Pete,
Beautiful pictures of barrel making. In your first picture I'm afraid that if it was left up to the two with the hammers that they would still be working on that barrel. I think they were props. The next two pictures show true workmen with heavy swings of the hammers.
Here is a man who has not seen PeteM's 25 minute DVD of Damascus barrel making. Anyone and everyone who is interested in this sort of thing had better order one before they are gone. While it seems that PeteM could simply burn more DVDs, this is not the case on this seminal copyrighted 1920s foreign film.
As to which image fairly represents the process: The metal was heated to a plastic state and did not need to be beat into a pulp. The labor involved was heavy work, but not heavy-handed. The hammer forging of the iron plate around the mandrel is better represented by the first image. The skilled barrel forgers used the weight of various size hammers, which had to be kept perfectly under control to achieve the desired result.
The thing that impressed me most by PeteM's video was the ease, simplicity, and informality of the barrel forging process--no drama, no sparks flying, no automobiles exploding in a ball of fire--just workmen preforming every-day procedures with physical exertions much like doing steaks on a grill.
The exaggerated images of the forgers swinging their hammers overhead like pick axes in a rock quarry is as non-authentic as having a nude woman posing in the middle of the forging operation. EDM
