How I Got Into Blacksmithing
I got into this project back in Ohio when we had a horse farm. My wife actually wanted to try blacksmithing—we saw a blacksmith at a fair, and she was really interested. So I built her a wood-fired forge.
That winter, we were out there huddled around the forge, putting metal in the fire. The first thing I did was just heat up and bend metal. I was blown away—I couldn’t believe you could even do this kind of thing. It’s not something most people get to see every day unless they’re in a factory or a shop.
I got hooked. I started building things and eventually built a little antique-style blacksmith shop in one of our barns. That’s where I worked for a long time.
The First Thing I Forged
The first thing I forged was hooks. I made a set to hang in our apartment, which was attached to one of the main barns. It was a place where people would hang out—a tack room for boarders.
I made these big, almost fishhook-like designs that you could hang from the ceiling. I loved making hooks and still do. I made tons of them—just kept going.
Getting Into Cookware
I started making cookware about five years ago. We ran the horse farm for about ten years, and when we moved back to Colorado, I started the skillet project. My friends and I would do a fishing camp every year at my buddy’s place on Twin Creek near the farm. We’d cook out there, and I kept thinking, I can make better camp cookware.
At the time, I looked at what was available and felt like nothing was quite good enough for me. So I set out to make my own skillet.
That’s when I found a spinning shop nearby and asked them what they could do. That was the start of a whole new learning experience—understanding how cookware is made.
What Was Wrong with Existing Camp Cookware?
A lot of it was either too heavy or too flimsy. The handles weren’t good. There was just so much room for improvement.
I used to forge a lot of campfire gear—tripods, pokers, all kinds of things. But when it came to the skillets people were using, I knew I could make better handles. Around that time, I started researching historical cookware from the 1700s and 1800s—how people cooked over fire back then. They had really well-designed, long-handled skillets, some even with legs. That’s the kind of stuff I wanted to bring back.
Metal Spinning and Forging – A Perfect Combination
Metal spinning was fascinating because it opened up so many possibilities. Once I realized I could combine spinning with forging, I knew I could make something special.
I started forging my own handles and pairing them with spun skillets. That meant I could make them lighter than cast iron but still just as functional and heirloom-quality—still robust, still built to last.
Over time, I experimented with different handle designs. Some worked, some didn’t—mostly, they were good, but some took too long to forge to be viable. I had to refine my process to create something at a reasonable price because that was important to me. I didn’t want to make cookware so expensive that real camp cooks couldn’t afford it.
Even though my cookware is always going to be a bit expensive, it’s still more affordable than some high-end competition while being even more functional and still handmade.
What Makes Our Handles Better?
The first thing I focused on was making the handles longer. That’s the number one improvement, whether you're cooking at home or over the fire. A longer handle doesn’t get hot as fast, so you can cook a full meal without needing gloves.
The second thing is making the handle fit your hand properly. A lot of cookware is designed with cost in mind, not usability. Some handles have sharp edges, some are coated with materials that prevent them from going in the oven, and many are just totally flat and uncomfortable to hold.
I’ve bought and torn apart all kinds of skillets—French, American-made—and most are built the way they are just to keep costs down. They aren’t really designed for functionality.
For our 10-inch skillet, I hot-forge the handle into shape so that it fits comfortably in your hand. I even add a bottle opener to the end of it without too much extra effort. Hot forging is different from how most companies do it. Most manufacturers cold-work their handles—they just stamp them out and bend them slightly. But that doesn’t create a great feel.
Rivets are another issue. A lot of companies place three rivets really close together because it’s faster and cheaper in a machine press, but that makes them hard to clean. It’s just a series of poor choices that come down to cost-cutting.
What we’re doing is taking it to the next level. For just a little more money, we’re making a product three times better. And it’s still handcrafted.
Why Metal Spinning?
One of the coolest parts of our process is that Ken, our metal spinner, has been spinning for 50 years. He hand-spins every pan on a lathe. It’s an incredible process—it’s still done by hand, but it’s way more efficient than trying to hand-forge a pan from scratch.
Hand-forging a pan can be done, but it doesn’t always make sense when you have a better process like spinning. Spinning is still an artisanal craft, but it allows for more consistency and efficiency. That means we can offer handcrafted quality at a better price.
And it’s not just me—our whole team is part of this. Alain and the rest of the crew are working in a small shop, making cookware better than the big companies at a price that’s not far off from mass-produced options. That’s a big deal to me. We stamp each skillet with our maker’s mark, and that’s something I take pride in.
Where Is Your Shop?
Our shop is in Manitou Springs, Colorado, inside the Manitou Art Center. That’s where I built my blacksmith shop so I could interact with the community more—teach people, show them how cookware is made.
Eventually, I’d love for Ken and me to have all of our production processes in one place where people can actually see how it’s done. I want people to understand the process, to see the quality firsthand.
Manitou Springs is a great little tourist town, so in the future, I’d love to have visitors stop by. Maybe we could even set up a system where people traveling through Colorado can come by and make their own skillet. I think that would be pretty cool.