Blacksmithing — The nearly lost art

“I picked up blacksmithing as a hobby, and like all of my hobbies, I try to include my kids in what I like to do. My son was in the recycling club, and so he took some old wrenches and turned them into a knife and it got displayed at the fair. Then, it got selected to go to state,” Michael Klotz, leader of the 4-H Blacksmithing Club, explained his start with blacksmithing.

Blacksmithing is a lost art; it was a common practice before the industrial revolution when most towns had their own local blacksmiths shop. This was the golden age for American blacksmithing due to the high demand for metal work in the rapidly developing communities.

Blacksmiths crafted crucial tools and hardwares for building homes and transportation. However, the mass production techniques brought by the industrial revolution that allowed for faster and cheaper made iron products nearly killed the blacksmithing industry.

The Elkhart 4-H Blacksmithing Club is the brainchild of Klotz,

Mark Yoder, Omar Hershberger and Robert Kelly. Yoder and Hershberger ran a blacksmithing shop that Klotz had volunteered at. Klotz and Kelly sat down for a meeting and outlined everything that needed to get done. The club opened in January 2023.

“There are about a dozen counties in Indiana that have blacksmithing programs, and I reached out to the leaders of several of those for some information and input. From those conversations and information, I had to sit down and basically put together the curriculum and plan what projects to do based on the time frame we had for the fair,” explained Klotz.

There are four divisions within the Blacksmithing Club, and every student must complete a division before advancing to the next one. Members may not stay in a division for more than two years.

Division one focuses on basic skills, such as drawing out square point, twists, 90 degree bends and scrolls. Students in division one will learn how to make “S” hooks, triangle dinner bells and heart hooks.

Division two is intermediate and focuses on skills, like scrollContinued on page 7