going to be the beginning of the thread, of course, so that it will grip later. The thread of the worm must be made with complete precision. José alternates cutting with the saw and revising with the file, but checking that the appropriate measurements are always maintained. We are making the thread that goes into the wood. But later, the two gañas, this one and this one, have to be more or less centered so that when the hole is made they eat the same part. I test it on this wood, and here with the same nail of mine, I put the register there, I turn it over and see. This one eats a little more and this one is going well. Then I have to eat him out here a bit, just half a mm. so that it is even. On the nail, the gaña rubs against mine and then this other one is already approaching. I am marking the tip of the worm, which is what drags the bit so that it can eat with the saw, what the thread would be, when the file goes deep so that it grips the wood. And you have to be very careful that everything goes well. If it is already on the tip, nothing, a nail, then it will not work well, at half a millimeter. And this is not silly. It is very fine spinning wool. The thread must be as smooth as possible. When the auger starts to eat, and the will begins to do its job, because the worm with the thread forces it to get into the wood, this has to be very fine, very filed, that if the chip does not slip it would stay here stuck and would not empty. As soon as this gets stuck it doesn't eat the auger anymore, it drains, let's say. This must be filed very fine. If it does not come out, the auger becomes clogged. The worm, once you have marked soft, now you have to go deep so that wood enters when it is threading and drag the bit with it, if not, it has no thrust. We have cleared the way with the saw and we put the half-round file into it. Tracing the thread on the worm is slow work that requires a lot of concentration, constantly checking the precision of the grooves. Any mistake in the thread would spoil all the work as a new worm could not be removed in the bit. That tip has to be finished, very, very fine. But it is the last thing. Once the worm's thread has been cleft, José works hard to make his cut as fine as possible. Now we are finishing grinding with the coarse file, and we already take the other file, the fine one, which takes the sharpest cut and we continue until the edge is removed from here. If it does not take the edge it will not cut. Well, that's it, the edge is already taken out in this part. And we are going to finish the worm with the tip so that it sticks in the wood. The last thread, or the first go. This is the beginning of the auger. Another review. We will have no choice but to test and temper it. Now we are going to polish it, because this should be fine and I have to do it in the polishing machine. At the polishing machine, José is going to remove the metallic sheen of steel from the auger. We are going to proceed to temper. We heat it in the forge. We clean the slag that the coal takes out with a brush so that the temper is clear on the steel, because if the slag remains, it does not pick up the temper well. And now we proceed to temper. The oil gives the temper much softer and smoother. So now we make it revive a bit. Well, it is already with the temper and to be able to work on a pine trunk. Well, to do the demonstration to see if it works of what the blacksmith has forged, we are going to test. Now the worm has entered, which is what drags the auger to push and carry it forward. You already have it alone, because you have already taken hold. Well, now it begins to remove the chip. When wood was extracted here, it was rare to file a couple of bits and a couple of new bits every month , because of course this wears out. When he has made 100 or 200 holes in the pines, he has to file, the same worker in the mountains. And when he couldn't take it anymore, he would come down here and we would hit him. Whether it is a log of this thickness, or the chump of the anvil, when the bit enters all the way, which has been dragged by the worm, it is beginning to come out. Here we have the tip of the worm. What is it? He does not find wood and does not have the strength to carry it. In the forest you had to do the same, drill it like that at the end, remove the auger, turn the log on the ground with the zapino and cut a piece here with the ax. The hole is here. We will clean it up. The log finished drilling, opening the hole with the ax, free the hole, we take the chain that is where the horse is going to pull and we pass it through the hole. Then, the log, which is there, if it is not in a good position, they turn it a little with the zapino, let the chain pass, they tie it here with the key, and it is ready to be shot with the cavalry. At the age of 11, José began with his father in the Echo workshop to forge horseshoes. Today, at 72 years of age, the tools that he has beaten on the anvil are many and varied , highlighting above all those dedicated to logging. The pines that grow in the forest use the ax to knock it down, the auger and the hook that we are going to make now, or zapino, which apparently came from Italy and they called it zapino and here the wood hook. Of these two pieces, that this comes from a steel bar and this from a plate that I have cut, we are going to heat it in the forge and we are going to forge it. Until the incorporation of a small motor fan, the forge of the Echo smithy had a large bellows or stain that had to be moved continuously to provide the necessary oxygen for the combustion of coal. Now I am going to remove the hot steel from the forge and with the chopping board we will cut a miter corner to be able to facilitate later and stretch the tip of the hook. Putting this piece here, the anvil, is that this is iron and this is steel, the anvil, and if we hit it with the chopping board, it spoils the cut. Now what we have cut with the chopping board is heating up and when it is hot I will remove it to the anvil, we will hammer it until the long tip is removed, to start making the shape of the hook. The work of shaping the hook consists of stretching the iron with alternate blows with the mesh and with the hammer. For this, his son Carlos helps him with the mallo in a rhythmic language of blows. You have to warm up. When the steel begins to fade its cherry color, it must be reheated in the forge adding more charcoal. Vegetable, which comes from pine or beech, better and made of stone than is the one that comes from the mines of the earth. The one that has the most strength is the mineral. If the coal contains coal, it burns that goes well. In this continuous hitting of mallo and hammer, the coordination of the two ironmongers is directed by José, who indicates the actions with the sound of the hammer on the anvil. When we are hammering, we do not speak, we have to hit him with force and the arms have to have strength, but I want it to stop, so when we hammer, this blow means that it stops. An iron template allows you to keep the exact measurements of the hook piece. You have to save that template because as this is done recently ... If you don't save the template, you don't have one. Well, from the steel bar we are going to make a piece just like the template. I'm going to take it out of the hot forge and cut it with the chopping board. Throughout history, the blacksmith has forged his own tools. In addition to the forge, hammers of different types, chopping boards, flats, pliers of multiple shapes have always been present in a smithy ... but especially the anvil, adapted for various metal handling options. Now we are going to finish making the tang of the hook, as the template, so that it is perfect. With this we are going to give it a bit of a curve. From this sheet that I have cut with the chopping board of a large plate, we will extract what is the eye of the hook, because the eye is like all kinds of tool, where the wooden handle, the hammer, the ax or whatever enters . Well, this will be for the hook's eye. We are going to start doubling what the eye is going to be. In the first phase, to give the shape of the Zapino's eye, José hot models the slight curvature of the two halves of the piece. And now it goes, we heat it all in rennet, red hot and fold. When the mountains of the Selva de Oza lived with intensity the work of logging, the production of hooks for wood was one of the jobs of the Echo smithy. José's ancestors forged an iron handle in the shape of a wooden handle and a rig that facilitates the curvature of the sheet intended for the eye. In this piece, this Italian zapino, the wood hook here, cannot be made in one piece and the forging has to be aided by welding. If it is not welded, it cannot be removed. This to calda does not go. In other words, we will put it like this and weld it. This is already prepared, the shape it has to take, and since there is no other remedy than the forge to help you with the welding, we are going to start welding. With the electrogenic welding, José manages to join the hook with the eye of the zapino, forming a single piece. At heart, iron, fire and coal are the main elements of the blacksmith's work. The woman said to me: No matter how much you starch yourself and wash with soap, you are a blacksmith and you always smell like coal. Once the hook of what is the spike is spliced, we are going to throw it into the forge, all red hot to pass the handle. With the iron handle as a mold and with the red-hot piece, it is not difficult to shape the eye of the zapino and make it completely straight to accommodate the wooden handle. And that it stays quite exact, because if it stays crooked. It is not a round handle, it is hollowed, but flattened by an edge. All you have to do is engage the spike and show the tip. But since we already have it here, we are going to put the stamp of the blacksmith, José Pérez who is me, to know that it is made here. From my father, my grandfather, my great-grandfather, in seven generations of blacksmiths. It is the only brand that I have inherited from my father. Finished this, I am going to throw it into the fire so that the whole spike becomes red-hot and board it. Engaging it means that it is straight and in place. Well, now we put it on the fire. Engaging the hook consists of leaving it straight and in line with the handle to be placed. Once finished, the hook is ready to show the tip, which is the part that will grip the wood. You have to file it a bit to make it level. Aluciarlo is to remove the stork's beak, which is the way that the hook engages well, otherwise it is nailed, it does not come loose and it is a shame. You can even grab and send the worker for a ride. And you have to make the tip that is special for this. The difficulty in making a zapino lies in giving the shape to the tip of the hook, with its two small nails that are the ones that will be nailed into the wood. This is not nonsense. What I am doing is essential that it is well done. There is. That nails into the tree and is working. When the worker wants to release it, he does nothing but the wooden handle that is here, do so and it is already loose. Well. All finished now, we have aluciau the hook and it is necessary to temper it to the oil because if it is not the soft temper, when exerting the man and lifting 2000 kilos it can break. And it is preferable that it bends, that the temper is a little soft. So I take it out of the fire .. That 's it. Taking advantage of the tempera oil, with this cloth you give the whole hook and it is blued like the barrels of a shotgun that are blued. And it thus gives it the temper so that it does not rust. And they are better than painted. To the natural and it is over. Well, now we are adjusting the ash wood hook to the finished hook, which is the wood that has the most strap, because also if it is pulled hard, it breaks. And you have to adjust it to put it through the eye of the hook. It carries the chump, the anvil, it has many hooks that have been put, because you need a stop to enter. By trying and cutting down wood with the file, José gradually gets the handle to fit snugly into the eye of the hook. The raspa is very good, but it is that the ash wood, here we say fraxino, in cheso. It is very good, it has a lot of leash, but it is very hard. If José were to cold fit the hook onto the handle, as he is doing, the chances are high that it will loosen and loosen over time. The solution is to fit it with the red-hot iron, in the same way that the car builders fit the iron ring on the wooden wheel. We have roughened the mouth of the hook eye, we have heated it with fire and everything that goes into a handle of any tool on fire, when you cool it in water it shrinks and the handle does not come out, it stays stuck there until it breaks in work and break down. With the piece of an old horseshoe stuck in the handle, José tries to make the wood expand even more and press tightly against the iron eye that surrounds it. Guaranteed this handle won't come off. And hook finished. Well. To take wood from the forest and load it into the trucks, there is not a horse left, not a male, or anything. At the beginning of the 20th century, the intensity of the timber cutting campaigns in the Oza mountains brought with it the demand for appropriate tools such as augers and zapinos. From his workshop, José Pérez, “lo ferrero d, Echo” and his predecessors never stopped fulfilling the forging orders that the forest workers made them.
