Hoffman's Forge

James A. (Jymm) Hoffman has a Bachelor’s Degree in Museum Studies from Salem College, (now Salem-International University,) Salem, West Virginia, and has been a full time blacksmith from 1981 to 1988 and from 1990 to the present, specializing in museum quality reproductions and custom orders. Items range from cooking utensils and fireplace equipment to architectural hardware, lighting devices, and tools. He continued his business on a part time basis from 1988 to 1990, while working at Old Fort Niagara, Youngstown, New York, as the Interpretive Programs Manager. He was listed in the 1993 “200 Best Craftsmen” issue of Early American Life, and again in 1996, 1997, 1998. In the June 2008 issue of “Early American Life,” he was also one of the featured blacksmiths in the article “Handmade Nails.”

When Jymm is not working in his shop in southeastern Ohio, he can be seen throughout the northeastern and midwestern parts of the United States at various craft shows and historical re-enactments demonstrating his art with an authentic reproduction of an 18th. century traveling forge. He also offers hands on instructions for those interested in learning the blacksmith’s trade.

Jymm has been an instructor at Touchstone Center for the Crafts near Farmington, Pennsylvania, on numerous occasions and New England School of Metalwork. He was also chosen as one of four featured demonstrators for the first “Hart Moore Hammer In” in 2002, at Touchstone Center for Crafts as well as demonstrating for other regional blacksmith conferences from the Great Lakes International Blacksmiths Conference in Buffalo, New York to Colorado’s Rocky Mountain Smiths, Alabama Forge Council, Blacksmiths Guild of the Potomac, Blacksmiths Guild of Central Maryland, and more recently for the Blacksmiths Association of Missouri.

In 2002, 2003, & 2004, Jymm received a grant to teach an apprentice with the Apprenticeship in Traditional Arts Program from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency in the Governor’s Office of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, in partnership with the Institute for Cultural Partnerships, as well as a grant for a Fellowship in 2005. He also received a grant in 2004 from the Pennsylvania Rural Arts Alliance to teach “at risk kids” at Pressley Ridge At Ohiopyle, Pennsylvania.

Jymm demonstrating with his 18th. century traveling forge.