Techniques of the Coppersmith (or the Tank and Apparatus Engineer) @museum.de

You may remember we mentioned that the coppersmith's craft is one of the oldest of trades. Human being started to process metals in the late Stone Age ... and we still haven't stopped. However, the job description has changed a great deal! Because these days, copper pans or copper kettles are factory-made. Now the job is all about containers (or tanks), pipelines and large apparatuses for industrial use.

So the coppersmith is no longer called a coppersmith, but a tank and apparatus engineer. But the skills of the past still represent a good foundation for the additional techniques he needs to master today.

He'll be well versed in coating processes and surface finishes such as hot-tin dipping and polishing. He'll have mastered joining techniques, like joining sheets of copper with an interlocked seam, as well as welding and soldering, drilling, sawing and grinding. And last but not least, he still quite often deploys his craft skills: when making stills of quality and distinction, for example. From the smallest components all the way to huge containers: when it comes to copper and stainless steel, the tank and apparatus engineer is almost a jack of all trades!