Click images to view larger versions

THE GLORY OF DEFORMING METAL

“Of course,�says Salim, “the most important ingredient is the blacksmith. I have 14�/span>


Deep in the innards of Wadi Kabir, mild steel is being heated yellowish-orange and beaten into submission. We stand in the near-darkness of a workshop, watching a master blacksmith pound it again and again, just as his forefathers did for generations. Somewhere here, between the tonnes of metal pieces, curlicues, iron flowers, gargoyles and balustrades, lies a beauty that can be traced back so far its origins lie somewhere in prehistory, even mythology.

GUTS AND GLORY
Turning to metal

Salim al Hajry felt that tug to challenge metal after he had raced rally cars, won championships on 125cc motocross bikes, played football as a goalkeeper, dabbled in volleyball and tried scuba diving. And that was all in the Seventies and Eighties, after his day-job at the then British Bank.
“I was very young,�says Salim. “And young blood likes cars.� This was about when he customised his LandCruiser pickup � the type the Bedu call the abu shenab �by plopping its leaf springs above the differential, raising the body at least 50cm above the ground.

Such modifications made a monster out of an already legendary car, the only vehicle you will find in Oman’s deserts, and it wasn’t long before Salim gave into pressure and sold this one-of-a-kind.
“I was looking for a challenge, to do something on my own, something that needed guts.�

After starting an automotive workshop in the early Nineties, he wanted something else. Something as challenging as bending metal. And that’s when he shifted from cars to iron.

WHY IRON?
The beauty of mild steel
“Those were the days before the Internet, so I looked up books, researched techniques and knew what I needed over the next two to three years. Wrought iron was perfect for me because I could do whatever I wanted, from gates to furniture to decoration. I started doing pieces to order, only on demand, making them as unique as the design a customer came up with.

“My raw material is mild steel, which can be deformed by both cold and heat.�Steel with a low carbon content has the same properties as iron �soft but easily formed. As carbon content rises, the metal becomes harder but also less pliable, so a lower percentage is preferred.

Iron, meanwhile, is one of the most abundant elements present in the universe, and we extract it from iron ore. It is also the main constituent of steel (which is made up of iron and carbon, bringing us full circle). Technically, wrought iron is commercially pure iron that not only has a low carbon content but also contains slag, a mixture of metal oxides. Today, however, the term ‘wrought iron�is used with a little more independence, referring to products that are now made of mild steel. Such products still retain their original classification because they were traditionally made of wrought iron, and customers are still looking for its characteristic look and feel.

“The price of steel is locked into the stock market,�says Salim. “It used to be RO160 three or four years ago, but is now up to RO380 a tonne. The rods I source are six metres in length and between 8�0mm thick, which means that a single piece can weigh up to 100kg.

Most people don’t know the difference between cast aluminium and wrought iron. The first one is made in a die, or mould, but the other is hand-made at my workshop. Such products are also easier to maintain than those made of other materials, like wood for example.

Our gates, which are deeply galvanised and powder coated, will last 15 years out in the open. Kept inside the house, products could last 25 years or more. Ours are also far superior in workmanship.�br>
And that’s when he takes you around a corner, to where his master blacksmith is hammering away with a giant machine, crunching through a metal rod that might make its way into a five star hotel.

KARUVAN
Entire lives into metal

Such effort involves a mixture of muscle, technique and science, and is the reason why good blacksmiths are so highly prized, and why this one in particular will remain anonymous through this article.

Salim’s master craftsman-cum-foreman comes from a long line of blacksmiths whose art and technique have been handed down from one generation to the other for centuries, in a little community tucked away in the Subcontinent. “We call ourselves karuvan,�he says, “and everyone in the community is a blacksmith: our mothers, sisters, fathers, grandfathers, children and friends.

“I grew up watching my father hammering away, while my mother held the hot metal between pincers. He had his own shop a few kilometres away, where he used to forge tools �knives, shovels, axes �all the stuff you get readymade today but had to create in the old days. We’d even have to fabricate our own sandpaper to sharpen the blades. There were no electronics then, no forging machines, no drills, no microchip-driven machines. It was done by hand and I did it all, learning by watching my father, running back from school to work at home. Entire lives have disappeared into metal.�br>
But the real deal clincher is that nothing has really changed, even though the blacksmith now uses imported machines and doesn’t have to muck around with a hand-cranked blower and a coal fire. The principals are the same, and the metals still melt, break and bend as they have since man started playing with them. Vulcan, the blacksmith of Greek and Roman mythology, might not have known much more than Salim’s foreman (apart from that little bit about using volcanoes as forges).

Blacksmiths have always dealt with metals like iron and steel (which would be black from the fire), working on them with tools to forge them into shapes. You can see this in Salim’s workshop, through each step of a process that is essentially the same as it has been for centuries, except for the modern ingredients that are used for the same purposes.

Rods of mild steel are laid through a furnace, fed by industrial-strength gas tanks. Blacksmiths work by heating their steel or iron till the metal gets red hot, or, to be more specific, so hot that it turns soft enough to be shaped by tools. Colour indicates the temperature: as iron is heated, it glows red, then orange, then yellow and finally white, after which it melts. Blacksmiths typically prefer a yellowish-orange glow, which means that the metal is ripe for forging

. That’s why most workshops are dimly lit, for the colour to show. It is in their dark depths that you will see the results.

DEMAND AND SUPPLY
How to sell black metal
“There are two types of customers,�says Salim. “Those whose only concern is the price, and those who look at things like quality, reliability and time. In the end, you get what you pay for.

“I have done a lot of advertising over the years, but it’s tricky in my line. I used to be in the yellow pages each issue, but I’d perhaps get a couple of calls a year through them. I have printed tens of thousands of leaflets and smothered entire neighbourhoods with them, but people just look at paper as trash. In the end, the simplest form of advertising has brought me the most business �word of mouth.

“A lot of my clients are people who have just built their villas, and most would naturally celebrate by calling others over to admire the new house. And that’s really the best exhibition, and recommendation, my work could ever get.

“Of course,�says Salim, “the most important ingredient is the blacksmith. I have 14.�br>
THE IRON WORKSHOP
Getting in touch
Salim al Hajry is fluent in Arabic, French, English and Swahili and can manage conversational Hindi and the occasional word of Malayalam, so chances are he speaks your language. Call the Wrought Iron Factory on 99359988.