Blacksmith revives a lost art

    A blacksmith is a person who crafts iron or steel objects by heating metal and bending it into shape. For Columbus Junction resident Scott Peters, blacksmithing was for many years nothing more than a leisurely hobby. In recent months, Peters has discovered that he can turn his forging skills into a little extra spending money by selling the tools he manufactures.

    Peters makes hand-held gardening tools such as spades, three-tongued cultivators and hoes. He also makes campware tools such as ladles, knives, steak turners and discadas, which is a nearly flat pan used for cooking.

    ?Some people specialize in artwork and do artisan-type blacksmithing,? said Peters. ?I wanted something you don?t usually see. I wanted to be more of the practical, utilitarian blacksmith.?

    Peters said that his customers have the same attitude. He said that he sold a hand hoe to a woman who found a non-traditional but practical use for it. Instead of using it in her garden, she used it as a grill scraper.

    The materials used in Peters? tools come from all manner of sources. He said he gets an idea in his head about what to make and then visits his scrap pile to see if he can fashion what?s in his head from what he finds lying around his property.

    ?The majority of the time I already know what?s there,? he said. ?My handles are all scrap wood. I track down scraps one place or another. They may even come from old oak pallets. I?ve even used a piece of firewood. Every once in a while you can find a chunk in a pallet that is pretty good wood.?

    Peters has taken apart old machinery in his scrap pile and turned their parts into a marketable commodity.

    ?I had an old lawn-mower blade lying there, and I was trying to decide what to do with it,? he recalled. ?On a whim, I made a knife out of it. That took about a year?s worth of on-and-off work.?

    Peters had another stroke of genius when he was staring at an old garage door spring. He thought that if he could straighten it out, it would make a nice steak turner in a campfire set.

For the full story, see the July 12 edition of The Washington Evening Journal