Forging Ahead
Smith has witnessed enormous change from the days when he peered into the village blacksmith shop in the 1940s to today. He remembers the days when blacksmiths used iron, not steel. Holding up one of his own hand-crafted iron horseshoes from the 1950s, he says with a hint of wistfulness, “Pure iron welds together like two sticks of butter.”

In the 1970s, he struggled to find work as cheaper, mass-produced metal products edged out demand for blacksmiths. He credits a resurgence of “people who appreciate hand-made things” for saving his trade from extinction.

Today, he finds humor in a recent design trend toward creating pockmarked metalwork. “A lot of customers will say, ‘Could you beat it up, hammer it and make it look old?’ The thing is, if we were to do that in the ‘old days,’ we’d have been kicked out of the shop,” he says, demonstrating with a sprightly kick of his right leg into the posterior of an imaginary slacker. “Old things don’t look like that. We had all the tools to take hammer marks out.”

Still, if a client wants it, he’ll do it. In fact, if you can describe it, he’ll make it (with two to four weeks advanced notice). That includes everything from steel roses for gravesites to the steel entry doors at Desert Highlands Golf Club.

Most of his work is found in private residences. Valley interior designers offer Smith a steady stream of jobs, recommending his craftsmanship to clients who want distinctive, handmade steel beds, tables, chairs and candelabras. Currently, he is working on a set of fireplace tools with an ornate ram’s head atop each handle. Today, Smith revels in being a bit of a throwback. Most blacksmiths use gas furnaces because propane burns cleaner and is less expensive than coal. But coal is what he knows, so he keeps it simple.

In fact, simple may well sum up the man. He’d rather read historical fact than fiction. He’d rather work hard than retire. And he’d just as soon wear his tattered cowboy hat until it won’t stay on his head than replace it.

Even though one of his handcrafted, ornate door pulls might sell for $450 (prices can range from $5 to $5,000 depending on what you order), he remains understated and humble.

Although Smith is 74, don’t talk retirement to him just yet. “I don’t know what else I’d do,” he says. “So I’ll just keep on going, I guess.”