At age 12, some youngsters are interested in learning how to become master gamers. But when Southwestern Illinois College student Dan Crabtree was 12, he was interested in learning how to become a master blacksmith.

Back then the Lebanon, Ill., native began to weld and cut steel to make knives and ax blades that he describes as “not especially functional.” After pursuing this interest for two years, he learned that his great-grandfather had been a blacksmith.

“I had no clue till then,” he said about his family connection to smithing.

Crabtree currently is enrolled in the Adult Basic Education Early School Leaver Program at the Southwestern Illinois College Granite City Campus. The program is designed for 16-year-old to 21-yearold students who want to earn a General Education Development (GED) certificates, explore careers, find employment, and continue their educations at Southwestern Illinois College or at other colleges or universities.

Around age 14, Crabtree started collecting old-time blacksmith tools and found an old woodstove behind a workshop-turned-storage shed at the home of his paternal grandparents. He set up the stove outside and filled it with charcoal briquettes to heat steel.

Eventually, he cleaned up the workshop so he could work indoors, and built his own forge by welding metal plates and angle iron together. He still uses that forge today.

Now 18, Crabtree, who lives with his maternal grandmother, makes gates, railings, barbecue and fireplace tools, campfire cookers, hooks, candleholders, decorative and abstract pieces, and iron flowers that he sells by word-of-mouth and at road shows.

The learning process For years, the young artisan used only books and the Internet to teach himself about his craft. Then he started looking for other blacksmiths to talk with, but discovered that trying to find them wasn’t easy, until a family friend told him about the Illinois Blacksmith Association and its shop in Mount Vernon, Ill.

The Mount Vernon blacksmiths were thrilled about teaching a younger person about this dying art, Crabtree said.

They taught him an invaluable lesson that books and the Internet could not: “The only way to really learn it is by doing it yourself – ruining one piece of steel after another, until you don’t ruin them anymore.”

Support system While some people told Crabtree he’d never make a living as a blacksmith, his father, Mike Crabtree, was supportive from the start.

“My mom was worried at first, but once she saw I was making money, she was very supportive, too. But my grandmother is the most supportive of all,” he said.

While he never planned to make money at his craft, one day Crabtree set up a table at Elk Fest – a meat sale his father’s friend runs – to try to sell “a bunch of hand-forged ironwork I had piling up.” He made money that day and has been selling his wares ever since.

The mind of an artist…and student Making every design unique is Crabtree’s goal – and he begins by drawing each on graph paper.

“I don’t look at anybody else’s work. I just picture it in my mind. Then it’s just a matter of taking the thought from my mind and putting it down on paper,” he said.

At some point Crabtree realized that he likes the artistic side more than the functional side of his work. Although he enjoys both kinds of work, he said he is “drawn to the unsymmetrical, wild, abstract items.”

“A lot of the abstracts are made without drawings. I just look at those pieces of metal and figure out how they’ll go together as I go along. Normally, once I start making something it’s just got to be done. And if it’s not – I just won’t sleep that night.”

Crabtree currently is taking Introduction to Welding and Blueprint Reading at the Southwestern Illinois College Belleville Campus with the assistance of the Adult Education Department.

Chuck Gulash, welding coordinator of the Southwestern Illinois College Welding Technology department, said he is impressed with Crabtree’s skills, maturity and work ethic.

“He has a real natural ability from all his work in blacksmithing. He understands what’s going on when that puddle’s hot. We have outstanding students here and he’s among the cream of the crop,” Gulash said.

Crabtree said he is taking the welding class to become a better welder and blueprint reading so he can make more detailed drawings and work with architects when he designs.