What is a puddler

[Koromo]

... and another description. This comes from an account written by a chap born in Wales who later moved to America where he was a puddler:

"I must stir my boiling mess with all the strength in my body. For now is my chance to defeat nature and wring from the loosening grip of her hand the pure iron she never intended to give us.

For twenty-five minutes while the boil goes on I stir it constantly with my long iron rabble. A cook stirring gravy to keep it from scorching in the skillet is done in two minutes and backs off blinking, sweating and choking, having finished the hardest job of getting dinner. But my hardest job lasts not two minutes but the better part of half an hour. My spoon weighs twenty-five pounds, my porridge is pasty iron, and the heat of my kitchen is so great that if my body was not hardened to it, the ordeal would drop me in my tracks.

Little spikes of pure iron like frost spars glow white-hot and stick out of the churning slag. These must be stirred under at once; the long stream of flame from the grate plays over the puddle, and the pure iron if lapped by these gases would be oxidized and burned up.

Pasty masses of iron form at the bottom of the puddle. There they would stick and become chilled if they were not constantly stirred. The whole charge must be mixed and mixed as it steadily thickens so that it will be uniform throughout. I am like some frantic baker in the inferno kneading a batch of iron bread for the devil's breakfast. "

The last sentence really catches what the job must have been like.

from: http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/hst/biography/TheIronPuddler/chap17.html

Cheers
Koromo

[meles]

Wow, Koromo - that's amazing. Gives a real feeling what this dreadful job was like.

meles

[Jayson]

Brilliant! Thanks Koromo.

Jayson

[yn9man]

Koromo -

Many thanks for the fantastic response. I could almost feel the heat from the cauldron.

yn9man

[youngtug]

https://youtu.be/1gXtFZix_r0

[goldie61]

Here's a photo.

[Skoosh]

A puddler's career was of short duration although the money was considered good, "The work of the puddler is probably considered to be the severest kind of work undertaken voluntarily by men!" David Bremner, an industrial journalist of the 1860's. Blindness was an  occupational hazard also.

Skoosh.

[medpat]

Eber was the great great grandson of Noah via Shem and is referred to in both Old (as Eber) and New (as Heber) Testaments. He refused to help build the tower of Babel.

2 names from the bible and one from Greek mythology - looks like he was a reader. 

[yn9man]

youngtug -

Thanks for sharing the PeriscopeFilm video... and today we consider ourselves mechanized. We thoroughly enjoyed.

yn9man