03-17-2011, 02:45 AM
I am trying to research something as it is a subject near and dear to my heart. I am a blacksmith and I was interested in probing this forvm full of smart people to see if anyone can point me in the right direction.
In ancient Rome, what was the general process of forging sheet metal. Would they simply take iron ore and forge-weld multiple pieces into one large mass and forge it out to a relatively uniform thickness? I imagine that this would be done by hand. I have acutally done this myself on a small scale(making small pieces of sheet). It is extremely labor intensive. Did the Romans have a means of speeding up this process (like running it hot through sizing rollers or anything like this)?
Basically my question is this: Was all Roman sheet metal hand hammered into sheets? If so how uniform was it? It would proabably depend hevaily on the skill of the smith doing it. Additionally, would this have been a specialized skill and were there manufactories that did only this(perhaps utilizing slave labor)
In ancient Rome, what was the general process of forging sheet metal. Would they simply take iron ore and forge-weld multiple pieces into one large mass and forge it out to a relatively uniform thickness? I imagine that this would be done by hand. I have acutally done this myself on a small scale(making small pieces of sheet). It is extremely labor intensive. Did the Romans have a means of speeding up this process (like running it hot through sizing rollers or anything like this)?
Basically my question is this: Was all Roman sheet metal hand hammered into sheets? If so how uniform was it? It would proabably depend hevaily on the skill of the smith doing it. Additionally, would this have been a specialized skill and were there manufactories that did only this(perhaps utilizing slave labor)
MARCVS VELIVS AVITVS (Reid Neilsen)
LEGIO VII GEMINA FELIX
"SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERUDITIONIS HABES"
http://www.whitemountainforge.com
LEGIO VII GEMINA FELIX
"SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERUDITIONIS HABES"
http://www.whitemountainforge.com