In my travels around America I am locating and interviewing blacksmiths. I located this shop while staying in New Jersey.

I gave them a call and asked if I could come by for an interview and to shoot some video. And they said sure thing!

I was so amazed by this shop and the blacksmiths that I ended up returning for a second day of shooting.

I have lots of good stuff for you - straight from The Blacksmith of Trenton including two blacksmithing video tutorials.

The shop is called "The Blacksmith of Trenton" and it has been in continuous operation since 1823. Think about that! 1823! James Monroe was President of the United States (The 5th president). This shop is a literal part of American History. Can you imagine the various things that have been forged and or repaired in this shop in all these years.

It is currently owned by Sasha Parubchenko. He started working at the shop in 1971 and he purchased it in 1974. He is a master blacksmith and he has worked on things like repair work on the hand of the statue of liberty and the forging of 5,000 rivets for the Brooklyn Bridge.

His second in command is Daniel Lapidow who is also a master blacksmith. And also working at the shop as a blacksmith, formerly an apprentice, is Douglas Toledo.

They do a wide variety of standard blacksmith work which includes jobs for cities and municipalities, repair work, wrought iron fence and gate work, and they even have their own line of blacksmith made barbecues.

According to Sasha these barbecues are good for twenty to thirty years.

Here is Daniel showing us one of the grills.

They also have one they sell that I really like a lot. It is very unique and they call it the mini-cooper.

Walking through the shop was a real treat for me and it felt stepping back in time.

They give blacksmithing classes on weekends. Here are some students at work.

So, What can you learn from this?

First off if you are in the Trenton New Jersey area and you want to learn how to do some blacksmithing they do offer hands-on classes on weekends. They are located at 334 North Olden Avenue in Trenton New Jersey. That's one option for you. If you already do some blacksmithing and want to learn from the masters both Daniel and Alexander have a tutorial for us:

Video:

You can watch both tutorials without leaving my site right here

Master Blacksmith Daniel Lapidow shows us how to forge a really nice fire poker. You don't have to weld anything and you don't need a pair of tongs to make this project. And when it is over you have a great tool for your forging or for your fireplace.

Blacksmith Douglas Toledo shows us step by step how to forge a rams head. This project is more advanced and challenging for beginners. But there are a lot of amazing techniques in the video.