Blacksmiths Group Keeps the Fire Going

Albany -- Lovers of the art of working metal by hand display their skills

By KENNETH AARON, Staff writer

First published: Sunday, February 24, 2002

Jim Moran sure looked the part of a professional blacksmith Saturday.

He was wearing his railroad engineer's cap and a big canvas work coat, and stood over an anvil banging and bending a piece of metal into a steer's head.

But he doesn't do this for a living.

"I couldn't make a living at this,'' said Moran, who once worked as an engineer for the state. "You've got to be good!''

About 30 people, mostly hobbyists, a handful of pros and some visitors, turned out at the Grossi Iron Works, where the Capital District Blacksmiths held their second meeting. The group's goal: To keep blacksmithing alive.

Getting involved in the craft does not take a huge outlay. Moran groused about newcomers convinced they needed a fancy anvil and swell forge to become a blacksmith. Back in the 1970s, when he got hooked on smithing after taking a trip to the State Fair in Syracuse, he came home and took his wife's hair dryer, a hibachi and a claw hammer and got going.

John Earl, a Greenville resident who makes his living in dental sales, said a beginner can set up with an anvil for about $125, a forge for $150 and a vise for $75.

The Artist-Blacksmith's Association of North America claims about 4,500 members.

It's demonstrations like the one Saturday where many said a new generation of blacksmiths could be born.

"I remember the day I became interested in metalwork,'' Earl said. He was in high school wood shop, and a substitute teacher took him to the metal shop to finish off a project. Now, those were the days when the future was one word -- plastics -- and some had a sense that polymers would prove the end of craftsmanship."

I walked into a place with all that steel, and I just felt in awe of it all,'' he said.

Of course, there's something about an open, coal-fired flame burning at 2,600 degrees and heavy metal objects that brings the men out (and the crowd was almost entirely male.)

"Fire, tools and loud noises -- there's a certain amount of testosterone involved,'' said Kevin McGlynn, a smithing enthusiast and assistant director at Shaker Heritage Society in Colonie.

Pat Grossi, who owned the Iron Works until he sold it last year, bubbled with pride that people were coming to the place his father opened in the mid-1960s. "I love having these people here,'' he said. "It's like being reborn.''

He was a probation officer for the state for 30 years, but always worked at the forge in his spare time. His father, John, hammered away until six months before dying at 97. On Saturday, Pat Grossi introduced a retired mason who used to rely on his father to make tools.

Those days are passed by.

"To be honest with you, blacksmithing is not that much in demand now,'' Grossi said, and it distresses him that the craft is not practiced by more.

"It's a beautiful way to express art,'' he said. "We ought to preserve that kind of art.''