Matthias 0311

This is the blacksmith shop where I work at Furnace Town, near Snow Hill, MD. Back in the early 1800's up to the American civil war, this town of up to 400 residents was formed around a three-story brick furnace where they would smelt bog ore they dug up from the creek nearby.

This is the furnace where workers would layer charcoal, bog ore, and crushed clam and oyster shells and smelt the iron out of the ore and is the only original structure left on the site. The people who built it also rerouted creek water to run under it and power the bellows (which is what the pipes on top serve as). The other buildings, like the blacksmith shop, broom house and weave house were either built or brought on site throughout the past three decades.

This double coal/coke/charcoal forge was built in a similar fashion to the one that was in the original blacksmith shop and can safely handle two blacksmiths per forge. The right forge is operated with an old Champion hand-crank blower and the left forge is operated by either it's own old hand-crank blower or it can be switched to a bellows that is suspended from the ceiling and can be seen in the upper left corner of the photo.

This is the beginning stages of a simple door handle I made for the gate to our garden at home.

This was at a hammer-in that was at Furnace Town. This is a photo of myself and a nice guy named Ken, who shared my last name and came all the way down from New Jersey to attend, punching the handle hole for his hammer. This is in the more modern shop that is adjacent to the old-style shop and has a steel forge with an electric fan for a blower.

Ken and myself shaping the cheeks of his hammer.

This is the former blacksmith, Lee, who has shared with me so much more actually useful advice than a lifetime of watching YouTube videos ever could. He only does blacksmithing at home nowadays and spends the rest of his time as a pastor for his local church.