Allen Demoss of Reisterstown turns the crank on a blower to heat up a fire during the Jingle Bell Blacksmithing class at the Carroll County Farm Museum on Saturday, November 12, 2022. (Thomas Walker/for Carroll County Times)

The ancient art of blacksmithing is alive and well in Carroll County. The Blacksmith Guild of Central Maryland held a weekend-long class teaching students how to make jingle bells ahead of the holiday season at the Carroll County Farm Museum in Westminster. Open Die Forging Products

Instructor Jim Maness said his five pupils flexed their creative muscles in decorating bells to look like strawberries and leaves. Maness, 70, of Hampstead, serves as school coordinator for the guild, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving and promoting the art and craft of hand forging iron.

“The main goal of the guild is to promote blacksmithing,” Maness said, “and all of our forges are coal forges. So we try to promote the traditional way things were done.”

From 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday students created tooling that acts as a mold to form the shape of a jingle bell, then crafted the bells out of blanks, which are sheets of metal used for forging. It’s important to begin with an endpoint in mind, class participant Allen DeMoss said.

“You’re reverse-engineering the process,” said DeMoss, 53, a member of the blacksmith guild. “So when you get to the beginning you can go back to the end. That was the cool thing about the class, and then just being creative on what you want to do.”

DeMoss said he plans to begin selling jingle bells next year via his business Steelcrafts Forging and Metal Artwork. DeMoss, of Reisterstown, works full-time in the U.S. Coast Guard.

Most guild members are hobbyists who do not profit from blacksmithing, Guild President Ted McNett, 52, said. McNett works for Carroll County Public Schools as assistant supervisor for career and technical education.

“Some people like to take blacksmithing for a bucket list type thing,” McNett said. “Other people are interested in it for a hobby. It gives them that creative outlet and something to do instead of sitting at a desk or whatever they do for their regular job. And then we do get some people that get into it and it turns into a full-time career for them.”

The Blacksmith Guild of Central Maryland partners with the Farm Museum to offer classes at the eight-forge classroom space at the museum. The maximum number of students per class is eight and four of the five students in the jingle bells class were guild members, Maness said. Guild members can also to volunteer to work at the farm museum’s historic forge, which is often a big attraction for museum-goers.

The jingle bells class cost $200 per student, and the materials for each student to make five bells were provided.

The guild has about 200 members; annual membership costs $35 for an individual or $40 for a family, McNett said. Before being granted membership, individuals must first take a Blacksmithing 101 class, offered monthly, or otherwise demonstrate blacksmithing competence. Members receive a bimonthly newsletter and may purchase discounted coal for forges.

The next Blacksmithing 101 class is set for Nov. 26-27 weekend, beginning at 9 a.m. each day, at the farm museum.

Guild members requested the jingle bells class, Maness said, and the course is considered advanced blacksmithing.

Open Die Forging Die Block “A lot of people say it’s a lost art,” Maness said. “It’s not really a lost art, it’s just that not a lot of people do it. The way we do stuff has been done for thousands of years, so you could take a medieval blacksmith from medieval England, bring him over to our guild, the only difference that he would have is that we’re using coal where they were using wood.”