Old World Craftmanship

Old World Craftsmanship

A Blacksmith and the Clockmaker

As technology grew and the digital evolution created a whole new host of jobs, many old-world, traditional trades seemed to be needed less and less, leaving many hands-on workers behind. Fortunately, there are still people to be found who are still passing on timeless skills, and as society is beginning to again desire locally sourced produce and items that are handmade, many seemingly lost trades are making a comeback. People are resurrecting lost arts.

t the age of 21, Jon Hadden of Livingston Manor became interested in blacksmithing after watching A a Ferrier’s competition online, becoming intrigued at how quickly and seamlessly they were making a pair of tongs. “They were moving really fast,” said Hadden. “I had seen blacksmiths before but, that video just amazed me. After watching it I thought, even if I’m not that good I want to try it. It took me some time to get started but with the help of my father, we put together a forge and I found an anvil.”

According to Hadden, at that time an anvil was about two to three dollars a pound, now anvils average about five to six dollars a pound.

Pulling into the drive of his home in Livingston Manor, smoke billows out of the chimney from his small work‑ shop in the backyard where to the side of the door are shelves lined with scrap steel, metal, and various old tool parts. Hadden’s father worked at Liberty Ironworks for 28 years he said, so there were always plenty of scraps of steel around.

Inside, the workshop is warm from the heat of the fire. Tools line the walls and the front table that you’ve prob‑ ably never seen before and right in the center, his anvil. The floor is cool earth and the air smells like hot metal. As Hadden increases the height and heat of the flame, placing a small straight piece of steel inside the coals, a strange tickling comes to your throat making you cough.

“It’s something you have to get used to,” laughed Hadden, “I guess I don’t notice that change in the air so much anymore.”

Hadden now, has been blacksmithing for years and is

even teaching workshops at Peters Valley School of Craft in Layton, NJ where he studied years ago. But before he attended school for the trade, he was actually learning from his computer.

To be honest, after I saw that Ferrier’s competition I started researching and learning a lot on the internet,” he said holding tongs in his hand, watching the fire, “but in early 2015 when I started there weren’t that many resources on YouTube like there are now. There’s been a bit of a resurgence of interest lately in blacksmithing and blade‑ smithing. The first season of Forge and Fire got cast the year after I started and I think that really got people interested in the trade. Everyone thought that show was amazing.”

When Hadden and his father put together his forge, he said that one of the hardest things to find was a good blower for the fire.

“The first blower I had was a really weak fan so the metal in the fire was only getting to be a dull red and wasn’t moving as well as it should have,” he explained while taking the piece of steel out of the fire and setting it on the anvil, “but I made a bottle opener one night after work and it just… sparked something in me,” he continued, slamming a ham‑ mer-like tool down on the piece of steel. “That was my first real project and I still have it in the house. It’s was a mess but it was functional, and it brought me so much joy. So without a doubt, I knew I wanted to keep blacksmithing.”

You may have seen Hadden set up at some of the local fairs in the County before, demonstrating and selling his creations under the name of Old Blu Forge. Hadden makes anything from bottle cap openers to hooks and hinges, cup‑ board and door handles to axes and knives. `

Unfortunately there aren’t many roles for the blacksmith these days other than that of the artist,” Hadden said. “I’ve never really seen myself as much of an artist so I’m still trying to feel my way through. I really want to make things that people will use in day to day life rather than just walk‑ ing past it and admiring how it looks. I want people to touch what I create everyday, maybe like a kitchen knife, a gar‑ den tool, a coat hook, or the hinges that allow their door to move.”

Hadden stopped for moment to place the piece of steel that was slowly taking form, back in the fire, watching it as it began to glow once more. He used forged tongs to put it back on the anvil and once again raised his hammer to shape it, throwing sparks with each hit. The top of the steel was flat and a bit rounded while he was shaping to the bottom to a thin point. The process continued - fire, anvil, fire, anvil. Finally you could see what he was making ‑ a wall hook. The pointed end he smoothly and beautifully curved around another smaller round tool, giving it a perfect curl before using another tool to pop a hole out of the top flat part where the nail or screw to hang it would be placed.

“I really enjoy teaching,” Hadden said holding the hook up in front of him. “I didn’t really plan for that but it’s a joy

to be able to pass on a bit of knowledge about this craft. What I really love though, is just sort of putting my head down into a project, solving problems and learning new things. I like to delve into the projects that speak to me more, that allow me to explore.”

One thing he has in his mind to start exploring? Furniture.

“I don’t have a really big shop. I don’t have a table to lay things out, but it’s a fun challenge because you have to figure out how to make something that is going to be pretty sizable ‑ like a bench or a barstool ‑ in a small shop like this,” Hadden said. “That’s a challenge that blacksmiths have faced forever ‑ what to do and how to do it with the material they had and the space they worked in. Blacksmiths weren’t just horse shoe makers, they made a multi‑ tude of things day in and day out.”

Although at times it can be hard to make it in these traditional, hands‑on trades, it’s worth it, and Hadden ‑ through teaching workshops, demonstrating at fairs and events, selling in local shops and doing private commissions ‑ is making it his life.

“Even if you’re not trying to do any‑ thing with the skill except have it as your hobby, it’s a great thing to learn and know. A lot of people work so hard for a company everyday and don’t always get to see the completion of their labors,” Hadden said putting his tools back on the rack and turning the fire down. “With blacksmithing, it’s a lot of work but you get to see your creation. You get to hold this thing that you made, which is extraordinary, and it lasts forever. It’s just really fulfilling.”

If you’d like to get in touch with Hadden and see his creations you can visit his Facebook page Old Blu Forge and Workshop or email him directly at oldbluforge@gmail.com.

Ticks of the Trade

As a child, John Bockelmann often found himself in the basement of his home messing around at the workbench due to his interest in all the tools, parts, and the mechanics of how things functioned as a whole, never realizing all of that tinkering would someday lead him to clocks and engines.

“I think it was probably in the early 70s,” John said, “one of the first clocks I ever bought, I couldn’t figure out how to repair it. So I took it to a clock repairman. He saw that I had an interest in learning what he was doing, so he eventually showed me some of the tricks of the trade.”

“It was so fascinating to me,” John recalled smiling, “and through watching him I was able to start to repair some of my own clocks. I mean, this man had so much knowledge, he was an expert. So I started bringing more clocks to him and he started having me work on them with him. There’s quite a bit to taking a clock apart and getting it back together again,” he continued. “Each clock has hundreds of pieces.”

The more John worked with the clock repairman, the more he discovered that not many people really know that particular trade anymore. Most clocks as we know them now are digital, so when your clock malfunctions, it may just be the batteries. If the batteries are replaced and it’s still not

working, you simply buy a new one.

“Clock makers and repairmen are few and far between these days,” explained John. “There aren’t many in Sullivan County as far as I know. Its a trade that takes a long time to learn, there are fewer and fewer people who can teach it, and there’s really not a lot of money in it.”

According to John, it takes at least 10,000 hours to get good at anything, and although he’s put at least that many hours of study into clock repair he still learns something new with each clock that a client brings to him.

“I’m always pleasantly surprised by how many people still have old, antique clocks. We call them antique now but digital clocks haven’t really been around for all that long either,” John chuckled. “This clock here, is a clock I haven’t seen in a very long time,” he said as he scooted his chair closer to a large clock on the other side of the work bench. “This dial down here is a calendar, so as it moves it shows you day of the month, day of the year, and the moon phase too, which is a different mechanism than the actual time of the clock.”

“But in turn this lever actually interacts with the clock so that once a day it advances the calendar,” he said as he looked at me above his glasses.

The first thing John does when someone brings him a clock to repair is to evaluate how complicated the clock actually is. He listens to its chime, if there is a tick, and he watches the time strike. The more complicated, the more parts the clock has, which means the more difficulty and time it would take to get it back together and get it operational.

“There have been times that I’ve been unsure about a

clock and so I’ll sit and watch it run for hours,” John said as he held a clock gear up in front of his eyes, “watching the gears, the hands, the ticks - trying to figure out why it’s doing what it’s doing. Sometimes it comes to me at night,” he continued as he smiled. “I’ve watched it all day and all of a sudden it comes together in my head like a puzzle as I’m about to go to sleep.”

A while back, John began training someone for about six months on how to repair certain clocks, but they never continued.

“I think it was purely interest on his part,” John said. “I don’t believe he wanted to start repairing other people’s clocks as a business. You have to truly spend a significant amount of time learning everything there is to learn. There’s so much you have to know. The parts and pieces may look similar but each and every clock is very unique and differ‑ ent,” he explained. “Sometimes you simply have to learn as you go, and sometimes you have to take what you learned from one clock and try to apply it to another. It varies, and you have to be humble enough to understand that you’ll never know it all.”

And John admitted that he can’t do everything. If a gear or some other part is broken, he often has to send those parts out to people he knows in the clock business to have new parts made. Some parts are sent to a friend in Schenectady, NY and others to Washington state.

“I’m not the best there is. There are incredible clock makers and clock repairmen out there in this world. I’m better than some and worse than others,” John said with a short laugh. “There are some people out there creating incredible clocks that are more like art than just an ordinary wall clock that chimes in the living room.”

John’s interest in the mechanics of clocks eventually led him to model engines as well. He was teaching at Maritime College in the Bronx, when some of his students told him about the course in machine shop they were taking. That was all it took.

“At that point I became really interested in making little engines, so I started talking to one of the guys in the tool room, George, who was a retired model maker,” John said with bright eyes. “Not a model maker that we think of now, of putting together model cars, airplanes, or things of that sort. An engine model maker.”

According to John, an engineer will give a model maker a blueprint and the model maker then makes the part. That way before the life size part or engine is built, they can see from the model how it’s going to work and what may need to be changed.

“So George helped me build my first model engine. He showed me how to use the machinery, how to make fixtures, how to cut … everything,” said John. “I spent hours upon hours with him, which turned into years. I learned enough that I actually ended up leading the lectures and teaching the machine shop course for several years before I retired.”

“It was all inspired from my time learning and repairing clocks and understanding their mechanisms,” he said as he delicately placed a final gear, closed the clock face, wound the hands, and smiled at the sound of the first “tick.”

To get in touch with John you can email him at jbockelmann@frontiernet.net