'It's a miracle'

By DON SHILLING

shilling@vindy.com

Grove city, Pa.

Don Polding remembers the

shock when he saw Wendell August Forge engulfed in flames March 6.

“I thought, ‘I’m too old to start over again,’” said the 53-year-old master craftsman who has worked at the Grove City forge 19 years.

Instead of heading to the unemployment line, however, Polding was back to work immediately, helping to set up a temporary forge at another location in town.

Within five days of the fire, the Volant, Pa., resident was back to work at his anvil, hammer in hand.

“It’s unbelievable,” Polding said.

The quick recovery was more than unbelievable, said Will Knecht, company president. “It’s a miracle,” he said.

Even though its longtime forge has been reduced to a pile of charred rubble, Wendell August is back in business, producing handcrafted gift items made of aluminum, bronze, copper and other metals.

In fact, it’s on pace to churn out its largest order in its 87-year history.

Three days before the fire, the Pittsburgh Penguins hockey team placed an order for 20,000 commemorative items that will be handed out April 8, the final game at Mellon Arena. The order is due April 5.

Knecht said crews will work day and night to fill the order, another sign of how something positive sprang from tragedy.

“We’ve gone from being a good-function team to being a family in this past week,” he said.

Saving the business started with saving the company’s 3,000 dies, some of which date back to the 1940s. Gift items are produced from these dies, and there is only one for each design.

The dies are made by hand, with workers spending between one and eight weeks using a hammer and chisel to carve the designs into steel.

“Next to our people, the dies are the business. You can’t replace them,” Knecht said.

Once the fire was mostly under control, firefighters formed a human chain and passed the dies along to safety. Only one was lost because it cracked from the heat.

Since then, workers from the company’s gift shop, as well as family and friends of Wendell August employees, have been carefully removing the soot and fire damage from the dies. Using a combination of sand paper, spray lubricator and polishing sticks, the dies slowly are being restored.

But all the work would have been for naught without a plant where they could be used.

Normally, finding an available plant, setting up the electrical wiring and buying equipment would have taken months, Knecht said. The Penguins order would have been lost, as well as a lot of other business.

But a bad decision from years ago allowed Wendell August to start up operations right away.

About eight years ago, the company moved most of its production and all its distribution to an abandoned factory a half-mile away.

Just over a year ago, Knecht realized moving the production was a mistake and returned all work to the forge.

“It was a classic bad business decision. We ruined our whole story. At the forge, you could walk in and see American craftsmen making gift items that you were going to buy,” he said.

But the decision helped the company in the long run. The production space in the old factory was never rented once Wendell August left, so after the fire, the company moved back in. Some of its old equipment had been left behind and so was undamaged by the fire.

After setting up a corporate office and forge in the old factory, Knecht now is looking to set up a retail store.

The company, which employs 55 in Grove City and 20 elsewhere, still is selling through its Web site and retail stores at the Prime Outlets at Grove City and in Berlin, Ohio, and Exton, Pa., which is near Philadelphia. The Exton location also has a small forge.

Knecht pledged to establish a new forge in Grove City. He added, however, that he wasn’t sure if it will be possible in its previous location because it is a residential neighborhood.

His goal is to have the new forge operating by September 2011. It will still be a place where workers will use machinery, such as grinders and hand tools, such as hammers and chisels to produce items one at a time.

“People have asked us why we don’t automate,” Knecht said. “We don’t want to be the biggest. We want to be the best. It’s in our DNA to preserve the tradition of American craftsmanship.”

Wendell August

A look back

The history of Wendell August Forge:

1923: Wendell McMinn August starts the business in Brockway, Pa.

1934: August is persuaded to move his forge to Grove City, Pa., after doing work for a remodeling of Grove City National Bank.

1978: Bill Knecht of Boardman acquires the company from August’s son, Robert.

2004: Knecht dies, and his son, Will, takes over operations. Bill Knecht’s wife, Connie, also is active in the company.

Source: Wendell August Forge