2/22/2006 11:42:00 AM Blacksmiths forge gift on behalf of Russell Jaqua
The Chambersburg Hammer was the star of the weekend. Here a crew of smiths waits while a thick, red-hot steel bar gets hammered. – Photo by Ann Katzenbach
The fact that it was freezing last weekend didn’t matter at Nimba Forge. The fires were stoked and so were the blacksmiths who came together from across the country to build a special sculpture. Designed by Port Townsend’s Russell Jaqua, the massive, spiraling work of art is titled “For Willene.” It is a birthday gift.
Because he has Lou Gehrig’s disease, or ALS, Russell Jaqua is too weak to even pick up a hammer, but his creativity still burns and he has lots of friends who know how to forge steel. He and Willene thought they could entice some blacksmiths to come to town if they offered them a chance to work together use the amazing tools at Nimba Forge. There was also mention of a party.
There’s a colorful history of blacksmiths coming to Port Townsend to mess around, teach each other skills and cooperate on projects. It started back in the early 1980s when Jaqua had a Centrum Artist Residency at Fort Worden State Park. His forge was in one of the buildings there. Jerry Culberson, a local blacksmith, remembers those days when everyone was younger and wilder and the guys would stay up most of the night working. “Everybody was pumped,” he explained.
So it’s not unusual for blacksmiths to gather, and Jaqua now has a power hammer of which most metal workers can only dream. The 750 Chambersburg Hammer weighs 38,000 pounds. Jaqua found this monster in a Tacoma shipyard and spent many months restoring it and preparing a massive foundation in his shop located in Glen Cove outside the city limits. Then he was diagnosed with ALS. His shop, his tools and the hammer have been quiet for a long time.
As for the party part – it’s strange but true that Russell and Willene share the same birthday. They have had impressive celebrations on this date throughout their marriage, and this year everything seemed to call for what Willene termed in her e-mail to the blacksmiths and their families “one great party.”
Blacksmiths gather
So the stage is set for these blacksmiths, many of whom, like Jaqua, are among the country’s most renowned artisans. They responded in large numbers and came from across the United States. There were 32 in all, three from Jefferson County. They made all their own arrangements. Lee Cooper, one of the wives, organized lunches, and a few of Russell’s closest friends came early to figure out how best to use the power hammer and make preliminary design calculations. Willene was left to plan a birthday dinner at Sweet Laurette’s restaurant on Friday night.
Blacksmiths are rugged. They wear sturdy clothes and boots. Their basic gear is several pairs of gloves, earplugs, welders’ masks, torches, hammers and tongs. They make a lot of noise. What distinguishes one Carhartted guy from the next is hair and hat. The array of hats at Nimba Forge was part of the weekend’s visual fun. There were ski hats, a multi-colored skull cap, sweat bands, cowboy hats, caps with a nautical feel, and the distinctive stripes of a train engineer. Hair ran from mutton chops to nothing. There were pony tails and crew cuts, and Bill Brown from Hickory, N.C., sported a goatee.
The smiths ranged in age from early 20s to much older. At least one had a hearing aid, which is what happens if you spend a lot of time in a metal forge.
Steel bars
On Friday the blacksmiths who were there faced a pile of 18 steel bars – 1¾ inches thick, 5½ inches wide and 70 inches long – weighing 200 pounds. Each bar was heated in a forge and then moved to the deck of the big hammer, where it was carefully placed and whacked hard enough to outline a hole and draw the steel down in a subtle circle. A team of men then carried the still-sizzling bar to a platen table, where it was hammered by hand to straighten out the bend that the big hammer had put there. Later a decorative pattern was pounded into one end. This process continued all day. The amazing coordination required to move the heavy, fiery bars around the floor was breathtaking, as was the noise and power of the Chambersburg Hammer. The men danced. The Earth shook.
The bars were taken up the hill at Glen Cove to Steve Lopes’ nearby shop. There another group of smiths finished making the holes and neatly pounded short lengths of pipe through the holes. By Friday afternoon a few of the pieces had been assembled.
On Friday night the power of hot water and soap were in evidence as the smiths, their families and friends celebrated Russell and Willene’s birthday. Russell, who is too weak to speak, sat in a high-backed chair and typed out messages on a special computer for those who wanted to converse. The birthday cake came in the form of an anvil. There were memorable toasts and speeches. Everyone understood that barring some kind of miracle, this would be Russell’s last birthday. It was the bitterest of sweet occasions.
Drilling, riveting
Saturday work started early and continued until someone fired up a barbeque at Steve Lopes’ shop at dusk. Drilling and riveting and decorating the steel bars were formidable tasks. Putting them together in the spiraling shape envisioned by Russell was a major feat of engineering and craftsmanship. The work seemed to naturally evolve. The younger smiths did most of the heavy hammering. The middle-aged guys did the welding and power hammering, and the older ones took their turn when it came time for the precise work of putting the pieces together.
On Saturday evening one of the old-timers remarked jokingly that “there are a lot of alpha dogs here.” From an observer’s point of view his intimation that too many people thought they were in charge didn’t seem to be a problem, but the dynamics of the group process were subtle and there was plenty of history that lay strewn around the forge like odd gloves and tools.
Russell sat in the front seat of his truck just outside the big open shop doors most of the day and answered questions when they arose. He also received periodic visits from wives who brought him up to date on blacksmith and family news.
By day’s end, work had progressed further than anyone could have imagined. The four sections were complete and only needed to be attached.
On Sunday this required a balancing act that made use of a platen table, a forklift and an overhead crane, not to mention the coordinated labor and expertise of several men who had to communicate with shouts and hand signals, as the noise in the place was deafening.
While this precarious work progressed, the rest of the forge was kept busy by happy blacksmiths who messed around with the big hammer and pounded away at small pieces of steel, producing their own small sculptures as gifts for Willene.
The clouds rolled in, the chill became obvious, and before the last pieces of the sculpture came together Willene took her exhausted husband home.
Jim Garrett, one of the crew from Port Townsend, took note that at 10:02 p.m. Sunday night “For Willene” finally came together. Propped up by a long pipe, resting on tripods, hanging from chains, it stands like a giant spiraling wave or celestial star inside Nimba Forge.
On Monday morning the smiths who were still in town drifted in, coffee cups steaming in the cold air. They stood around, remarking on how fortunate it was that, in Jerry Culberson’s words, “no blood was spilt.” Willene arrived. She looked at the result of the weekend’s Herculean work and tried to explain, with tears in her eyes, the mixture of responsibility and pride and excitement she felt. There were lots of hugs and a photo op, and then she went home to get Russell so he could see how Willene’s birthday gift had turned out.
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