Ornamental Blacksmith Maintains Healthy Balance

By Thomas P. Caldwell

A visit to Jay Aubertin’s shop in Wilmot will reveal a range of blacksmithing tools, from a 125-year-old anvil made in Brooklyn, New York, to a CNC [computer numerical control] plasma cutter that directs a plasma torch along a path established by numerical codes. Whichever tool he uses helps him to bring his artistic visions to life.

Jay is an ornamental blacksmith, one of three general types in the trade. Farriers take care of horses; bladesmiths make knives, daggers, and swords; and ornamental blacksmiths forge useful and artistic pieces, such as decorative railings and sculptures.

In front of his shop is a feather sculpture, made with “weathering steel” that allows a certain amount of rust to form and seal itself against the weather. The quill is stainless steel, and the feather portion is formed to resemble the feather from an injured owl that his daughter named “Toby” before they took it to the Vermont Institute of Natural Science rehabilitation center in Quechee, Vermont.

“Blacksmiths can do a lot of different things” Jay explains. “Bladesmiths are much more focused, typically a more narrow knowledge set. To the public, we’re all the same. … What they do is beautiful, what I do is beautiful, but our skills overlap in many different ways.To the public, we’re all the same. … What they do is beautiful, what I do is beautiful, but our skills are so separate in so many ways.”

To explain how he comes up with ideas, Jay said, “It’s usually a couple of cups of coffee on a Sunday morning. I sit down with sketch pad and I start moving my hand over the page, and all of a sudden — like the feather, right? Okay, well, that’s a pretty line, you know; okay, this is how we draw feathers, you know; and then what scale do we want that at? What type of materials?”

Sometimes what he does is influenced by a new tool, a new technique, or a new skill he has learned.

“With, say, a hydraulic bender — I have a 16-ton hydraulic press. It can bend thick, cold steel, and just bend it over a 90-degree, or you can bend it into curves. Rollers can bend big arches and big circles or small ones, you know, so you can start playing with that. So that can spark creativity as well.”

He also takes inspiration from his surroundings. He lives on an old farm, so things like wagon wheels can provide ideas. A member of the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen, Jay said he plans to make a sculpture using stones and metal from busted farm machinery.

“All this machinery stood the test — it’s still around — but it succumbed to the stones on the land,” he said.

Even a walk in the woods can spark creativity.

Jay found his vocation by way of working at his father Scott Aubertin’s sign shop.

“He taught me a lot about metalwork,” Jay said, “measuring, finishing, design, and things like that.”

He also is a bicyclist, and he started making bicycle frames.

“I was fortunate enough to work with one of the bicycle masters down in southern New Hampshire, Ted Wojick, and he taught me a lot about welding, measuring machines, things like that,” Jay said.

He earned a degree in welding technology at Manchester Community College, but went back to making bicycle frames. He also worked with a jeweler along the way, before taking classes with a couple of other blacksmiths. He said he had done some sculptures in a metalwares class in high school, and he decided that blacksmithing would be something to try that would be a little more creative than making bicycle frames, with a more diverse scope of work.

“As the world changes with bicycle frames, it’s hard to convince someone they want a more expensive frame that’s heavier, versus … state-of-the-art equipment for the same or less money, and looks really sharp,” Jay said. “So when I came to that realization, it was like, okay, what kind of skill set do I pull on? I’ve been working with my father, fabricating signs for about 20 years, and I have these fabrication skills, so let’s put those and do something that’s more artistic, more varied, and see where that goes.”

Jay began his official career as a blacksmith in Hooksett, asking his grandfather if he could have his anvil that he was no longer using. He then taught himself the skills and watched videos.

“I sold a table to an interior designer,” Jay said. “He needed it for a client of his, so they were happy. Sold the next job, sold the next job, sold the next job, and then just kept going.”

His friends in North Sutton introduced him to central New Hampshire, and Jay found it to be a beautiful area that also was conveniently located between Concord and Hanover.

Membership in the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen provided one outlet for his works, and he also has items at the John Hay Estate at The Fells in Newbury, but Jay said a lot of his work is with interior designers, landscape architects, architects, builders.

“Probably 90 percent of my work is with another professional,” he said.

One piece at The Fells ended up with a buyer in California, but most of his work is local.

“It’s nice, because I get to meet the customers and interact with people. That’s part of what gets me excited about this,” Jay said. “I get to meet cool people who want to see my work in their homes, or want a handrail, or I get to help them, or whatever it may be.”

Perhaps his most complicated project was making railings for a spiral staircase built by woodworker Myrl Phelps of Danbury.

“He built this beautiful set of curved stairs; actually two sets,” Jay said. “Thank goodness he was doing the math with the stairs; I just followed his stairway. This was a very ornate build: a lot of scrollwork, acanthus leaves, molded-brass handrail that needed to be curved around. That was technically a challenge, making the tools to make the pieces. I had a whole process for making the leaves, because the job was going to be 100 and some leaves. They had to be cut and veined and formed and then fit to the rail. That was really a mind-bender.”

He had to set it up in his shop where the railing extended from the ceiling to the floor, with compound curves.

“Everything needs to fit the stairs,” Jay said. Everything needs to meet code so it’s safe. I had the ability to do it in one piece, so that’s how I wanted to do it, because then you can make sure everything flows right.”

Jay has a mobile trailer that he uses to transport objects back and forth from the shop to the worksite, and sometimes he has to build them in pieces. The trailer also allows him to sometimes do all the work on-site; it is equipped with everything he needs to fashion pieces away from the shop.

He has found that 75 percent of his work relies on precise measurements and matching curves or slopes, but “when I get to do sculpture, that’s fun, because it’s relaxing. That’s creative, and I get to pull on maybe that chunk of metal that’s been sitting over there for a while.”

Jay likes to work with metal discs that he can pick up at a steel yard; they can serve as a base or an element of a sculpture.

“Steel is my primary metal, just mild steel, because it’s economical to use,” Jay said. “It forms well, heats well, welds well, finishes  well. Sometimes I use aluminum, which is lighter-weight, corrosion-resistant. I much prefer steel, but if we need aluminum, we’ll use aluminum. Sometimes we get into bronze, which is a really beautiful metal to work with. Certain types of bronze can be forged really nicely and are relatively soft, compared to steel, and then, unlike steel, with bronze, you can leave it raw, and then it weathers over time, and it really gets that look of having been there forever. You can do that with steel, but it’s going to rust and then, eventually it’s going to be too rusty and then you’re gonna have to mess with it. Stainless steel is another material that’s a pain in the butt to work with, but it's corrosion-resistant. You can put it next to the ocean, it’s gonna be fine. Copper is beautiful to work with. Except the, like, really exotic metals, like titanium and stuff like that, I use everything.”

Many of his sculptures are kinetic works that have to be carefully balanced. One sculpture at a home in New London features a rotating nine-foot arm, counterbalanced by a large rock.

“A bird sits on it, and you can see it move back and forth, it’s such a fine balance,” Jay said.

He emphasizes that all his work is hand-forged, without using pre-made pieces.

“It came to me as square stock,” he said. “I heated it up. I forged it to put that texture, and I think that’s where a lot of the value comes from.”

Jay has a “healthy backlog” of jobs to do, “and I try to keep it that way.” He then is assured of year-round work while being able to balance it with family life. His wife, Melissa, handles the bookkeeping and accounting for him, so he does not get overwhelmed.

“I’m not the only person running this whole business,” he said.