SALVISA, Ky. — On a hot summer day, the burning coke in Jonathan Pinkston’s blacksmithing shop was approaching 2000 degrees, but he could handle the heat. 


What You Need To Know

  • Jonathan Pinkston is a student at the University of Kentucky

  • He started blacksmithing in high school

  • Pinkston can make dozens of tools out of his shop in Mercer County

  • He shares videos of his work on Instagram

“I’m grabbing a chisel, a ball fuller, a slot punch and a fuller here,” he said, preparing to transform a steel bar into a bottle opener in the shape of a horse’s head. “It’s something that I enjoy to do and actually, as a student, in the summer is when I have the most free time to do it.”

He began with a bar of steel that he heated until it glowed yellow-orange.  

Working mostly with tools he forged himself, Pinkston continued heating and shaping the steel, chiseling and punching to form the horse’s mane and face. 

A bottle opener made by Jonathan Pinkston. (Spectrum News 1/Erin Kelly)

Pinkston began blacksmithing as a high school freshman when he became interested in knife-making. 

“I quickly realized that you need tools for knife-making and as a part of that, kind of that same utilitarian interest came about in making my own blacksmithing tools,” he said. 

At 20 years old, you could say the University of Kentucky student has a lot of irons in the fire. He is studying agriculture education and has been active with the Kentucky FFA (Future Farmers of America) Association. He sells his tools and teaches blacksmithing classes. 

Some may call blacksmithing a “dying art,” but Pinkston doesn’t see it that way. 

Jonathan Pinkston began blacksmithing as a freshman in high school. (Spectrum News 1/Erin Kelly)

“Really, there’s more blacksmiths now than there ever have been and that’s because for the first time, really, people are working for fun,” he said. 

Part of that fun is learning something new about an old-fashioned trade. 

“Education is never anything that you finish,” he said.  

You can see more of Jonathan’s work on his Instagram page