Those working inside Old Town San Diego State Historic Park’s blacksmith shop forge all sort of interesting objects: nails, knives, different decorative objects… The other day I and several other visitors learned how leaves like the ones you see above are made!
Old Town’s friendly blacksmiths are always happy to provide demonstrations of what they do. Hopefully my understanding and simplistic description is fairly accurate…
When heated iron turns orange yellow, the perfect temperature is achieved. The metal you are working becomes plastic and shapeable. Too hot, and you will “burn” the metal, making it useless for the purposes of forging.
The following photograph shows the progression of a new leaf.
You begin with the rod-like piece that you see on the right. Next, to its left, you can see how a mass was produced by the smith’s hammer at one end of the iron piece. Next, sharp edges are rounded and the mass is flattened and formed until it assumes the shape of a leaf.
Leaf veins are produced with a chisel-like instrument with a straight edge (see my first photo). A stroke or two with the blacksmith’s hammer and voila!
…
Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
Cool San Diego Sights! 