Metallurgy enthusiasts gathered in this village of Dordogne throughout the weekend

Orage and charcoal do not rhyme. Since the beginning of the week, a reddish coal day and night in a pretty orchard of the samples of dumbbells, at the top of the Green Périgord (Dordogne). “And every evening, around 5 pm, we are entitled to a thunderstorm”, creaks a former coal from Switzerland. But the blaze held up and this Saturday, July 26, from his rake, he cleared the coal obtained from beech wood, oak and charm.

This demonstration of a profession from the bottom of the ages is one of the many activities of the 12th edition of the Festival Forge and Metalurgie d’Etarars (see below). Throughout the weekend, more than 1,500 people will be able to learn everything about this craftsmanship, whose hammers have resonated for centuries in this part of the Dordogne.

From Caesar to Colbert

Why here? “Because there is ore, wood and rivers,” replied Gilbert Faurie, co-president of the 3F-3M association who organizes the event. This terroir was even renowned under Antiquity, he smiles, referring to Strabo who, “under the dictation of Julius Caesar, wrote that petrocores were the best metallurgists in the Empire”. The quotation is a little embellished since the great geographer was content to say, in his book IV, that “there are beautiful forges among petrocorians”.

The fact remains that this industry is well attested in the region, both in the Middle Ages with the stoves later with the development of the stoves. These two ways of working metal are presented full -size at the festival. In particular the High Fourneau which was on Saturday July 26 to flow, this Sunday, a cannon.

The object owes nothing to chance since it was from the 17th century, with the development of the military fleet driven by Colbert, that we began to make cannons in Dordogne. He then spun with the Charente-Maritime shipowners via the famous trove and cannons route.

But in the 19th century, all of this had pericked. Only the cutlery remained from this industry, which was also going to declining. A bunch of enthusiasts had to be around thirty years ago, to be made in the manufacture of the Fourneau stockings. “It took,” says Gilbert Faurie. Around 2001, 2002, they embarked on the manufacture of a high stove. It federated people who were interested in the foundry, metallurgy, forge. In parallel, the knife feast developed in Nontron. »»

“My grandfather was a cart”

Today, a whole ecosystem has taken shape in the village of 165 inhabitants. This is evidenced by the iron and forge space made in an old barn, near the High Fourneau. Clear in the beak, Serge Roubinet Mouline A fan, connected to the crucible in which a mixture of coal and coke gets fucked. With his head in the yellowish then black smoke, he puts a piece of iron in the blaze. “This is the tooth of a motoculting milling machine,” he says. He works with pieces of metals recovered everywhere: shock absorber spring, truck blades suspension or helicopter rotor clutch: “all have different properties”.

He takes out his end of red metal and knocks it on his anvil. “I learned that with my grandfather who was a cart,” he said. He worked wood and metal. And then I did improvement courses, here or with Nontron cutlers. Besides, this retired plasterer-carreler in Hautefort will be in the 29th knife party, on the weekend of August 2 and 3. He will present the knives he makes.

The program

The festival has around forty stands: metallurgists, blacksmiths, cutlers, craftsmen … Several activities are scheduled for Sunday, July 27, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. From 11 am, Ariane Lambart, doctoral student in anthracology, will give a conference on coal. From 2:30 p.m., the cannon flow will start from the top furnace, but also plates and elements of urban furniture (benches). An oven steel experimentation is also announced. Visits to the Forgeneuve site (11 a.m., 2 p.m., 3:30 p.m. and 5 p.m.). Out of an iron mass in the Tatara, a Japanese bass base (3:30 p.m.). Forcing competition with jury (3 p.m.).
Entrance: 3 euros; Free for children under 16. Restoration on site.