Bridgeville’s blacksmith
Holly Tonini
A table inside Bill Robertson’s home showcases some of the items he has students make in the classes he teaches.
Holly Tonini
Bill Robertson in his workshop.
Walking around Bill Robertson’s Bridgeville home is like taking a time machine back 400 years.
It’s impossible to move on any of the four floors without seeing hundreds of historical artifacts, all of which made by blacksmiths, a profession and artform that is virtually obsolete – except for Robertson and about 5,000 others across the country.
“We do it for the love of the craft,” he says.
Blacksmithing, which involves wielding a hammer to forge metal into specific objects, was once the most prominent form of making. Invented around 1500 B.C., blacksmithing was popular up until the invention of the Bessemer process around the Industrial Revolution, forcing the artform to decline rapidly in the last 150 years.
“It used to be that every village and area relied on the blacksmith for a bunch of things,” Robertson says. “Anything made out of iron the blacksmith did. The communities were heavily dependent on it. Most farms had their own blacksmith shop, because they needed to make and maintain their farm equipment.”
Robertson, who was born in the South Hills and moved to Bridgeville from Florida to retire, has dedicated most of his free time collecting artifacts and blacksmithing in his own shop. He has hundreds of iron anvils and thousands of other artifacts in his home that he’s collected from auctions over the years.
He makes candelabras, medieval locks, door hardware, kitchen utensils, among many other items in his little blacksmith shop.
“It’s a fascinating art form,” he says. “It’s very difficult to hammer the metal and make it move. It takes years and years before the metal moves without struggle. But once you get over that hump, it’s like making music. The metal is moving, and you feel it. It’s unlike any other art that I’ve experienced.”
Robertson is on the board of directors of the Artisan Blacksmith Association of North America, a national blacksmith organization, and is the treasurer of the Pittsburgh-Area Artisan Blacksmith Association – one of 80 blacksmith guilds under ABANA.
Holly Tonini
Holly Tonini
Historic anvils on display at Bill Robertson’s home.
“We’ve got 5,000 people in the U.S. who are a part of the blacksmith group, whereby most crafts are in the millions, like glass making or pottery,” he says. “It’s still a very new revitalization. What our groups are all about is preserving the knowledge before it’s lost and passing it onto the next generation. One thing unique about blacksmithing is the people who are involved with it are motivated to pass the knowledge on and are doing it without profit.”
Robertson got his start in blacksmithing in the late 1970s when he lived in Florida. He worked as a taxidermist, and he needed something specific made for his work. He was introduced to a blacksmith who could make it for him, and he got hooked on the craft.
He then joined a blacksmith club in Florida, which he said was one of the first blacksmith clubs in the country. It wasn’t until the invention of the internet that blacksmith enthusiasts across the country were able to connect.
“Once I met a group and saw them hammering and doing traditional blacksmithing, it was captivating,” he says. “We had little knowledge, but we were hungry. It wasn’t until years later when the internet started developing that those clubs started expanding across the country. We’re now connecting up all over the world with people who do it.”
The best part about the blacksmith community, Robertson says, is the willingness for blacksmiths to teach others. Robertson learned how to make medieval locks from a man in Wisconsin, and now, Robertson teaches blacksmithing to fifth graders at Winchester Thurston.
“The group itself is like family,” he says. “You can go anywhere and you find another blacksmith, and they’ll bring you in and feed you and you’re part of a close knit, welcoming community. It’s unlike anything i’ve ever experienced.”
Robertson said PAABA, which has about 250 members, is always welcome to new members. For more information, visit www.paaba.net.