BlacksmitHER Radio

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Episode #66 – Monica Coyne "A dovetail joint, a pelvic bone and 1 inch square stock" Apr 04, 2016

Show notes

Monica is an artist blacksmith who lives and works in California. Working closely with a wide-range of clients and demonstrates her techniques in workshops and conferences across the country.

What We Talked About

Monica has been blacksmithing for 12 years. She went to a local Hamer-in at Weaverville, CA and took a class with Mark Aspery. This sparked her passion for the craft.
She then sought out opportunities to learn and apprentice with experienced blacksmiths such as Toby Hickman and Daniel Miller. She spent 2 years as an apprentice with Toby.
4 years later she quit her job at the welding fabrication shop and built and off grid shop on her and her husband’s land.
Monica tells us how her husband built her forge shop from the ground up that is completely off the grid! The shop has solar and hydro power along with a backup diesel generator if needed.
When Monica was asked to be a demonstrator at ABANA, she knew she wanted to show the sliding dovetail joint techniques that she has been perfecting for the last 4 years.
Regarding her thought process on the sculpture design that she came up with for the ABANA demo she thought about where in your body would a sliding dovetail joint fit. Naturally it would be at the biggest pivot joint in your body, at the hips, where the spine connects to the pelvic bone.
Deeper research into the pelvic bone pointed Monica to Greek Mythology. The word “Ilium” comes from the word “ilia” and “ilia” is another name for Rhea Silvia. Rhea Silvia was the mother of Romulus and Remus who founded Rome, therefore Rhea or Ilia can be interpreted to be the mother of civilization. When Monica works with metal she is always trying to understand the connection between the civilized world and the natural world.
For her Ilia design she will start with 1” square stock to make the Ilium or the hip bones, she will use ¾” square bar to make the tailbone (or the tenon part of the dovetail joint) and the wedge pin, representing the spine, will be made from 1’2” square stock.
Monica studied woodworking in college and made some wooden dovetail joints before and she had always wanted to make that joint in metal. The first metal dovetail joint she made was about 4 years ago and she has been perfecting the techniques, angles and ways to use them.
Mike Limb will be Monica’s assistant at ABANA and they have been friends for many years. Monica met Mike Limb at the Weaverville Hammer-in and they have both grown their blacksmith skills together there.

Monica Coyne’s Links:

Website – http://www.monicacoyneartistblacksmith.com/

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/MonicaCoyneArtistBlacksmith

A Big Thank You to today’s sponsor – ABANA 2016 Conference, http://www.abana.org/Conferences/2016/index.html

If you enjoyed this episode, I would love it if you would support the show by:

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Thanks so much for your support!

Episode #65–Douglas Pryor "If you're not crackin' steel, you're not learnin'" Mar 28, 2016

Show notes

Douglas Pryor

Guest Intro:

Douglas Pryor lives in Rockland, California and works as a repousse artist, primarily making armor. When possible, he uses only hand tools to mimic the authentic conditions of ancient time periods. His main techniques are sculpting, raising, chasing and repousse. Douglas also moonlights as a parkour instructor. He’s been selected as one of the demonstrators for this year’s ABANA Conference in Salt Lake City.

What we talked about:

Douglas got into armor making because he liked roughhousing as a kid, but found it could be painful. Instead of stopping the activity, he fashioned suits of protection out of gutter sheet metal and catcher helmets. That ultimately led him to look deeper into the topic of armor and he began taking metalworking courses.

He went to college for a welding program and was immediately hooked on metalwork. “I knew I wanted to work with metal as I continued to kind of fall in love with the elasticity and how much shape and three-dimensional form you can get into it. It captivated me.” He says he owes much of his success to amazing instructors at Sierra College and access to a lot of good information early in his studies.

But it turned out welding was not his passion. “The deeper I got, the more I wanted to NOT weld. The more proficient I got at modern techniques, the more interested I got in traditional techniques.” He began to explore how these arts were performed in the past.

Douglas works mostly with 10-12 gauge steel because many of his pieces must be able to hold up to full contact sports. He almost exclusively uses hand hammers and tooling versus pneumatic tools to make the process more historically authentic.

Douglas says that he’s able to make a decent living in this line of work selling armor pieces. He mostly works on commissioned items and he usually has up to eight people in cue for projects from all over the world. He estimates he works 40-60 hours per week on these projects.

As a side job, Douglas works as an instructor at a parkour gym he helped build. He loves the physical aspect of dynamic human movement and enjoys working with people in a completely different way than he can when doing metalwork. He says it offers him an equally important, but very different perspective.

For pricing, Douglas says he has an hourly and a daily rate, but he ultimately charges what a piece is worth. He’s says that open communication and being very transparent with his clients is important.

As part of the construction process, Douglas says it can be extremely personal, with people sometimes sending him full body casts for custom work. He describes it as very labor intensive, hence the cost. “You can cut corners with machines, but part of my discipline and part of my practice is doing it traditionally. There’s a lot of appreciation for hand-made goods. I can’t say thank you enough to the people who support me,” he says.

With such a unique skill set, Douglas has considered working for Hollywood, but instead prefers the slower paced work he gets with private collectors. He likes time to do research and become engrossed in the project instead of trying to turn out pieces quickly. Douglas says he has done work on some video game projects.

So how long does it take to make these pieces? Douglas says it varies wildly depending on the project. He said it could take weeks or even years. As an example, he recently made an Octopus Helmet for a client in Australia. The helmet was forged out of a single plate of steel and has three very unique interchangeable visors. That project took 12 months and he had a documentary film crew following the process.

Douglas is starting to offer some workshops and recently did a practice run with instructors from the college he attended. He also offered a free workshop for about 7-8 students. He plans to do another one in Arizona this October.

At this summer’s ABANA conference, Douglas is going to be doing a 3-part demonstration on face sculpture. He says he will only have 9 hours to work on a piece that would normally take him more than 20 hours. He will start with hot raising to raise the form into a conical shape. Later, he will do some forging, but most of the process is cold work. He will get into smaller and sharper tools near the end of the project.

If Douglas could meet any metalworker, dead or alive, who would it be? Douglas has a huge interest in early Scandinavian helmets and heard of an old ship burial ground possibly in Sweden where pre-Viking helmets were found. He’d like to travel back in time and learn the history and artistry of these helmets. He’s also interested in a mine in the Alps where pre-iron age jade hand axes were found. Since there was no written language at the time, he’d like to learn more about those.

Guest Links:

Web: www.douglaspryor.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI453XqGzuSDOziqkyB3MXQ
Instagram: instagram.com/douglas_pryor
YouTube link https://www.youtube.com/user/ParkourWithDouglas/feed
Gargoyle practice video https://youtu.be/bwjS7PZ5c6w
Skeleton breastplate video https://youtu.be/CPeGAe0kY4k

A Big Thank You to today’s sponsor – ABANA 2016 Conference

If you enjoyed this episode, I would love it if you would support the show by:

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Episode #64 – Matt Jenkins "Is that real sweat?" Mar 21, 2016

Show notes

Guest Intro paragraph Matt Jenkins is a Winnipeg, Canada-based blacksmith and owner of Cloverdale Forge. He got his start in blacksmithing by spending college summers at a Canadian national park doing historical re-creations for tourists. He later studied at the John C. Campbell Folk School in North Carolina. He now works days as a mechanical engineer and nights and weekends in his own shop. Last summer he took first place in Drawing and Design and the World Forging Championship in Stia, Italy.

What We Talked About

Matt followed in his father's footsteps by working summers at Lower Fort Garry National Historic Site as a blacksmith doing historical re-creations for the public. He recalls some of the funniest questions people asked him and the jokes his dad used to play on the tourists.
Matt received a degree in mechanical engineering, but also studied at the John C. Campbell school in North Carolina, where he still teaches one week every summer. This year his class will take place in September.
He works two full-time jobs. During the day, he's a mechanical engineer for a custom metal manufacturer doing computer aided drafting. On nights and weekends he's in his own shop, Cloverdale Forge, on his family's farm. His shop is 400 square feet and he's looking at doing an expansion soon.
Matt teaches classes at Cloverdale and has 4 planned for this summer doing basic beginner blacksmithing. He's tyring to build a blacksmithing community and an appreciation for the art in a fairly isolated location.
Last summer Matt won 1st place at the World Forging Championship in Stia, Italy in the Drawing and Design competition. The contest theme was trash cans. His drawing can be seen at http://www.biennaleartefabbrile.it/il-campionato/classifica-2015/
Matt's trip to Italy was part of a larger European trip he took with two other blacksmith friends. They attended a conference in the Czech Republic where Matt won the “longest spike competition” in part of a Blacksmith Triathlon. They also visited Germany and blacksmith friend Gosta Gablick. “It's fun traveling with other blacksmiths because they look at the same weird things that I do,” Matt says.
Matt is also a part of an annual art event in Winnipeg called “Nuit Blanche” where artists create and display their works overnight. “We pull the forges into city square and build something,” Matt says. “In our area, the only time you experience blacksmithing is at a fur trading post, so to show people it's not just repair of muskets and traps, I bring the art to them on that night.”
Matt uses many outlets to advertise and sell his products including a business web site with a blog, Facebook, Instagram and Etsy. The Etsy site works well for advertising and exposure, Matt says, but doesn't bring in huge sales.
If Matt could meet one blacksmith, dead or alive, he says he would choose the “nameless guys” who've been doing it forever. “Everyone says the artistic stuff, but the art comes from me. I want to learn the skills.”

Guest Links

Web Page: cloverdaleforge.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/cloverdaleforge/
Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/shop/CloverdaleForge
Twitter: https://twitter.com/cloverdaleforge
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cloverdaleforge/
Stia Drawing and Design website - http://www.biennaleartefabbrile.it/the-championship/regulation-design-contest/

A Big Thank You to today’s sponsor – Adirondack Folk School, www.adirondackfolkschool.org

If you enjoyed this episode, I would love it if you would support the show by:

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sharing this episode using the social sharing buttons below.
subscribing to the show and leaving a rating and review in iTunes. Not sure how? Just follow these simple steps here or watch the short video tutorial, http://youtu.be/rq4OCyRGjHc?list=UUH3MfNZLXlKgionAs6kMT_Q
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Episode #63 – John Barron "ABANA 48 ft Railing Demo and Install in 4 Days" Mar 14, 2016

Show notes

John Barron is a full-time blacksmith in Georgetown, CA. He began working with metal in a large fabrication shop in Oakland, California in 1975 and learned. Today, he specializes in architectural ironwork and will be one of the demonstrators at the ABANA 2016 Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah.

What We Talked About

John learned his trade from an Italian trained smith in a union iron-working shop in Oakland, California during the 1970's and 80's. He joined the Shopmen Ironworkers Union and worked in a large fabrication shop.
One of the main skills he learned was how to design, build and install stair railings.
In 1989 John left the Ironworks Union after being vested with them for 10 years. He moved to the Sierra Mountains and began working for Auburn Ironworks, the oldest running blacksmith shop in northern California.
A few years after hiring John, the company downsized and let him go. This pushed John to start his own blacksmithing business.
After five years of running the business he took a hard look at his expenses and income and found out that he was making about $7/hour, which wasn’t sustainable. So he shut the business down and went to work for other fabricators.
Eventually he moved to Georgetown and stated another blacksmith business.
In between metal jobs John does shoe repair for additional income.
John will be demonstrating how to design, measure, layout and install a stair railing. 46 feet of railing will be the goal to be finished and installed on-site for a handicap ramp.
The railing will be a collaborative project and John is asking for participants to help make the railing and also make 18 rings for the railing. The rings are to be made from 1” x ¼” flat bar, bent into a 7” circle the easy way and forge welded. Your design can go on the inside of the ring, but will need to allow space on the sides for collaring and on the top for a rivet. More details here: http://www.piehtoolco.com/abana/2016%20ABANA%20RAILING-Layout1.pdf
If you plan on making a ring, please let John know by email, john@barroncreations.com .
John is hoping to have six forging stations for participants to work in pairs assisting in making the railing components. The ideal participant will have level 2 blacksmith skills.

Guest Links

John’s Website: http://www.barroncreations.com/
His page on the ABANA Conference website: http://www.abana.org/Conferences/2016/contents/en-us/d10_John_Baron_SP_.html

A Big Thank You to today’s sponsor – ABANA 2016 Salt Lake Conference

Maybe more pictures

If you enjoyed this episode, I would love it if you would support the show by:

telling your friends.
sharing this episode using the social sharing buttons below.
subscribing to the show and leaving a rating and review in iTunes. Not sure how? Just follow these simple steps here or watch the short video tutorial, http://youtu.be/rq4OCyRGjHc?list=UUH3MfNZLXlKgionAs6kMT_Q
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Thanks so much for your support!

Episode #62 – Patrick Quinn "A thesis of forged kinetic and balanced forms" Feb 26, 2016

Show notes

Patrick Quinn is a full-time blacksmith in Florida, New York. He graduated with honors in sculpture from the School of Art and Design at Alfred University continued his education with Southern Illinois University to pursue his masters. He is now a teacher at the Center for Metals Arts.

What We Talked About

While completing his bachelor’s degree at Alfred university he focused in fabrication of sheet metal work and hollow forms.
When Patrick graduated he moved to Vermont for a job at a production forge company as a welder, but the company only had an opening for a blacksmith to mainly work on the power hammer and hydraulic bending machines pumping out production pieces, so he was hired for that position.
While Patrick was working at the production forge he rented a local barn to have his own studio space to practice his hand forging.
Eventually, he quit his job and ran his own blacksmith business in Vermont for a few years. This led him to some big stainless steel jobs to complete in NYC during the winters. This allowed him to live in Vermont in the summertime to work on his portfolio.
In 2011, he applied to a graduate program at Southern Illinois University, a 3-year program.
He now works for the Center for Metal Arts as the blacksmith program director and class instructor. The school is in Florida, New York an hour north of New York City.
The school offers 1 to 4-day classes for all levels of blacksmithing, as well as silver soldering, enameling, and jewelry making.
While most of the classes he teaches are on the weekends, he uses the weekdays to make private commissioned work. Most of the commissions are architectural in nature, and he will add his sculptural designs to them.
Patrick will be part of the 2016 ABANA conference demonstrations, he is one of the team of 12 working with Jake James on a collaborative sculpture.
The school’s shop consists of milling machine, a lathe, 5 welding machines, bandsaws, platen and fabrication layout tables, 3 power hammers, 8 forging stations complete with anvils, forges, and hand tools.
Patrick likes to read books that are technique based for forging, open die forging, tool making and older books about crafts.
When asked who would he spend a day with learning from – he answered to work with the guys at the Hay Budden Anvil making shop in Brooklyn in the early 1900’s.

Guest Links

Patrick’s website - http://www.patrickjquinn.com/

The Center for Metal Arts website - http://www.centerformetalarts.com/

A Big Thank You to today’s sponsor – The Center for Metal Arts

If you enjoyed this episode, I would love it if you would support the show by:

telling your friends.
sharing this episode using the social sharing buttons below.
subscribing to the show and leaving a rating and review in iTunes. Not sure how? Just follow these simple steps here or watch the short video tutorial, http://youtu.be/rq4OCyRGjHc?list=UUH3MfNZLXlKgionAs6kMT_Q
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Thanks so much for your support!

Episode #61 - John McLellan "The CBA Prez, the 2016 ABANA Conf Co-Chair Feb 22, 2016

Show notes

Guest Intro paragraph John McLellan is the owner of McLellan Blacksmithing in Loomis, California. He's also the president of the California Blacksmith Association and is serving as co-chair for the 2016 ABANA Conference taking place in Salt Lake City in July. John began his business shoeing horses and now primarily does high-end architectural and interior design metalwork.

What We Talked About

John's interest in blacksmithing began when he was 8 years old and inherited his grandfather's ranching equipment. He taught himself the trade by reading library books. In the 1970s he joined the California Blacksmith Association.
McLellan Blacksmithing opened in 1977 and focused on shoeing horses, a skill John learned in a high school regional occupation program. He took the class for two years and then taught it for five years after graduating.
He got into architectural blacksmithing in the mid-1980s, hired several employees and now works almost exclusively designing intricate metalwork for high-end homes. He spends most of his time now doing design, drawing and bids and does less hands-on work than in the past.
About 10 years ago, John hired a staff of 12 employees to work on the renovation of a local cathedral. Built in the 1880s, it needed a complete refurbishing. His crew did all the metalwork including light fixtures, railings, crosses, hand rails and door hardware.
McLellan Blacksmithing is in an 8,000 square foot shop in Loomis, which includes a machine shop, a fabrication area, a place to paint out back, a showroom up front and class space upstairs. They offer monthly basic blacksmithing classes from September through April.
John is currently serving as the 2016 ABANA Conference co-chair. The conference will be held July 13-16 in Salt Lake City. John's been working on arrangements for attendees including transportation, lodging, and food. He says they will have several food vendors including food trucks with gourmet options. The Saturday night banquet will be a catered, sit-down meal.
The conference is still accepting donations for the auction as well as pieces to showcase at the gallery. Please see the ABANA website for details.
John says there's a great lineup of demonstrators and sponsors this year and about 350 people have signed up to attend so far. Registration is still open and the cost will increase after April 1.
One of the features of the conference is the Education Tents, which will offer demonstrations throughout the day with hands-on project work after each demo. Some of the demos include Level 2 grill work, punches and chisels, animal head work and making bottle openers.
There will also be some forging competitions in the evenings. Topics include chain making, animal heads and tong making. These competitions are free to participate in with conference attendance.

Guest Links

Website: www.mclellanblacksmithing.com
ABANA 2016 Conference - www.abana.org/Conferences/2016/index.html

Thank you to today's sponsor the ABANA 2016 Salt Lake City Conference

Episode #60 – "The Business of Blacksmithing" Feb 15, 2016

Show notes

I'm reading two articles from the British Artist Blacksmith Association’s publication called “Artist Blacksmith”. I am a member of this association and I recently read these articles thinking that I should share them on the podcast. I’m hoping it will be helpful to those of you that are in the business of blacksmithing.

What I cover in the podcast

A book review by Elspeth Bennie and Steve Rook on the book “The Art of Shouting Quietly”
Pete Mosely is the author of the book and he has previously written articles for the Artist Blacksmith magazine, and was one of the key speakers at BABA’s seminar on personal development.
The book looks at different ways to promote your blacksmith business. It guides you through a series of self-analysis exercises to ascertain how you tick.
Helping you to understand yourself and your beliefs steers you in the right direction for success
An article called “The Business of Blacksmithing” by Will Barker
The article talks about how Will has come to some personal conclusions about business and blacksmithing.
Will urges the blacksmith to take time to learn how to market their business and also to try to do 10%more marketing.
Will’s social media expertise is Twitter. He recommends Twitter because it’s a huge search engine and can be free advertising for you and your business.
He recommends to tweet 2 times a day, this will allow you to show up in your followers feed more often and will keep you top of mind for them.
Encourage others to tweet about you and your work/process. This helps in gaining trust from your followers.
Don’t just tweet about yourself – promote other’s work by re-tweeting or give a pat on the back to a colleague who’s done good work.
Don’t ignore other Tweeters, it should be a two-way conversation and include engagement.
Don’t follow other just for the sake of it. “Your overall Twitter persona is enhanced when you follow based on quality” Morgan Leu Parkhurst.

Links

Book “The Art of Shouting Quietly” by Pete Mosely on Amazon

BABA - http://www.baba.org.uk/

A Big Thank You to today’s sponsor – Adirondack Folk School.

Episode #59 Jerry Coe "Tango and Blacksmithing" Jan 27, 2016

Show notes

Jerry Coe is a sculptural metalsmith who specializes in bronze. He's the founder of Coe Studios Architectural Lighting in Berkeley, California. His interest in blacksmithing began when he was a mountain climber and park ranger at Yosemite National Park. It was there that he became an apprentice stagecoach builder and has been blacksmithing full time since 1979. Jerry also enjoys tango dancing and is currently organizing a trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina with a large group of blacksmiths from around the world.

Jerry traveled to Argentina a few years ago and was amazed by the amount of iron work there. He said the quality and quantity rivals London, Paris and New York City. Yet because of political changes, no one has cared for it or developed any more since the 1930s. In fact, there are almost no blacksmiths left in the entire country.
Jerry shared his pictures and stories from Argentina with a friend who edits a magazine and then produced a short video. A colleague who watched it encouraged him to apply for a grant to go back to Buenos Aires and study more about the history of the metalwork there.
He traveled back to Buenos Aires in October of 2014 for 3 weeks. He met with architects and a local blacksmith and they formed the Association for Architectural Preservation.
Using his own money, Jerry invited a couple of blacksmiths to California last spring to work in different shops for three weeks.
Jerry came up with the idea to go back to Buenos Aires to teach some free classes to try to revive metalworking there. He contacted the US Embassy and they immediately wanted to get involved. “They decided this was a perfect program that fits the ambassador's plans for Argentina to have community involvement and education and all free,” Jerry says.
Soon about 40 people had expressed interest in joining Jerry on the 12-day trip coming up at the end of February.
Jerry contacted a mayor in Buenos Aires and she offered the group a public park in the middle of the city with all the amenities they will need. In return, the group will build a permanent sculpture for the park over the 3 days they teach there.
At the park, they'll teach basic blacksmithing, tool making, sheet metal work as well as putting together the sculpture. They want to encourage locals to learn and help as much as possible.
20 full-time blacksmiths will be helping out with this project. Another 17 will be there for support. Additionally, another 45 people from a local blacksmith club will be on hand and as many as 100 other people who have expressed interest in this project may also join them. Jerry is hopeful that the community will also be heavily involved in the entire project.
Jerry hopes that the community will learn enough to restore and care for the metal in Buenos Aires. “I'm hoping to inspire a group of craftspeople to take it on,” he says. He also wants to inspire young blacksmiths. “It's a beautiful opportunity to express yourself in lasting, functional art.”
Jerry says that pulling off an event of this magnitude is challenging. “We're trying to make something happen there that hasn't happened in 85 years, so we're really pushing the envelope.” He says they will do their best to come up with enough anvils and forges and basic items to make the project happen. Blacksmiths will be bringing tools along and plan to leave them there for the community.
Even meals will be a challenge with this size of a group, so he's arranged for locals to walk with guests through town and break off into small groups to visit local eateries.
Jerry is also looking forward to enjoying the night life of Buenos Aires where he can put his tango skills to use. He's encouraging all travelers to learn some dance moves.
For a website dedicated to this trip, please see http://www.restorationcraftsmen.org

Guest Links

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/jerry.coe.75
Coe Studios Architectural Lighting: http://coestudios.com/
Argentina Trip Web Site: http://www.restorationcraftsmen.org/

Thanks to ABANA for sponsorship!

Episode #58 "Any Carbon Monoxide in Your Shop?" Jan 24, 2016

Show notes

In today's podcast, I discuss how to keep yourself safe from carbon monoxide poisoning while you work. This problem is especially prevalent in the winter months when shops are sealed for warmth. How can you know if you have an acceptable level of CO? And what can you do if you don't?

What We Talked About

The article by Mark Manley titled, “How Much Carbon Monoxide is in Your Shop?” appeared in the California Blacksmithing Association newsletter in December 2006 and originally in the Northern Rockies Blacksmith Association Newsletter
The article states that a properly adjusted propane forge produces little to no carbon monoxide with proper ventilation. But how do you know if yours is properly adjusted? And how do you know if you have enough air flow?
The author suggests purchasing a carbon monoxide alarm for about $40. The unit plugs into the wall. It should have a digital display that reads from 0-999 parts per million (ppm) and will sound an 85-decibel alarm at 150 ppm.
OSHA regulations state that 50 ppm is the maximum allowable CO exposure for adults in an 8 hour period.
Here are some general guidelines about CO exposure:

-200 ppm will cause a slight headache, fatigue, nausea and dizziness at 2-3 hours of exposure

-400 ppm will cause headache, fatigue, dizziness and nausea within 1-2 hours and is life threatening after 3 hours

-800 ppm will cause dizziness, nausea and convulsions within 45 minutes, unconsciousness within 2 hours and death in 2-3 hours

-1600 ppm causes death within 30 minutes

When the author plugged his new detector in he was surprised to find unsafe levels of 30-160 ppm over long periods of time.
He was able to adjust the air-fuel ratio and ventilation and it went down to 0 ppm.
He suggests everyone (whether using propane or coal) monitor their shops at all times and make these small adjustments for safety.

Episode #57 Finin Liam Christie "Building a Business With an Anvil Strapped to His Bicycle" Jan 18, 2016

Show notes

Finin Liam Christie is a blacksmith and carpenter in Southern Ireland who's been blacksmithing since he was 16 years old. Originally from Dublin, he was a blacksmith apprentice for the national railway before working as the official contractor for the City of Dublin. A father of five, he owns his own forge where he specializes in steel and ironwork, primarily making gates and railings with traditional techniques. Finin is also a model steam train hobbyist.

What We Talked About

Finin's grandfather, James Christie, was considered one of Ireland's best blacksmiths and worked for the national railway. Although he died when Finin was just 5 years old, Finin had a five-year apprenticeship at the railway where he was taught by his grandfather's apprentices. Finin says he received excellent training by these older blacksmiths just before their retirement.
After his railway work, Ireland had an economic downturn and Finin struck off on his own. He traveled by bike with his anvil on the back, his grinder along the crossbar and his sledge hammer across the handlebars. “I used to knock on every door in Dublin that had a bent gate and I'd ask them if they wanted me to repair their gates,” he recalls.
One year later Finin was able to purchase his own van and the next year he registered his own business and began getting steady work. “There was no work then, but I made work,” Finin says. “And I've been working for myself ever since.”
Finin's specialty is traditional style railings and gates. He was the official contractor for the City of Dublin for about 16 years, working on government buildings, city parks and county council houses. He did a lot of restoration of old gates and had 18 men working for him.
He stopped working for the city about three years ago and now operates out of his own shop, which he says is about 40'x20' and has three anvils. He teaches some classes out of his workshop, but finds it hard to entice young people into such a physically demanding and tedious trade.
Finin has a couple other hobbies he enjoys when he's not smithing. He’s a boxer, and he has a gym on the other side of his workshop. He also builds model steam trains by hand.
If Finin could work with any blacksmith, dead or alive, he would choose his grandfather: “Apart from being my grandfather, they say he was one of the greatest [blacksmiths] in the country. He was a great man. He was ahead of his time,” Finin says. After a 53 year blacksmithing career, his grandfather died on the job. Finin still has his grandfather's tools, which he treasures.
Finin's 9 year old son has shown some interest in blacksmithing and they enjoy working on projects together.

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