DIY: Learning the Craft of Blacksmithing at Home

It was only 2 degrees outside, but as I gripped the tongs, trying to hammer the glowing piece of steel clamped in its jaws, my leather glove began to smoke. I dropped the tongs with a yelp, and the Viking-style belt buckle I was making fell into the snow. Steam rose as the metal hissed, sank and began to change color, from bright cherry to dull red to black. I would have to put it back in the forge to reheat it before trying again to shape the buckle’s serpentine curves.

For the previous Christmas, I’d gifted my partner, Jack, a class for the two of us at Blackthorne Forge in Marshfield. There, longtime smith Steve Bronstein shapes steel into serving spoons, cheese knives, animal sculptures, delicate vases and menorahs. When he’s not turning out custom work or preparing for craft shows, Bronstein teaches newbies how to safely hammer, bend and twist metal rods and bars into household items that are both functional and decorative.

It was a year before we got around to taking the class. But in the car on our way home, it took us less than an hour to decide that we wanted our own forge. A few weeks later, Jack and I bundled in layers of cotton clothing to shield ourselves from potential burns and began heating and hammering our respective projects: a new pair of tongs for Jack and a set of basic hooks for me.

Our blacksmith gear’s first landing spot was outdoors, tucked away behind our tiny sugar shack. We figured that while we boiled sap, we could also be working metal. Jack built a rustic bench to hold the cobalt-blue anvil and a wooden platform topped with cinder blocks for the forge. More recently, we’ve moved these tools indoors, and the forge now sits on a metal cart, a safer, fireproof solution.

For aspiring homesteaders like us, smithing in tandem may rank as one of the ultimate date activities — even in the winter with noses running and toes growing numb. There’s something romantic about taking turns at the anvil, moving around each other in a dance of hammers and sparks, and then triumphantly installing new handmade items around our home.

Twelve months after that class with Bronstein, our rustic cabin in St. Johnsbury offers ample evidence of our budding hobby: hooks hanging from a beam in the kitchen that hold our cast-iron pans, a trio of hand-hewn ash curtain rods with forged holders, twisty pegs on which we drape our winter clothes. My recent stab at a toilet-paper holder isn’t elegant, but it was my own design, and it’s prettier than the wood-veneer-and-plastic version we had before.

That same DIY impetus spurred Bronstein to choose his career. After studying biology in college at State University of New York at New Paltz, intrigued by the prospect of making his own tools and “being at the forge and moving metal,” he said, he took a couple of smithing classes and taught himself from there.

In 1989, Bronstein got his first smithing gig at Shelburne Museum. “My skill set was incredibly limited, but they just needed a warm body to run the forge,” he explained. Armed with his collection of blacksmithing books, he got paid to learn on the job. “I could make ugly things, and they didn’t care,” Bronstein recalled.

Now, 45 years later, he said he’s considering “transitioning to a different way of being in the shop.” That would likely mean less hammering hunks of metal all day and more teaching students. Bronstein’s shop has four fully functional workstations, and the student-teacher ratio allows for plenty of individualized attention.

“Most people who come in won’t keep doing it,” he surmised, “but [smithing] changes their perspectives on how everyday objects are made.” For smitten students like me and Jack, Bronstein said he strives to provide “enough information so you can go home and figure it out.”

And so we did. The small, two-burner Vevor forge we chose runs on propane and cost less than $200. We also purchased an anvil, a couple of hammers and two pairs of tongs to get us started. Acquiring everything new, as we did, beginners can set themselves up for less than $500.

Secondhand items, which sometimes turn up on Facebook Marketplace and elsewhere, can be acquired more cheaply if you have the patience to wait. You can even hack together your own propane or coal forge by following instructions in smithing books or myriad YouTube videos. (Those are also good sources for basic smithing tutorials, though I found it easier to learn on-site from a teacher who can correct techniques and provide pointers.)

I asked Jack why the craft appeals to him. “Blacksmithing is a foundational part of industry,” he replied. “There’s a famous quote about how none of your other trades could function without it.”

He was referring to “The Blacksmiths’ Song,” composed by Englishman Moses Kipling in 1828. It notes that we’d all be lost without spades and sickles, knives and forks, axes and saws. The song also cheekily suggests that blacksmiths are a hit with the ladies. “By hammer and hand, all arts do stand,” it concludes.

In essence, blacksmiths have historically prided themselves on being able to create from scratch the tools that allow them to complete more complicated projects, and the ones that allow other tradesfolk to do their jobs. Jack has embraced that DIY ethos. So far, he’s made tongs, chisels, fire pokers and a pair of punches that allow him to pop neat holes into anything that requires a fastener (such as my toilet-paper holder or a shelf bracket that must be screwed to a wall). Currently, he’s working on his first cant hook, which he’ll use to roll and separate logs when he’s prepping firewood or sawing boards.

For me, the ultimate goal of smithing is melding the practical and decorative. I aim to make kitchenware, such as ladles, forks and knives that are both beautiful and sharp — although crafting blades requires a refined skill set that I have yet to learn. Along the way, I plan to churn out hooks that I’ll use to trellis the tomatoes in our greenhouse, replace a light fixture or two in the cabin, and perfect my Viking belt.

As Bronstein predicted, working with fire and metal has changed the way I see the world. These days, especially when I’m traveling, I notice things like hinges, pulls and thick metal fixtures sunk into ancient stone walls. At museums, I find myself gazing at paintings of blacksmiths at work, their muscles gleaming in the firelight, or pieces in which a smithy is visible in the background, a common part of the everyday experience.

At home, when I trudge through the snow to our new workshop to see what Jack is up to, I can often match my steps to the sound of a hammer pinging on metal. I wonder what household problem he’s solving with a piece of 2,000-degree steel and a few hundred swings of his arm.