Indonesia: Blacksmith at the foot of Mt. Bawakaraeng by Jumadil Awal
In a small hot booth at the foot of Mount Bawakaraeng, Puang Baddu (75), an elderly man with hearing loss, dismantles a pile of charcoal with a long iron to see the iron he is heating on July 12, 2022 in Barania Village, West Sinjai, South Sulawesi, Indonesia.
Puang Baddu and his wife work as iron craftsmen every day. In the 5x4 booth with wooden walls, they made a machete ordered by someone from Malino, Gowa, South Sulawesi.
Every day, Puang Baddu will return to forging iron at 10:00 in the morning until 06:00 in the evening. For his own raw materials, he uses charcoal and iron which will prepare garden tools in the form of a machete using a blower to continuously heat the coals. Before forging, he would first make a machete pattern made of plywood to determine how he would form the machete. Once the pattern is in place, he will start heating the iron in a pile of charcoal that starts to burn. After starting to become brightly colored due to the heat from the heating process, Puang Baddu and his wife would take turns forging. This forging process is the hardest because you have to feel the heat from the iron without using any protective equipment at all.
After all the basic processes are complete, the iron that has been shaped will be soaked in water first and then smoothed using a grinder. The process of smoothing, Puang Baddu's wife began to work, with her hands full of black stains, smoothing the iron that had gone through the cooling process.
In a day, Puang Baddu is
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