About

Bare Metals Forge, Calico Rock, AR

 

Bare Metals Forge is a husband-and-wife team dedicated to keeping traditional skills and forgotten trades alive through hands-on education.

 

We travel throughout Arkansas and surrounding areas with our fully functional mobile blacksmithing forge, setting up at festivals, fairs, heritage events, community celebrations and other public events. Rather than simply demonstrating the craft, we invite the public to participate by offering FREE hands-on blacksmithing classes for both youth and adults.

 

Participants have the opportunity to step up to the anvil, learn basic techniques and experience what it's actually like to work hot steel with a hammer and forge. Our goal is to make traditional trades approachable, exciting and accessible—especially for young people who may have never had the opportunity to experience them.

 

Our involvement doesn't end when the festival is over. Anyone who discovers a genuine interest in the craft is invited to continue learning with us at our home forge. As students progress, we also help them understand the tools and equipment needed to establish a basic forge of their own so they can continue developing their skills independently.

 

While blacksmithing is at the heart of Bare Metals Forge, our larger mission is preserving and teaching forgotten trades, traditional craftsmanship and self-reliance skills, including welding, leatherwork, copper and jewelry work, hide tanning, butchering, foraging, sewing and other hands-on skills traditionally passed from one generation to the next.

 

Our mobile forge gives festivals more than a vendor booth—it provides an interactive educational experience where attendees can watch a traditional trade come to life, ask questions and, when appropriate, put a hammer in their own hands.

 

Our mission is simple: keep the fire lit, keep these skills alive, and pass them on to the next generation.