WALTHAM, MA - An ancient craft is being revitalized in the shadow of Prospect Hill. In a brick-fronted building on Guinan Street there are fires hot enough to heat iron until it can be bent, stretched, and twisted. There are anvils on which to hammer it, and people learning the craft of the traditional blacksmith. Students at Prospect Hill Forge are learning to split, punch, and weld iron and steel in much the same way blacksmiths have since the end of the Bronze Age.

   At Prospect Hill Forge, founders Michael Bergman and Carl West have created a place where anyone can take a class in basic or intermediate blacksmithing. Past students may also sign up to use the tools at their own pace on their own projects.  "There are people," says West, "that would love to do some blacksmithing but don't have the necessary tools or space, or the understanding neighbors. We have all that at Prospect Hill Forge. This is the place they've been looking for." Bergman and West have collected and built tools enough to equip four forges, complete with anvils, hammers, vises, and all the tools basic to blacksmithing.

   "Lots of people think all a blacksmith does is shoe horses," says Bergman. "Not so. In fact, we don't do horses at all, that's farrier work and to do it well calls for special veterinary training in addition to the working of iron. The next question is always, 'Well, what do blacksmiths do?' The modern blacksmith makes functional objects like hinges, window grilles, shelf brackets, fireplace tools, andirons, hammers, chisels for wood or for stone, kitchen ware, tableware, hooks of all sorts, historic recreation hardware like fire strikers, tent stakes, grilles and skewers and tripods for campfire cooking, stirrups, spurs, bits ... the list is endless." "And because you make these things one at a time," West joins in, "each one can be customized for its situation.  You can make it so that it fits your hand, your foot, your fireplace... your style. That's one of the joys of smithing: when you're done with a piece, it's yours in a way no commercially produced item can ever be."

    Mr. Bergman has been working with metal since he started casting lead soldiers as a child. Since then his interests have spread from casting in various metals to blacksmithing, to machine tools, and to woodworking.  Using mostly traditional techniques and tools, he builds medieval furniture, and restores 19th century furniture. "Sometimes it's surprising just how efficiently traditional techniques work with traditional tools. Often better than attempting the same techniques with modern tools."  Mr. Bergman's interests come together in the need to  design and construct his own woodworking tools, hence his interest in blacksmithing.

   Mr. West discovered smithing in the mid-70's and has been doing it off and on since. "Whenever my landlord has allowed it, I've had a forge set up." He earned a BFA in Sculpture at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh. During those summers he worked with Warren Swanson, a blacksmith in West Newfield, Maine. "I learned a lot with Warren: how to run a coal fire, how the metal moves under the hammer, how to make a hundred fireplace pokers in a day..." Since then he has made armor for medieval recreationists, been a graphic artist and programmer, and repaired watches and jewelry.  "The whole time I was doing that other stuff," says West, "the hot iron kept calling to me. It's good to get back to the hammer and be sharing the joys of blacksmithing with others."