51. Blacksmith

A blacksmith is man or woman designing, making and hot shaping metal products, such as wrought iron gates, grills, railings, light fixtures, furniture, sculpture, tools, decorative and religious items, cooking utensils and weapons. Generally, blacksmiths do not work the non ferrous metals (tin, brass, bronze, copper etc.). These require a separate set of skills and require their own specialists. A good Blacksmith can make a good looking product that shows skill and ingenuity with the minimum amount of work and energy. A blacksmith is a person who processes iron or steel by forging the metal; i.e., by using tools to hammer, bend, cut, and otherwise shape it in its non-liquid form. Usually the metal is cold until it glows red or orange as part of the forging process.

Blacksmiths produce things like wrought iron gates, grills, railings, light fixtures, furniture, sculpture, tools, agricultural implements, decorative and religious items, utensils and weapons. One of the most important men to arrive in a pioneer community was the blacksmith. The term "blacksmith" is derived from the words "black", meaning black metal, and "smite", meaning to strike hard. The blacksmith performed a number of services vital to the community, the primary one being to keep horses' hooves in good condition. The priority of Blacksmith is to work in locations throughout the developing world where human health is most affected by pollution.

Its programs involve a multi-step process of: identifying polluted places in the developing world, with nominations received from members of the international community and through the internet; Assessing the health risks at those locations; and designing and implementing a remediation strategy tailored to the specifics of the site in question, using local champions to implement the project in a cooperative fashion. The blacksmith had a forge where, with the aid of a bellows, he kept his fire hot. He also had an anvil, which was a solid iron bar on which he could hammer horseshoes fresh from the fire. Once the shoe was the right shape for the horse's hoof, it was put into a bucket of cold water to temper the metal and cool it off. The shoe was then nailed to the horse's hoof. The blacksmith manufactured all kinds of metal items for use in settlers' homes, everything from nails, to hinges, to axe heads.

Blacksmiths work with 'black' metals, especially iron (see wrought iron), while whitesmiths work with 'white' metals (such as tin and lead), although such artisans are more commonly called tinsmiths. The word 'whitesmith' also traditionally refers to a smith who, instead of leaving the finished product black, files and polishes his products to a reflective, or "white" luster. The term 'black' metal arises from the layer of oxides that form on the surface of the metal during heating (called fire scale). The black metals have a dark fire scale, whilst the white metals show a light colored fire scale, if any. The art of working with the precious metals (gold and silver, primarily) is known as goldsmithing. The term "Smith" originates from the word "Smite", which means to hit. Thus, a blacksmith is a person who smites the black metals. (The suffix "-smith" has since come to refer to other crafts. For instance, a woodworker is sometimes called a "woodsmith", though hitting wood is only a marginal part of his craft.) In recent years the forging of stainless steel has given rise to a fresh approach to architectural blacksmithing. The work of Giuseppe Lund illustrates this well.