Regional Report: Inside a 63-year-old blacksmith’s shop

•Bernard Otieku Kwame is a popular blacksmith in Agomanya in the Eastern Region

•He has practised blacksmithing for the past 35-years

•Establishing factories for blacksmiths is an appeal from Mr. Otieku

GhanaWeb visited the shop of Bernard Otieku Kwame, one of the popular blacksmith’s in Agomanya in the Eastern Region.

At 63 and married with four children, the blacksmith has practised blacksmithing for the past 35-years having served as an apprentice to one Ataa Nii before establishing his own shop.

The veteran blacksmith’s work is by heating pieces of wrought iron acquired from discarded vehicle parts until the metal becomes soft enough for shaping with hand tools, such as a hammer, an anvil and a chisel.

To be able to undertake this job, the principal tools needed are the fan, the forge, tong, chisel, a vice, hand hammers, sledgehammers, and a variety of chisels.

His shop serves as one of the smithies others buy their farm implements from where people buy either for their use or sell to others.

As Mr. Otieku explained, local blacksmith’s previously used the fan but they have created a new electrically powered device to help them fan the fire. The advantage is the new device fans the fire faster than the old, manual type.

He explained the processes of his job.

“I, first of all, put the metal into the furnace, after heating it I cut it into two parts and put the needed part into the fire, after heating, I take it back to the anvil and forge it into shape,” he said, adding that putting it into the fire softens it for easy moulding.

According to him, colour is important for indicating the temperature and workability of the metal. As the iron heats to higher temperatures, it first glows red, then orange, yellow, and finally white. The ideal heat for most forging, Mr Otieku explained, is the bright yellow-orange colour that indicates forging heat.

He said he moulds various farm and carpentry tools at his shop.

“I mould a lot of farm tools and carpentry tools here including hoes, axes, knives, earth chisel, crowbar, etc,” he told Michael Oberteye at his shop.

The tools Mr. Otieku produces are sold for Ghc40 and Ghc30 depending on the type of tool with the trap also going for GHC300.

Asked if the job is financially rewarding and which must be taken up by the youth as a reliable source of income, he said, “I’ll recommend this job for all young people because through this job, I’ve been able to educate my children and siblings because it is financially rewarding.”

As he explained, succeeding in this craft comes with a caveat, hard work.

Just as in many other industrial environments, the blacksmith’s shop equally comes with a lot of dangers to the worker/s, particularly with the fire and hot metals.

“There are dangers associated with this job, especially the fire. You could easily get burnt. You should also be careful with striking the metal because if it breaks, it’ll injure you.

“The hammer can also come off the handle and injure you, the hot metal can also fall off the anvil and land on your feet so you need to be careful at all times,” he warned.

He recounted how the hammer once came off and landed on his hand on the anvil and injured him in the process.

Mr. Otieku has been able to educate not only his children through this job but his siblings and children of his siblings as well.

Asked if he would recommend his children taking over from him one day, he answered in the affirmative as he is already in the process of training one of them.

“My children must also learn this craft even if they won’t practise it so I’m training one of them,” he said.

He however has one appeal to the government. According to him, their craft requires modern equipment which government must assist them to acquire.

Establishing factories for blacksmiths was another appeal from Mr. Otieku.

“We need a lot of modern equipment in this job and government must come on board to help us. There are things we need to acquire which we haven’t been able to due to financial constraints. Factories can be built for us but since there are none, the work is mostly run by individuals.”

He’s also convinced that blacksmithing if introduced as a module of the Youth Employment Agency (YEA) would offer decent job opportunities for the youth.

“Government must get involved in our business so that the youth can enter it because it is profitable to enable one take care of himself and their family so they must bring people on board so we can train them. It must be introduced into the Youth Employment Agency’s (YEA) modules so the youth can be trained,” he said.

Otieku Harrison, 24, is a son of Bernard Otieku Kwame. A senior high school graduate, Harrison is considering a career in the field of blacksmithing having received some training from his father.

“I’m learning it so that I can help prepare myself so that if I want to further my education, through this I can use it to further my education. If I get, I’ll take it up as full-time employment,” he said.

The confident young man said though he’s still undergoing some training in the craft, he has acquired enough knowledge over the past two weeks to craft any tool on his own.

One way to solve the unemployment problem, Harrison advised the youth is for them to venture into artisanship such as blacksmithing to earn a living.