The chisel he was using was made by the local blacksmith out of an old bicycle pedal crank. It’s not the perfect alloy for cold chisels, but it’s not bad if the heat treatment is well done.
He’d got a dozen of them, and when one was blunt he just picked up the next one. When the six he’d got beside him were all blunt, he trotted off down to the blacksmith and swapped them for the other six, newly sharpened and rehardened. The blacksmith was a real craftsman, but completely reliant on his own senses, so the quality of the hardening was variable. One chisel might last a couple of hours before it needed resharpening, another just five minutes. If there was a small boy around, he might get sent to the blacksmith with three or four chisels, to return with whatever was ready. This fellow was earning five rupees a block, because he was good – his blocks were being used for the façade of a bank that was being built. The other lads in the same patch were getting two or three rupees a block for blocks that were being used in less conspicuous places – but they could churn them out faster, too, so their daily earnings weren’t very much less. A lot better than farm labouring, in all cases – but still very little by European or American standards. The lads who sometimes carried chisels to and from the blacksmiths were getting twenty paise a trip – the round trip took them about half an hour.©Clive K Semmens 1983