Blacksmithing Revival at the Guild

This is a consolidation of a conversation from this Thursday, August 27, 2026

We sat down with Alex Molloy and Alex Ragus and spoke about the revival of the Folk Art Guild Blacksmithing Shop. Topics included the timeframe, vision for a direction, and the state of equipment and supplies.

Both men see that the process of getting the shop back into operation is necessarily gradual-- it may take a year or two, to gain experience and knowledge before making a product. Certainly time is needed before being ready to offer lessons or classes. General repairs are possible and happening now-- tools are in place to bend, cut, braise, weld, heat and reshape metal.   Forging is possible, though attaining precise high heat is a limitation. Aiming for and achieving an ideal temperature has so far been elusive with the present gas forge.

Getting the Blacksmith Shop in order is ongoing.  Both are heavily involved in improving the use of space, such as organizing workflow, access to tools, lighting, and storage.  Setting up shelving and finding places for the accumulation of stuff is happening now.

Both Alexes are perhaps more oriented toward repair than toward fabrication from scratch.  They share practical, utilitarian backgrounds rather than artistic.  In Alex Ragus's words, "A fair amount of knowledge exists, but we don't have a specific process we are drilling down on."  That said, they envision projects such as railings, pot racks and hooks for the kitchen, and replacing the box store fixtures in Romeo with homemade objects.  

Jim Garvey left very detailed instructions for a particular design of kitchen hook, with insistence on practice and repetition that Alex R finds valuable as an example of an approach to the craft.

Enough scrap metal exists here to teach themselves on-- in cut-offs and in stock in the racks. There is bar stock, some angle, some flat stock. A good position as far as material is involved. For equipment, a small power hammer would be handy, as would a press brake and a sandblasting cabinet.