Fred’s Forge

Starting off as acquaintances in high school, to mates in college, now, through the love of our craft, we became partners in the workshop.

Fred started blacksmithing in 2015 during work experience, where he worked with a smith in New South Wales who primarily made sculptures. Immediately afterwards, he came home and found every tool he could use to mould steel by hand. One of his first projects was creating knives made from leaf springs, which quickly converged into making a Damascus block, which became a knife and a pendant for his sister. Since then, Fred has continued to build sculptures, knives, fire pokers, and coat hangers - practically anything out of metal he could find to sell to those who appreciate the craft.

I (Russ) started with wood, turning bowls, helping my father with tables, and general metal works on the farm. Then, after watching Alec Steele on YouTube for several years and being convinced by Fred to give it a go, I moved into blacksmithing. Having barely surface level knowledge of metallurgy at the time, my first builds were a knife made rebar and iron bark, and a sculpture of an echidna for the local show.

After 7 years of blacksmithing as a hobby on his family’s property near Dirranbandi, Fred started operating as “Freds Forge” in 2019 but with Russ made the official business now based near Brisbane.

Since then we have made many projects, each being used as a learning tool to constantly improve upon and gain finer skill for the next.

Every piece we make is better than the last, improving the finer details and working with different materials in order to gain the most possible experience we can.

We love testing ourselves, taking on newer and more difficult projects as often as possible. Everything we make we are proud of, and believe that no stone has been left unturned to create not just something that is practical, but is an artwork.

If you’re keen on getting in touch, click on contact us and don’t hesitate to send us an email - we’ll be more than happy to help