David Pinn keeps the iron hot in West Nipissing
A modern-day blacksmith is something to be, and David Pinn, founder of Big Forge Blacksmithing, is keeping the forge blazing in Sturgeon Falls. He moved to town this past December with his wife Leanne and their two daughters. Before this, the family lived in New Liskeard, which is where Pinn’s blacksmithing journey began.
This first forge, which Pinn set up in his yard—he didn’t have a shop yet, he just moved his operation to a rented garage in Sturgeon Falls last week—was made from a “half and half mixture of plaster of Paris and sand.” This mixture is formed around a can, and once the can is removed that space becomes “the inside of the forge.” It’s called a “coffee can forge,” and it serves as many a blacksmith’s first forge.
The coal to heat the forge comes from THAK Ironworks, which will send a 70-pound bag of bituminous coal from Virginia directly to the Home Hardware in Sturgeon Falls, where Pinn picks it up. He has “four of them ready to go,” but before he fires up, he checks in with the Fire Department to ensure there are no fire bans— “the coal sends up the ash and all of that.”
“A lot of people like homemade knives, they like the idea of having one, but custom knives are quite expensive,” Pinn said. Indeed, they are, as the work involved in crafting a custom blade is intense and laborious, and finished knives can easily go for hundreds of dollars. Pinn is in good company, as there seems to be a rising interesting in the old blacksmithing ways. He mentioned a forge is firing at Foxfire Heritage Farm in Powassan, and Mike Mossington is making knives in North Bay. There are hundreds more listed on the Canadian Blacksmith and Bladesmith Directory’s website, so it’s clear to see the craft remains in many good hands.
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