An old-fashioned pounding

LINCOLN - We all know we should avoid having too many irons in the fire, and that we must strike while the iron is hot. For most of us, these wise old sayings are the closest introduction we'll get to the craft of blacksmithing.

Those desiring a more personal acquaintance with the meaning of these aphorisms need look no further than the Hannaway Blacksmith Shop.

This small wooden building was a working blacksmith's shop for the greater part of a century. The dirt floor is strewn with hay and pails of anthracite coal for the forge and the heating stove. Here, the shop's blacksmith in residence, Cumberland resident Jeff Ferschke, offers lessons each Saturday morning.

The first lesson is "pulling," hammering steel to make it thinner, flatten it or bend it. This is blacksmithing's most basic, essential skill, but it's not exactly easy.

The steel rod, heated in the forge, comes out with one end red-hot. Clank, clank, clank goes the hammer, flattening the rod against an anvil but making a less pronounced dent with each successive stroke as the orange glow fades to dark red, then black. "That's cold," Ferschke says, and the rod goes back into the fire. Strike while the iron is hot.

The first two participants add decorative twists in the hooks they are making, flatten an end of each hook for ease in hanging on a wall, and punch a hole in the flattened part.

Meanwhile, the third participant watches patiently. She must wait to begin until someone has finished. There are only two anvils, and anyhow, it's not recommended to have too many people rushing around with red-hot pieces of metal in the same room. Such a situation might be characterized as -- you guessed it -- having too many irons in the fire.

William H. Hannaway opened up operations in a lean-to against the side of the old Moffett Mill building, a short distance down Great Road, around 1840, according to John Scanlon, vice president of the nonprofit group Friends of Hearthside, which runs the shop and the 1810 historic mansion next door.

Around 1850, Scanlon said, Hannaway moved his shop to a freestanding building that had earlier served as a carriage house. There, he shod horses, and made and repaired tools with steel coming from Pennsylvania in thick bars and flat, wide ribbons.

In those days, blacksmithing was a booming industry. This little stretch of the Great Road district was home to four blacksmith shops. After all, even Henry Ford's first car parts were hand-wrought.

Gradually, though, the rise of factories reduced demand for blacksmiths' services. Hannaway's shop sat vacant for most of the 20th century, until his daughter donated the building to the town in 1985.

Three years later, the town received a $90,000 grant to move Hannaway's shop across the street, to the town-owned Chase Farm property, and repair the dilapidated building with historic accuracy.

Hannaway's forge and equipment were still inside: the forge is a wide brick fireplace open at tabletop level, a convenient height if one must frequently insert and remove pieces of metal; the bellows, which makes the fire burn hotter when a crank is turned to pipe air into the forge from underneath; a farrier's shoeing box full of handmade nails for use in attaching a shoe to a horse's hoof; all manner of hammers, tongs, wrenches, vises, punches and molds.

The town has offered blacksmithing lessons and demonstrations at Hannaway's shop on and off through the years. The current round of weekly lessons is part of a Friends of Hearthside initiative to open the shop regularly to the public.

The group is also converting the building's second floor to a wagon repair shop, with equipment for bending steel into wagon tires -- to fit around the wooden wheels -- and for shrinking the tires' diameter to fit the wheels more tightly.

The blacksmithing class meets each Saturday morning, and has openings. Interested people should call John Scanlon at (401) 724-1522. The cost is $10 per hour, but Friends of Hearthside supplies the steel, coal and tools.