Gs4 Security: Blacksmith Tools

Saturday 5 January 2013

Blacksmith Tools

Andirons are fireplace objects made to raise firewood off the floor of the hearth, to improve the circulation of air (or ‘draft’) around the wood, creating more efficient burning, and also resulting in less smoke being created. Andirons were fabricated to keep the logs in place, using square lengths of wrought iron bar. Three shorterpieces acted as legs, which supported an upright ‘guard’ located at the front. Later, as with fireplace tools,andirons became decorative as well as useful, and the guards were fabricated using more elaborate & recognizable designs; such as scrolls, ball-top, ring, ‘fleur-de-lis’, or in the form of different animals. Today anunlimited range of designs can be found to suit most styles of home decor, for example Mission-Style, In order to create the different fireplace implements, early blacksmiths 1st had to fabricate the tools that would be used to form the metal into different shapes such as tongs & pokers, which were needed to place or manipulate the firewood in order to keep the fire going.