Christmas at the Little Waffle Shack - Helen J. Rolfe Page 0,3

Once it was heated and red-hot she took it over to the anvil and, with the hot end in the pritchel hole, she pulled down on the cool end of the metal to bend it into a curve. She did this with another piece, each time banging the curves a bit more to produce an attractive curly edge. The pieces had to be cooled, measured and marked for their centres to have dents made, then, using another red-hot piece of cylindrical metal through the centre, she banged it into place along with another four cylindrical pieces, one on each corner, to make the feet. She finished by putting the entire trivet into the forge, held by her blacksmith tongs, pulled it out and used a hammer to ensure it was shaped well. The final touch was using a wire brush to smooth it off and she set it onto a rack at the side with other pieces she’d left there waiting for the next step – a wine-bottle holder she wanted to add an engraved shiny metal label to, a four-piece tealight holder that only needed a shine giving to it before it was ready, and the fourth coat hook she would add to three others on a wooden panel.

Time for a break and some very fresh air. She’d struggled in here in the summer, sweating profusely as she worked away, her femininity all but forgotten, and now the forge kept the workshop so warm she needed a breather. She opened the door and despite the frostiness that barrelled towards her on a wind from The Street, she took a minute to appreciate the cool blast.

Leaving the door open to cool the place down a bit, she went back into the workshop and moved on to another so-called ‘iron’ in her fire – this time a wine rack for Hazel, who ran the riding stables in Heritage Cove. She’d had to inform Hazel that Fred wasn’t coming back and so they wouldn’t be able to return to using him as their farrier, but there hadn’t been any hard feelings. Hazel said they were happy with the alternative farrier they’d been using and she’d welcomed Lucy to the Cove in the same way everyone else had. Hazel’s brother had placed the order for this item, getting in early with his Christmas list and keen to avoid a big shopping centre. He’d come in one day and browsed the items Lucy already had made up – a picture frame, a clock, a fancy bowl for chips and dips – but he hadn’t been sold and so she’d sketched out a couple of alternatives. It was what she loved about bespoke work – coming up with something a client may not even have thought of. He’d loved one of her ideas in particular – a wine rack of sorts that held a bottle of wine at the bottom on its side, another at a right angle to that one, and above, two glasses could be held upright. The rack would be made by joining horseshoes together, making sure the horseshoes were the correct size so the glasses didn’t fall through, so the bottles would slot in just so.

For this project Lucy was going to use her stick welder. She might be called a blacksmith but really that encompassed a multitude of roles – designer, artist, welder, metalworker. The term ‘blacksmith’ was a little old but with Heritage Cove being quaint and traditional, the name kind of fitted. It was one of the reasons she kept the solid fuel forge going too – when customers visited her premises to collect bespoke items, it felt like part of the magic to have the forge burning away; she’d always make sure it was on, the bright red coals giving the place a glow and the smell of hard work and creativity.

Lucy found her welding hood from the shelf next to her desk and popped it on. The hood was one of the most important pieces of protective equipment and would shield her eyes and skin from the sparks and vision-damaging ultraviolet and infrared rays emitted by the bright electric arc that would be created. The current would come through the arc welding machine and, by means of a metal rod that she would touch to the workpiece in question, it made a closed circuit. When you pulled the rod away the arc was created and it was one of the most efficient ways to fuse two