So said the blacksmith’s son watching the invention of the steel press.
“High tech industrial players are in the process of taking over western forgery.”
“High tech industrial players are in the process of taking over western forgery.”
"Modern blacksmiths sure are big!"
Blacksmith:Farmer::Forge:Farm
I mean, someone will always make stock, but fewer companies melt metal these days, or at the very least relative to those that carve it up or weld it together (which may or may not involve a little melting, given spin welding and other techniques).
A forge is closer to what you would call a manufacturing factory:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forging
A foundry smelts. But it is also technically a factory for input material. In the same way a sawmill is a factory.
From a pre-industrial blacksmith's perspective, the bigger distinction might be between a "factory" and a "shop". The processes involved are effectively the same; the difference is the scale/flexibility tradeoff (a shop can make different things every day without added overhead, where a "factory" gains enormous efficiency by being configured to do a single process).