TELEPHONE:
ADDRESS:
Mazonovo – 33776 Santa Eulalia de Oscos
ACTIVITY
Since 2006 Friedrich Bramsteidl has been in charge of the Mazo de Mazonovo Hammer Forge Ethnographic Complex in the municipality of Santa Eulalia de Oscos, dating from the early 8th century. The forge was restored in 1993-94, returned to operation and opened as a museum.… Currently it is used for both traditional and avant-garde artistic ironwork as well as being an ideal venue for introductory and specialist wrought-iron courses.
The maintenance of the forge’s hydraulic machinery has led Friedrich to study and explore medieval systems and to learn new hammer-forging techniques, such as lamination and rough preforming of tools and kitchen utensils.
Most of his work involves artistic wrought iron, grillwork and railings (restoration and new designs), furniture, signs, lamps, fittings and nails, along with blacksmithing and farming tools (axes), trophies and sculptures.
In making wrought-metal pieces he uses all basic forging techniques, such as sharpening, thinning, drawing down, upsetting, splitting, traditional perforation and punching, and he joins pieces with rivets, cramps and forge or electric welding.
Since 2007 he has chaired the Herreros Consejo de Hierro blacksmiths’ association.
TRAINING
Born in Austria, he is from an old family of smiths. He learnt the craft with his father and other Austrian master blacksmiths. He did four years of vocational metalwork training in Austria and a master blacksmith’s course also in Austria in 1988.
He set up… his first artistic forge 18 years ago in Galicia (and has been certified as a Galician artisan since 2001). Since 2006 he has worked at the Mazo de Mazonovo Hammer Forge in Santa Eulalia de Oscos (and he has been certified as an Asturian artisan since 2006). In 2007-08 he took part in courses on the recovery of traditional techniques with various local master artisans. He also took a course on ergonomic forging with the Israeli master blacksmith Uri Hofi in Barcelona in 2013.
TEACHING
Teaching in an introductory wrought-metal course in 2000 at the O Obradoiro Trade School in Lobeira (Ourense province). He has given courses on traditional forge work and knife-making since 2008 in Santa Eulalia de Oscos (Asturias). He has also given introductory courses on forge work… and various specialist courses on tools, fittings, traditional artistic wrought metal, etc. He mounts demonstrations of the blacksmith’s craft at parties and fairs and in schools, with children and adults taking part.
SELECTED WORK
Railing for the entrance to Mazo de Mazonovo (with all parts hammer-forged)
Participation in the repair of the Os Teixois hammer forge in Taramundi in 2007
Manufacture of hydraulic features (mill hammer and bellows) in the rebuilding of the ironworks of Santa Eufemia in Villanueva de Oscos… in 2011
Repair of the Mazo de Besullo hammer forge in Cangas del Narcea in 2016
Fittings (hinges and espagnolettes) and restoration and adaptation of railings in the Palace of Santa Cruz in Castropol
Fittings and railings in the palaces of Trenor in Figueras and of Torres de Donlebún in Barres, on the west coast of Asturias
