Thanks for your comments gentlemen.
Yes, the pics will stay up. I've got more capacity in my site than I could ever use, so my objective is to continually add photos as time permits, and as I put them up, I'll leave them there indefinitely.
Bandi was involved in a couple of smelts, but he does not routinely smelt iron. The keris which he normally makes do not use this iron, and if it were requested, I'm certain that the asking price would be beyond any reasonable level. I showed the product of the smelt here simply as an illustration.
Lemmy, the way in which smiths and strikers work in Indonesia is a source of wonder to me.
Yes, the shields are a good idea, but if you wear boots and an apron they are not necessary. Of course, boots and apron are well outside the budget in Indonesia, so the shields are maybe more appropriate, but they do make effective use of tools more difficult.
As does the design of the tools themselves. Using a heavy hammer the most effective way is to place yourself so that on the strike you finish with your right hand at the end of the handle and against your hip bone, you then kick the hammer with your hip at the same time that you lift for the next strike. Using a hammer like this means you can use a few kilos more than you can without using the hip lift.
In Jawa, the handles on heavy hammers are often too short, and are made from either rough timber or two pieces of split bambu wired together. This means you cannot slide your hand on the handle, and every strike is from a dead lift of the hammer. Then you add in the factor of standing at arms length from the anvil. The whole exercise becomes very, very difficult.
Pauzan used to have a wonderful striker. This bloke was about 55-60 kilos wringing wet and five foot nothing tall, and when he was working for Pauzan he was already well into his 50's. He used a 20 lb hammer on the typical short little handle. His method of use was to act as the fulcrum of a pendulum:- he didn't lift the hammer, he'd strike, let the hammer slide off the billet, swing between his legs, and use the swing to bring it down again. More than one way to skin a cat.
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