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These days, the work of blacksmiths ranging from artistic to utilitarian - Induction Forging Heater by grehh hernjer
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These days, the work of blacksmiths ranging from artistic to utilitarian - Induction Forging Heater by GREHH HERNJER
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| Article Posted: 08/15/2013 |
| Article Views: 93 |
| Articles Written: 1951 - MORE ARTICLES FROM THIS AUTHOR |
| Word Count: 996 |
| Article Votes: 0 |
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These days, the work of blacksmiths ranging from artistic to utilitarian - Induction Forging Heater |
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Business,Business News,Business Opportunities
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By Bob Karlovits Published: Saturday, April 27, 2013, 9:00 p.m. Updated: Wednesday, May 1, 2013 B lacksmithing in the 21st century remains close to what it was whenit was mentioned in the Book of Genesis. It is hammer, an anvil and fire, says blacksmith and fabricatorJohn Steel of New Sewickley, Beaver County. But the job and results are far from the work of the villagesmithy.
Steel's work focuses on art, such as a wall hanging now underdesign that will be iron pages of a book depicting the owners'lives and interests. He also recently completed a copper baptismalfont for Greensburg's Blessed Sacrament Cathedral. James A. (Jymm) Hoffman creates historically accurate Colonialpieces from the carriages of cannons to items as simple as nailsand tent stakes. He will appear at Fort Ligonier's ColonialCulture, Customs and Craftsmen celebration May 5.
Larry Wessel makes wrenches, railroad uncoupling devices, heavyjackhammer bits and asphalt cutters at his Wessel Tool & Mfg. inthe city neighborhood of Esplen. Red Star Ironworks started in Oakland in 1999, moved to Millvale in2006 and now has operations in West Virginia and Mexico, doing whatfounder Peter Lambert calls architectural-design metalwork. Notice no one is doing horseshoes. In the 19th century, farriersbegan to specialize in horse work, leaving other iron jobs toblacksmiths.
Blacksmithing has changed from when the smith not onlymade shoes, but also pots and pans, hinges for doors and gates forproperty. But interest in it has not. The Touchstone Center for the Arts inFarmington, Fayette County, gets 80 to 100 students fortwice-yearly series of classes teaching smithing from the basics tohigh-level, ornamental work, says Adam Kenney, the site's director. The process is really compelling, he says of shaping iron withheat. There is a great, physical element to it, and the return ispretty immediate.
There also are 275 members in the Pittsburgh AreaArtists-Blacksmiths Association, which Steel formalized in 1988. Itcovers smiths in the tri-state area. Modern blacksmithing sometimes resembles the classic work of thevillage smithy, but can be greatly different, too. Red Star'sLambert, for instance, says blacksmithing is just part of what Ido with metal. Wessel's industrial work comes close to the practical jobs handledin the old shops.
Asphalt cutters, for instance, start as a 4-inchcylinder of steel before a flattened nose is pounded out. Sometimes old-style work needs equipment the same age. Wessel usesa 1900-era Hossfield Bender to put the curve in railroad uncouplinghooks. Why would you put stress on your back when you have machines? he says with a grin.
Modern technology has little place in this craft that somehistorians date to before 450 B.C. Such tools as the HossfieldBender and a lathe from 1938 in Wessel's shop are more common thanhis digital read-out that gives precise measurements for drillingor an induction heater that can crank up to 1,850 degrees of heatin 47 seconds. But those tools are more for his industrial-aimed tasks. Smallerjobs are centered on the area Steel compares to the worktriangle in a kitchen. Instead of the stove-sink-prep area, thisone is the anvil-fire-vise space where the blacksmith can move fromone task to the other.
Steel's shop has that triangle, but it also is filled withequipment that can help him do finer work such as creatingsimulated record albums for the wall-hanging. He is sure Hoffman, whom he considers an excellent blacksmithin the classical sense, would not even consider him one. Hoffmanagrees, but says Steel is a much finer fabricator than he is, soSteel can tackle projects Hoffman would have to pass. I'm a lousy fabricator, he says. The focus of these craftsmen determines their clientele.
Steel, for instance, says he deals mostly with individuals who aresearching for pieces of art or iron fencing for a property. He sayshe and business partner Chris Holt, a designer who also is a smith,then try to create something site-specific. Their productsrange from $250 to $30,000 or more. Holt is a retired art teacher from Shadyside Academy in Fox Chapeland does most of the design work for the firm. But she has learnedto work at the forge, too.
Steel and Holt also do some commercial work such as the baptismalfont or a fireplace door at the Porch restaurant in Oakland that ismeant to look like a blast-furnace door from a mill. The door won agold-prize award from the National Ornamental and MiscellaneousMetals Association, a Georgia-based trade association. Meanwhile, Hoffman's clients are places such as Fort Ligonier,which he calls his biggest single client in the past 10 years. Healso has done work at Fort Pitt and now is working on a guncarriage for Fort Meigs near Toledo, Ohio.
Hoffman got involved in metalworking in shop classes in high schoolin Ohio and went to what is now Salem University in West Virginiafor a degree in heritage arts, a program that would let him shapehis forge work, he says. The field of study was changed into amore-academic-sounding museum studies, but it all helped him meldhistory and blacksmithing work. He spent two years working at OldFort Niagara north of Buffalo as interpretive program manager andopened his Ambridge forge in 1999. John Steel came into smithing and forge work after more than 25years as a union iron worker, first at a mill in Monaca and then asa member of Local 3 of the International Association of Bridge,Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Iron Workers. He heard aboutthe work of the Artist Blacksmiths Association of North America andtook his work that direction in 1986, also forming his ownartist-blacksmiths' group.
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