Re:How to Build a 50K Ton Forging Press
by thaumasiotes on Wednesday August 21, 2024 @06:00PM
(#41314609)
> Unskilled feels unfair, it requires a fair bit of skill, and you're also learning how to forge while doing it.
Both of those points are untrue. Strikers are unskilled labor and in general are not learning how to forge. The smith shows where he wants the hammer to fall, and they let it fall there.
> Things were worse for the many strikers and other laborers who were essentially unskilled hired hands or even enslaved laborers (given their depiction in artwork, it seems likely many ancient strikers were slaves) of much lower status and who could not expect to be trained into blacksmiths themselves some day. While some strikers were probably apprentices in training, it is quite clear that not all of them were! These workers would also have been far less richly paid; indeed, the entire point of strikers was to have laborers who could be paid very little but still amplify the production ability of the blacksmith himself.
Both of those points are untrue. Strikers are unskilled labor and in general are not learning how to forge. The smith shows where he wants the hammer to fall, and they let it fall there.
https://acoup.blog/2020/10/02/collections-iron-how-did-they-...
> Things were worse for the many strikers and other laborers who were essentially unskilled hired hands or even enslaved laborers (given their depiction in artwork, it seems likely many ancient strikers were slaves) of much lower status and who could not expect to be trained into blacksmiths themselves some day. While some strikers were probably apprentices in training, it is quite clear that not all of them were! These workers would also have been far less richly paid; indeed, the entire point of strikers was to have laborers who could be paid very little but still amplify the production ability of the blacksmith himself.
(emphasis original)