Hammer-In Festival celebrates blacksmithing
Photos: Brad Hundt/Observer-Reporter
The W.A. Young & Sons Foundry and Machine Shop in Rices Landing, the site of the Hammer-In Festival on Saturday.
Brad Hundt/Observer-Reporter
August Carlino, president and chief executive officer of Rivers of Steel, is joined by Carol Iarrobino outside the W.A. Young & Sons Foundry and Machine Shop in Rices Landing. Iarrobino is a granddaughter of one of the proprietors of the historic foundry.
Brad Hundt/Observer-Reporter
An example of the vintage equipment that can be found in W.A. Young & Sons Foundry and Machine Shop in Rices Landing.
Brad Hundt/Observer-Reporter
About 300 visitors were expected at the Hammer-In Festival in Rices Landing Saturday.
Brad Hundt/Observer-Reporter
An anvil at the Hammer-In blacksmithing festival in Rices Landing Saturday.
Brad Hundt/Observer-Reporter
Ed Appleby demonstrates how a coal forge is used in blacksmithing at the Hammer-In Festival in Rices Landing Saturday.
RICES LANDING – The conventional wisdom would have it that blacksmithing has gone the way of the buggy whip and the 8-track tape, a practice that has largely vanished in the 21st century.
That’s not quite the case, however.
While there’s no longer a blacksmith shop at every crossroads, there are still blacksmiths out there who keep the craft alive, who wield a hammer and anvil, and labor in the heat to bend and shape metal into useful objects. Many of the practicing blacksmiths in this region descended on the W.A. Young & Sons Foundry and Machine Shop in the Greene County community of Rices Landing Saturday for the annual Hammer-In Festival.
Sponsored by Rivers of Steel, the organization that showcases the region’s industrial heritage, the facility opened its doors to practicing blacksmiths who demonstrated to visitors how they do what they do, and how the equipment was used in the historic foundry, which was declared a National Historic Landmark in 2017 by the U.S. Department of the Interior and sits in an otherwise quiet neighborhood along the Monongahela River.
“You still need people who can do the detailed work,” said August Carlino, president and chief executive officer of Rivers of Steel. “There’s only so much you can do with a machine.”
Carlino said about 300 people were expected to attend the Hammer-In gathering, and joked that the festival “doubles the population size of Rices Landing every year.”
Ed Appleby, a Ligonier resident, was showing visitors how a coal forge is used in blacksmithing. A member of the Pittsburgh Area Artist-Blacksmiths Association (PAABA), Appleby pointed out that “blacksmithing is still used in toolmaking.”
Guided tours of the foundry were also part of the festival, along with an auction.
“We need to bring our young people to a place like this,” said state. Sen. Camera Bartolotta, R-Carroll. “Let them get their hands dirty.”