Hammer-In Festival returns Saturday
The clanks of an anvil will transport people to the early industrial era Saturday for the 38th annual Hammer-In Festival in Greene County.
The free event runs from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the historic W.A. Young & Sons Foundry & Machine Shop in Rices Landing. A welcoming ceremony will start at noon.
Started with a tight focus on blacksmiths and their organizations, the event has widened its scope, said T.J. Porfeli, historic site coordinator, interpretive specialist and metal arts instructor for Rivers of Steel. The heritage group took over ownership from the Greene County Historical Society in 2009.
“We have expanded more of this now to make it more community-oriented, bringing people that aren’t blacksmiths or never swung a hammer to come down and to see the place and see all the cool stuff that happens at the Hammer-In,” he said.
The day will feature guided machine shop tours, where machinist Steve Neiderritter will periodically fire up the motor to demonstrate the shop’s machines, all restored. Ten to 12 blacksmiths from the region will also get to demonstrate their trade, each showing the crowd how to make something different. At 1 p.m., members from the Pittsburgh Area Artist Blacksmiths Association and the Appalachian Blacksmiths Association will also auction off their artworks to support their organizations and the machine shop.
Rivers of Steel Arts will also do an aluminum casting demonstration, where they pour molten aluminum into sand molds to create objects.
About 300 people came to the event last year, Porfeli said. He’s hoping to beat the record of more than 400, set pre-pandemic in 2019.
After a successful debut last year, the festival will again host a makers marketplace on the grounds, with everything from crafts to hand-forged items. The event also features refreshments courtesy of local Boy Scouts, who set up at the end of the road with hamburgers and hot dogs.
There’s something at the festival to appeal to everyone, Porfeli said. Modern-day machinists will bring their families to explain their work. Or people will be drawn in by the vendors’ market, or the antique phone booth on site.
Of course, the shop and foundry are the biggest draw.
“A little 4-year-old sees somebody beating on hot metal, that’s the world to them,” he said. “Or watching the belts run on this lathe here, they’ve never seen anything like that.”
And with Saturday’s demonstrations being so quick, Porfeli said, many people will come back for the site’s more comprehensive two-hour guided tours.
Visitors will see a living link to the past, as the turn-of-the-20th-century shop stands as a benchmark on the way from artisanal shops to mass production.
Young opened his machine shop in 1900, adding a foundry eight years later. He stocked it with used machines from other shops — mostly from the 1870s through 1890s. Some newer machines are from the 1920s, and some are older.
“There’s a wooden lathe upstairs in the wood pattern shop that predates the Civil War,” Porfeli said.
Initially, the shop served the steamboats coming up and down the Monongahela River. It eventually broadened its clientele to the coal mines, and eventually automotive repair.
The business remained open until 1965. They spent another four years doing small projects and tinkering around before walking away for good four years later, Porfeli said.
Caretaker George “Bly” Blystone of Waynesburg has been looking after the machines since the 1980s, when the building was purchased by the Greene County Historical Society. First only opened one day a year for the Hammer-In, he began opening it on Sundays.
The building’s historical nature eventually led to its transfer to Rivers of Steel, which was able to conduct repairs such as the installation of a new roof.
“It got publicity with me here, and we made it survive,” Blystone said.