By Go Artisan Admin · 9 July 2026 · Featuring Anvil & Ember
The forge at Anvil & Ember is lit before seven, coal banked and drawn up slowly so the fire's even by the time Connor's first piece goes in. He trained under a fourth-generation blacksmith in his twenties and still does it the way he was taught — no shortcuts, no gas burner standing in for the coal hearth.
"People think blacksmithing is all brute force," he says, turning a half-drawn bar in the fire. "Most of it's patience. You're watching the colour of the steel, not hitting it as hard as you can."
By mid-morning the unit is full of the smell of hot metal and the rhythm of the hammer — steady, unhurried, entirely unlike the sparks-and-noise version of blacksmithing most of us have in our heads.
