Blacksmith Forges an Old Identity
Victor Andersen hasn’t spent much time away from his anvil, forge and belt drive for 60 years.
The century-old appliances are more than the tools of his trade. They are what give one of few remaining blacksmiths in the Southland a reason to wake up every morning just before 6 at his home in Orange.
They encourage this 72-year-old grandfather to get to his shop in Tustin by 7 a.m. They are what keep him there seven days a week until at least 4 p.m. They are what make him care about the customers who bring him broken metal gates, dulled cultivator blades that loosen soil and dulled jackhammer points.
Andersen’s blue eyes light up when he talks about his work, the barbecue truck he built five years ago, the metal chair he soldered back together and the metal puzzles he crafted from horseshoes.
“The blacksmith always took care of everything in town, and he is still doing the same thing,” said Andersen, whose leathery face complements his stained denim jacket and pants and work boots so worn that their metal toes show. His faded black cap is routinely worn with the brim in the back, a detail that belies his years. His fingers, with their dirty nail beds, shake a bit.
Blacksmithing, which traditionally involves repairing farm equipment and shoeing horses, is not what is used to be. Horses are now shod by professionals who generally go to their clients by truck. And, at least in Orange County, the ever-shrinking amount of farmland means there simply isn’t that much farm equipment left to repair.
But there’s always someone with a need for the skills.
Clients marvel that Andersen can fix whatever broken items they bring -- whether they be exercise machines or lamps -- using the old tools or modern welding equipment. They are as interested in the repair as in the tin-roofed, barn-shaped shop. He works on C Street in Old Town, which includes small, neat homes as well as buildings from the 1880s on Main Street and El Camino Real.
At the turn of the last century, the area had half a dozen blacksmiths, who repaired equipment for nearby farms. Now, just the Tustin Blackshop, established in 1913, remains.
“You feel like you are going back in time,” said Randy Woltz, who came to the shop on a recent weekday to have a piano pedal repaired. “You feel like you are in the Midwest in 1925.”
The shop is a memorial to the work Andersen has done since he was 12. His father bought the shop from his boss in 1945. After graduating from high school, Andersen worked at his father’s side until his death in 1960. Since then, he has not traveled far, other than a trip to his family’s native Denmark, one cruise and a trip to Portland, Ore.
He spends free time tending his garden and the nine cars he owns. He has no employees, though years ago, for a short time, he had one assistant.
Over the years, customers and friends have given Andersen metal items they thought might come in handy or seemed historically important. There are farm tools, ice picks, a 1937 Ford V-8 engine, old trunks, a tricycle, an office chair and ladders. There are many rusted poles, which he says have great utility. They lie in what appear to be random piles, but Andersen ambles down little trails through them, and it’s clear he knows what each contains. In the back is an antique forge, which heats the metal, along with the 1926 flat-belt drive used to shape it, and the 100-year-old anvil used to finish it.
He uses these mostly to repair farm machine blades still brought in by commercial growers and relies on more modern soldering equipment for other jobs. Rick Collins, a blacksmith in Orange and the only other practitioner listed in the Orange County phone directory, said Andersen “is the only true blacksmith who is using the old-fashioned techniques. Newer instruments heat up quicker. There are not too many guys left who have what he has.”
Talking with Andersen is enough to make a visitor wonder about the workings of any item at the shop, whether it be a stair-stepper, a wrench to turn underground water valves or a broken city light pole.
Dick Trembly, an elder from the nearby Hope Christian Church, stopped by for a repaired church gate. Trembly was given no ticket for the item, and there’s no window for the pickup. Business is done the old-fashioned way: over unrushed small talk.
When the gate recently broke, Trembly said, he immediately remembered the shop. “It’s just something that stays in your mind when you see it because it looks like it is from another time, from a time when things were simple and business was different.”