Secrets of the castle

[Eric The Viking]

It's been a frustrating series so far.

Could have been really really interesting, but the editor/director's boredom threshold seems to be that of a two year old. Can't stay on one topic for any length of time. Dumb recaps (presumably for after advert breaks on US TV), and some very poor camerawork (you get the feeling there's been a lot of padding to cover shots that weren't there).

I was particularly annoyed by the making of the sideaxe - I wanted to see the steel-to-iron weld and they cut it out completely, or didn't film it. Likewise there were a lot of shots missing from the stuff about the water mill, and many questions weren't asked, for example why some shafts/bearings were evidently iron or steel, and some weren't.

There's also been little discussion of how knowledge from earlier civilizations was lost, for example from the Romans regarding cement, plumbing (literally), joinery and masonry. OK, they had the arch in the C12th, but they appeared to have forgotten a lot of other stuff.

I'm not knocking the craftsmen working on the site at all, but i felt let down by the documentary makers.

 

[Benchwayze]

I take it this series wouldn't be on BBC. All the space is taken up by James Martin, Nigel Slater, Bake-off (and its spin-off) Brian Turner, Master-chef, The Hairy-Bikers, Strictly the Apprentice, and innumerable antiques based shows. It's like a giant club; same old faces rotating between panel shows and quizzes. The BBC Mafia... ,

 

[AndyT]

I take it this series wouldn't be on BBC. All the space is taken up by James Martin, Nigel Slater, Bake-off (and its spin-off) Brian Turner, Master-chef, The Hairy-Bikers, Strictly the Apprentice, and innumerable antiques based shows. It's like a giant club; same old faces rotating between panel shows and quizzes. The BBC Mafia... ,

You may or may not be pleased to know that it's on BBC2 and is available on the BBC iPlayer!
:lol:

 

[Benchwayze]

I take it this series wouldn't be on BBC. All the space is taken up by James Martin, Nigel Slater, Bake-off (and its spin-off) Brian Turner, Master-chef, The Hairy-Bikers, Strictly the Apprentice, and innumerable antiques based shows. It's like a giant club; same old faces rotating between panel shows and quizzes. The BBC Mafia... ,

You may or may not be pleased to know that it's on BBC2 and is available on the BBC iPlayer!
:lol:

Well slap me with a spoonful of over-wilted spinach! :lol:

Thanks Andy. I'll take a look.

Cheers John

 

[Student]

Final episode last night although there will probably be a repeat over the weekend and it's available on iPlayer. I found it very interesting, even the parts about fabric dyeing and embroidery, but especially the relationships between carpenters, stone masons and blacksmiths.

Last night's anachronisms (definition - something or someone that is not in its correct historical or chronological time e.g. a clock striking in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar) seemed to be a log being hauled out of the forest by a horse where the trunk seemed to have been cut with a chainsaw and a Victorian/20th century brace and auger bit.

One thing that puzzled me was that they made a massive door but, when nailing the wide planks to the ledges, they clenched the nails over the adjoining plank. I would have thought that this wouldn't have allowed for any wood movement.

One final comment. When making the door, the voiceover mentioned that they would be using loose tenons. They then showed what seemed to be through tenons but without showing how they were secured - wedged, draw-bored etc.

 

[Sheffield Tony]

I was particularly annoyed by the making of the sideaxe - I wanted to see the steel-to-iron weld and they cut it out completely, or didn't film it.

Yes, I was frustrated by the lack of coverage of the blacksmithing process. The welding would have been good to see in detail, and twice they have shown hardening of tools without showing a tempering step - I assume that an axe would have been made using a technique like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZAERTpoztc

(shows welding too)

Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps the steel composition was such that it did not need tempering ? Perhaps they missed it out ? My son watches it with interest; happily I had some heat treatment to do so I was able to give him a real demo !

 

[JohnPW]

Bear in mind the programme is primarily entertainment for the general viewer. So they're not going to go into technical detail on every step of making something. Which would account for the amount of "human interest" elements* in lots of TV programmes coz they're trying to get people who don't have much of an interest in woodwork, blacksmithing etc to watch.

* includes:
having presenter, why do programmes have presenters, just a narration works well enough. Note the programme's title is "Secrets of the Castle with Ruth, Tom and Paul", even those people are not well known names.
Competitive element, can get anyone to watch even if they have zero interest in the subject.
Reality TV element, where the background and personalities of the people in the programme is as important as the programme's supposed subject, eg Monty Don's craft programmes.

 

[Eric The Viking]

Monty Don's programmes were (a) not his - he was merely presenting them, and (b) IMHO, toe-curlingly bad.

It simply isn't true that you have to dumb stuff down. Roy underhill is a master of explanation, making the complex easy to understand without being patronizing. I especially like the programmes he does with the likes of Peter Follansbee and Chris Schwarz (sp?). All of them are excellent, and even better when sparking off each other.

The three presenters of the castle programme are archaeologists in their own right. When they are allowed to get stuck in, the explanations are good, although there is still some weirdness, for example using 'sand' (the commentary) as a flux in the forge welding (ep5). There's more to it than that (borax?), but too often the commentary dumbs this down when it doesn't have to.

They also made almost no use of animated graphics (no budget?) even though Guedelon has detailed plans (some out-of-date ones on their web site). I'd have liked to understand better why they've built the structures in the order they have - PR purposes, or are they following a mediaeval process?

Many things, such as the water mill, would have been much clearer if they'd been explained better. For example, the Guedelon mill is undershot, limiting the available power to decelerating the flowing water passing through the bottom of the wheel. Overshot mills mainly use gravity dropping the water-filled buckets, and are significantly more effective (if not more efficient). You can stick an undershot mill almost anywhere there's a bit of a slope in a valley, but an overshot mill needs steeper hills.

I also wanted to hear much more from the experts on site. They evidently could explain their techniques, and in English too, but sometimes weren't given the opportunity to do so. And I still missed wide shots and establishing shots, for example in the barrel vault construction of the last programme. It was crying out for graphic overlays to explain the complexity.

Ten hour-long programmes, more detail, more graphics and diagrams, and it would have been competing for awards. As-is, it gives a great feel for what it's like to be there on-site, but I felt frustrated by what's missing.

E.

 

[woodpig]

Perhaps there's a French programme about that Castle project. I'd need subtitles though!

 

[MIGNAL]

Final episode last night although there will probably be a repeat over the weekend and it's available on iPlayer. I found it very interesting, even the parts about fabric dyeing and embroidery, but especially the relationships between carpenters, stone masons and blacksmiths.
.

I haven't done any fabric dyeing but I've done quite a bit (actually a lot!) of dyeing Maple veneer, both with natural and synthetic dyes. It can actually be very time consuming, especially because you are never quite sure if you are going to obtain the colour you desire. The problem is that to dye it all the way through can be quite a lengthy process and you then have to wait for the stuff to thoroughly dry (and sometimes fade a little) before you are sure of the outcome. Then there are all the variables - dye stuff, the water type, mordent type, even the type of pan.

 

[heimlaga]

The three presenters of the castle programme are archaeologists in their own right. When they are allowed to get stuck in, the explanations are good, although there is still some weirdness, for example using 'sand' (the commentary) as a flux in the forge welding (ep5). There's more to it than that (borax?), but too often the commentary dumbs this down when it doesn't have to.

In the old days before borax became avaiable at a reasonable cost quartz rich sand was used for flux when forge welding. With the impure wrought iron of the day this method produced very good forge welds as the slag in the iron also contributed to the flux and the iron was low in carbon so it could be heated to a high temperature without burning.
Modern mild steel burns at a lower temperature and contains no slag of it's own. A blacksmith told me that it is very difficult to weld mild steel without borax for theese reasons.

I am not much of a blacksmith but this is what I have been told.

 

[Eric The Viking]

Thanks for that. It wouldn't have killed them to say that in the commentary!