Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 3, 1991 TAG: 9103010014
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: DONNA WHITMARSH/ SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: FLOYD LENGTH: Long
This is the world of Guy Turpin, blacksmith.
"It's an art," he said. "I've by no means learned it all, but I think about it all the time."
Turpin's most recent major work is a 7-by-12-foot set of iron gates and a 23-foot railing at the Brockenborough home on Overhill Drive in Christiansburg. He admits the project overwhelmed him at first.
"It started as a yoke around my neck. It was a 24-hour-a-day job."
He likens blacksmithing to a game of chess. "You have to keep several steps ahead to make it all work out."
The ornamentation - "the dangles on the angles," he calls it - is all functional. For instance, the bars are spaced exactly to allow plenty of visibility while preventing the Brockenboroughs' dog from getting his head caught.
And Wayne Brockenborough wanted all hand work, no purchased hinges or screws. This was exactly what Turpin wanted to do. He figured it would take him a couple of weeks; instead, it took two months.
Turpin had never before attempted such a massive project. Before long, he said, "I was ready to go out of my mind. I almost quit, but I couldn't find his number. But then it became my baby, an obsession. It's like jumping out of an airplane. Before you go, you're terrified, but then you can't wait to go again."
The Brockenboroughs were thoroughly pleased with Turpin's work.
A grizzly, articulate man, Turpin, 38, came to his trade by way of his love for horses. He is a horse trainer and rodeo rider. Since 1984 he has traveled back and forth to Wyoming, where he works on the Melody Ranch. He finds the forbiding sand, wind and cactus-filled red desert terrain exciting.
"It can be 90 degrees in July, and when the sun goes down, it's below freezing."
He especially likes the people there. "It's like Floyd County used to be in the 1800s. I love to listen to the old-timers tell their stories of the Wild West. And they'll take you in and feed you and take care of your dog and horse. It doesn't matter if you're a stranger."
All his life, Turpin said, his only ambition was to be a cowboy. And in Wyoming he rode with the best of them.
"I was made to feel comfortable," he said. But in his mid-30s, he had to ask himself, "What am I going to do?"
Now he thinks he's found it. "It can work, but you've got to be patient."
Virtually self-taught, Turpin got his only training at a school in Oklahoma City in 1986.
His equipment has come mainly as gifts from friends. His friend and neighbor, Draper Dulaney, gave him a forge made from a tractor wheel in return for repairing his plow. Turpin prefers it to his propane setup. "The coal seems to heat the metal deeper. It stays red longer, so I can work it longer."
To demonstrate, Turpin makes a set of horse shoes. First, he heats a 4-by-15-inch metal piece, which he sets on the anvil to warm it up.
"If your anvil and hammer aren't warm," he said, "you can't work the iron. Your hammer will just bounce off."
Then he places two slender iron bars in the forge to heat.
And he offers a history lesson. "Nothing's changed about blacksmithing since the beginning of time. You need heat, an anvil and tools. That's all. The first mention of blacksmithing is in Genesis 4:22: `And Zillah, she also bore Tubalcain, an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron.' "
The iron is red-yellow now, and Turpin is ready to work. He grabs his hammer and long-handled tongs, and begins banging and turning the metal on the anvil. When the metal has cooled to dark red, he places it on the fire to heat again before final shaping.
He makes these demonstration shoes in 15 minutes, but says it takes two hours to properly make and fit a set of shoes to a horse.
Turpin carefully sets the nail holes in the shoes, three to a side, none on the top. He will not fashion his own nails, though. "The nails cost 10 cents apiece, but it's still easier to buy them. Making the nails is what the lady blacksmith used to do."
He builds his horseshoes to fit the needs of the horse.
"My horse, Prince," he said, "is young and clumsy. So I make him heavy shoes to make him more buoyant, and I weight them on the outside to keep him from kicking himself."
These days, Turpin keeps busy shoeing horses and building a wooden sled for mules for his friend, retired Virginia Tech Extension equine expert Arden Huff.
Now Turpin is looking for a place to build his own shop. His next-door neighbor has donated space for him to work in so far, but Turpin wants to set his forge permanently and have a proper area to work on horses.
"I need 50 acres and a 25-by-50-foot shop," he said. "Then I can board and train horses, too."
Then he'll have his dream.
by CNB