Shoulder braces

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Shoulder iron on the guild emblem of the chimney sweep

The shoulder iron is a traditional tool of the chimney sweep . The name comes from the fact that it lies on the craftsman's shoulder when not in use, which has the advantage that the sweeper has both hands free when climbing the chimneys.

The shoulder iron - called iron for short - is made of forgeable steel . It consists of the stem, the rib and the leaf. The stem is angular or round. The rib extends to about half of the leaf and gives the shoulder iron more strength. At its end, the blade has the edge which is inclined from the outside inwards on one side.

The shoulder iron is traditionally used to clean smokehouse, mountable chimneys and smoke channels. With it, encrusted soot residue was scraped off. Nowadays the chimneys are no longer climbed for cleaning, but swept with special tools. The shoulder iron is therefore used to scrape soot out of the bottom of the chimney. But it is also used as a universal tool.