Forging into Unexplored Territory

“Hey grandpa,” Scott approached his grandfather as the representative of the cousin clan. “Wouldn't it be cool if we had a forge? You know, like a blacksmith forge?”

“Hmm,” Richard responded thoughtfully. “I suppose it might be a nifty project to take on. It's a little more of a project than you children might think.”

“What do you mean, grandpa?” Samuel asked. “All we need is a fire, an anvil, and some tools, right?”

“Oh, not exactly,” the older gentleman replied with a chuckle. “A forge is a lot more than a fire and an anvil. You need a furnace that can take a lot of heat. You need a bellows to give the fire all the air it needs. Besides that, you need some metal to work with. What good's a forge without some metal to hammer on?”

“Are you telling us it's too much work?” Luke inquired with a disappointed look.

“No,” Richard responded slowly. “I just want you to know how much work it's going to be. Now let's see if we can find what we need to make a forge.”

That's how it all started. One short conversation detailing the possibilities and Grandpa Henning was building a forge. The first thing he needed was a furnace of sorts. He found an old truck rim and attached three legs to one side so that it would stand horizontally about two feet off the ground. Then he attached a short metal pipe through one of the holes in the rim and lined the rim with concrete, being careful not to cover the end of his pipe. Once the rim was lined to his satisfaction, he concentrated on the other half of the furnace issue: the bellows. 

Richard rummaged through his workshop until he found a small bolt of vinyl seat upholstery. It was charcoal gray and looked like leather to the children. He set the vinyl aside and looked through his scrap board pile until he found two pieces of wood that suited him. He sketched an outline on one board, nodding his head from side to side as he saw the desired shape form under the careful guidance of his carpenter pencil. 

“Okay, kids,” he turned to his entourage. “It's dinnertime. This project will keep until tomorrow.”

Cries of protest echoed out through the small workshop as the children implored their grandfather not to leave their project unfinished. He insisted that they had plenty of time and one must eat in order to accomplish anything in life. The children relented for the time being as their own hunger settled into their consciousness.

The forge preparation project took a few days. Richard made the bellows from scratch using the vinyl, the wood pieces, a pair of wooden handles, a small spout, a round hole in one board, and a cardboard baffle on the inside. When it was all said and done, the bellows did exactly what it was meant to do: puffed air with every cycle.

Finally, after days of hard work, the forge was ready to fire. The cousins all gathered around as their grandfather built a fire in the truck rim furnace. He directed one of the kids to pick of the bellows and blow air through the metal tube. The fire flared with every puff. After a few minutes, it was ready for coal. The black chunks of coal slowly shifted color from dusty black to dull red to bright orange. Finally, the fire was ready for use.

“Now you will all have to take turns running the bellows,” Richard explained to his grandchildren. “The fire needs a lot of air to make steel soft enough to manipulate.”

“What's manipulate mean?” Luke questioned from the sidelines.

“It means change,” Samuel explained hesitantly. “He means it has to get really hot before we can hammer it into a different shape.”

Richard nodded as he carried a large chunk of fire wood from his pile and placed it on end a few feet away from the fire. He sat his large anvil on the chunk of wood and stepped back. He filled a five gallon bucket with water and situated it in between the anvil and the fire.

“Well, here's what you have to do,” he began with his trademark patience. “You can use these tongs to put you metal into the coals. Once it turns orange, you pull it out and take it over to the anvil. After you get tired of hammering on it, you dip it into the water until it's cool. Now listen. There's only one anvil so you have to take turns.”

The children eagerly agreed to the terms of use and lined up to pick out tools from the myriad of options before them. Then they turned to the pile of scrap that had been provided for manipulation. They each sorted through the pile until they found something that seemed to suit them. It wasn't as if the children had anything specific in mind when they asked their grandfather for a forge. They just wanted to heat some metal up and pound on it until it looked different than it had before. Richard understood that this was probably the case. However, he seemed to find value in that particular type of exploration and saw no reason not to give his grandchildren the opportunity to explore. That's what the kids loved about their grandpa.

The group of cousins worked that forge all day. They took turns at the bellows as their grandfather added coal to the fire as needed. They put meal in the fire and watched the dull rust layer heat up and fall away to reveal a bright orange piece underneath. They pounded the hot metal just to see what they could do with it. They'd bend it in half or pound it out as thin as it would pound. once the color faded to grayish black, they plunged it into the bucket and watched the water dance around the metal as the steam rose into the air to the sound of hissing.

Richard supervised patiently from the sidelines, only interfering when it was an absolute necessity. Don't touch that yet. It's still hot. You should leave that in the fire a little longer. Wait your turn. Gentle guidances like these accompanied the busy tasks of the children until it was time to shut things down for the day. Grandpa doused the fire with water from the bucket and instructed the kids to leave things as they were. He could clean up after they left, but not too much. The South Carolina cousins still had a few days to spend in Ohio and he fully expected to be firing the forge once or twice before they headed south. The kids reluctantly left the forge behind as they headed back to the farm for the evening chores.

“That was awesome,” Benjamin sighed contentedly as the kids climber over the pasture fence stile (A stile is a set of small steps that allowed a human to climb over the barbed wire fence but still prevented the bovine pasture residents from escaping.) “I'm pretty sure that grandpa could make anything.”

“Yup,” Scott agreed. “I think you're right.”