Note what books inspired him to learn the trade.
MONTGOMERY — Geoffrey Swyka intuitively turns the wheel on the forge blower as he talks, placing his palm near the soft-coal fire to check the heat. He pulls a piece of steel from the fire, bringing it to the anvil for hammering.
The 19-year-old from Westtown is making a gate anchor for the grounds of the Nathaniel Hill Brick House museum in Montgomery.
He makes no measurements; he just gradually pounds the end into a taper. Swyka's leather apron, glove and face are smeared with ash.
He tells visitors that there's really no particular reason for him to spend his summer weekends in a hot barn at the museum, except that he enjoys blacksmithing. "I love the art of it, the practicality," he says.
Swyka's cousin, Thomas Roe, stands by and watches, piping in now and again. Swyka has always had creative hobbies — such as playing the violin and oil painting — so no one was surprised when he hauled his great-grandfather's equipment out of storage and starting making things, Roe says.
Swyka became interested in blacksmithing about three years ago. He thinks it started after he read J.R.R. Tolkein's works, which spurred him to research how to make a sword.
Since then, Swyka's taken several blacksmithing courses — with titles such as "Damascus and Pattern Welding" — at the Peter's Valley Craft Center in Layton, N.J.
Read all of Meghan Murphy's story in the Times Herald-Record.
Oh! You've just "invited" me to tell one of my favorite stories. -- My Greek-immigrant husband is an artist who has a large studio on SF Bay full of many big machines and mounds of clutter, wood chips, and metal shavings. Somewhere in that mess, the Greek has kept a small anvil that used to belong to his father. A precious memento from childhood.
One day last fall, a family with two children happened into the building and in the course of conversation it came out that the 8-year-old boy, Morgan, loves blacksmithing, which is his Grandpa's hobby.
"Really?" The Greek turned to Morgan, "Do you have an anvil?"
"Wellllll...not really. I have an 'I-bean' my Dad got."
"Well, I'll tell you something - over in that corner there's an anvil that is just about your size. I'll make you a deal - If you can lift it, you can have it."
That little boy turned on a dime and charged into the corner where he eye-balled the anvil immediately (not easy in that mess, believe me). He gave it a test tug, then went looking for fulcrum material to help lift it off the ground. Pretty soon he had it up.
"Great! It's yours! Let me find a cart to help you get it to the car. And here, you should have some good hammers, too."
And, oh yeah, he made sure Morgan's 10-year-old sister, Avery, got something to take home, too.
This is how we came to have the picture of all pictures on our kitchen bulletin board: A grinning Morgan in full regalia - leather apron, gloves, and goggles - sitting on the ground next to his little burning forge, with anvil and hammers carefully displayed around him. I doubt that it's ever coming down, it's just so good for our health to gaze at him there.
One of the coolest 8-year-old hobbies ever.
Posted by: Victoria | Sunday, August 02, 2009 at 02:26 AM