Blacksmiths were the high technologists of fabrication up until the industrial revolution gained momentum. At its core, this is the art and science of making any needed tool or mechanism out of metal.

POP Projects is a collection of new and classic projects from more than a century of Popular Mechanics. Master skills, get tool recommendations, and, most importantly, build something of your very own ...

When you grow up with something as the constant backdrop to your life, it’s easy to forget as an adult that not everyone else shares your instinctive knowledge of the subject. My dad is a blacksmith, ...

Victor Andersen hasn’t spent much time away from his anvil, forge and belt drive for 60 years. The century-old appliances are more than the tools of his trade. They are what give one of few remaining ...

The set-up looks old-school – a furnace, anvil and two blacksmiths hammering in tandem to coax a hot steel rod into a pair of tongs. But for Adam’s Forge in Los Angeles’ Glassell Park neighborhood, ...

With the fluid ease that comes from years of practice, blacksmith Lara Max used metal tongs on a recent afternoon to pull a glowing hot square of steel out of her small forge and place it carefully on ...

PORT TOWNSEND — After working as a blacksmith most of his life, Jim Garrett found it natural to forge ahead as an anvil manufacturer in 2007. After all, he pounds out and shapes metal for a living ...

PORT TOWNSEND — After working as a blacksmith most of his life, Jim Garrett found it natural to cast his future as an anvil manufacturer in 2007. After all, he pounds out and shapes metal for a living ...

Like the Temple of Hephaestus perched on the outskirts of Athens, the slightly less-ancient Blacksmith of Trenton shop sits in a remote corner of the city, well away from the State House and the rest ...