A
blacksmith was a pre-industrial professional specializing in the manufacture of simple
metal objects, such as
swords or
horseshoes. This was accomplished by heating lumps of metal with a
forge and
bellows until the metal became soft enough to be shaped to a desired outcome, via repeated strikes with a
hammer. In most cases, only
coal could provide a sufficiently hot
fire to accomplish this task.
The advent of mass production techniques in the early 20th century provided superior speed and uniformity, rendering the blacksmith obsolete.