Love & Best Dishes: Meet Blacksmith Doug Lockhart of Lockhart Ironworks

Name: Love & Best Dishes: Meet Blacksmith Doug Lockhart of Lockhart Ironworks | Open Video
Uploaded: 2026-07-14T12:20:59+00:00
Duration: 19 min 30 s

0:00
- Y'all, I am so excited about the next three videos,
0:05
I think.
0:06
Because I became friends over Facebook
0:12
with a couple that lives in Ohio.
0:15
And he is a true, let's see, what would the words be?
0:23
When we met for the first time today, I said,
0:27
"He reminds me of some of the men at Williamsburg
0:32
that do all the ironworks."
0:37
So I want to introduce you to Doug,
0:42
and I want you to tell us all about your business,
0:46
how you got started.
0:50
Just tell us.
0:52
- Well, first of all, Miss Paula,
0:54
I wanna thank you for having us down.
0:56
I brought the family with me. - I know.
0:57
- Some of our family,
0:58
and you'll get to meet them in a little bit.
1:01
And it's just a beautiful place,
1:03
and we're just so grateful to be here.
1:04
- Oh, listen, - Thanks for having us.
1:05
- I'm so grateful.
1:07
We had been planning this get-together for a long time,
1:10
but then cold weather, - The snowstorm.
1:12
- Yeah, they're from Ohio. - Got in the way.
1:15
- Yeah, and we have really,
1:17
this country really had a hard winter,
1:19
but we finally made it.
1:22
And you look just like your work.
1:28
- Why, thank you. - Very handsome man.
1:30
- There's nothing fake about us.
1:32
- No. - We are-
1:33
- So tell everybody what you do.
1:36
- So I'm a full-time blacksmith in Logan, Ohio.
1:40
And I have worked with my children,
1:43
and they're all grown now.
1:44
When I say kids or children, I mean grown adults.
1:48
And they're all working in the shop with me.
1:50
- Oh, that's wonderful. - And I've been-
1:51
- How many kids work in your shop?
1:53
- I have a son, two daughters, and a son-in-law,
1:56
and we're all working in the shop.
1:58
And I've been able to share my passion with them
2:02
and have them- - Wonderful.
2:05
- Follow in my footsteps.
2:07
And now, as we said earlier, I'm 62.
2:09
And as I'm getting older, I need to start slowing down.
2:12
And they're taking over more and more of the business.
2:16
So what happened is, in a traditional blacksmith shop,
2:18
we do everything.
2:20
We will repair a model, like in the morning,
2:22
somebody will bring a Model A car in,
2:24
and need a part of the frame fixed or the bumper.
2:28
Or else we'll get some vintage farm equipment,
2:30
or we'll get some reproduction pieces.
2:34
It's all over the place.
2:36
And so about eight or 10 years ago,
2:40
my daughter and I, Danielle,
2:42
decided that we wanted to kind of focus on something
2:46
that all of the children's strengths could be used.
2:50
Some are better at managing and marketing,
2:53
some are better at welding, some are better at forging.
2:54
- I mean, wonderful when everyone has their own niche.
2:58
- Yeah, now, here's something to keep in mind.
3:01
And I'm gonna make a statement here.
3:03
It's in my opinion
3:05
that females make far better blacksmiths than men.
3:09
Because, it has nothing to do with the size of the hammer
3:13
or force, or brute strength.
3:15
It has to do with finesse,
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and it has to do with timing and use
3:18
and management and using your head.
3:20
And I learned that from my daughter, Danielle.
3:22
She started in the shop seriously when she was 12.
3:26
And I watched her grow. I needed the help in the shop.
3:32
So she didn't have a chance to develop her own style.
3:35
So she had to, we had an order for 1,000 hooks.
3:39
She had to make 500, and I had to make 500,
3:41
and they all had to match.
3:42
So she matched my work impeccably.
3:46
And now it's very difficult to tell difference.
3:49
- Tell who did it. - Yeah.
3:50
But Danielle right now is on a sabbatical.
3:52
She's doing something more important than blacksmithing,
3:55
which is raising our grandchildren.
3:57
- Yes.
3:58
- She's doing a great job with that.
3:59
And we brought them with us.
4:01
But, anyway, about eight or 10 years ago,
4:04
Danielle and I focused on,
4:06
we wanted to make something that everybody would be...
4:09
See, if a Model A car comes into my shop,
4:11
it's only going to, - It's temporary.
4:14
- And well, no, but it's only,
4:16
the only people who have vintage cars
4:17
are gonna be interested.
4:18
We wanted something broader than that.
4:20
And so we thought at the time,
4:24
I had this real passion of something
4:26
that everybody would want.
4:27
And so I figured, well, everybody I know has a mouth.
4:31
Everybody I know eats.
4:32
So why not focus our energy on cookware? And we did.
4:36
And so what I was looking for was, Danielle and I,
4:39
are about five different things
4:41
that we were gonna make in this cookware.
4:43
- And this was like eight years ago, you said?
4:45
- Yeah.
4:46
One thing we wanted, and here's an example of what we-
4:50
- It's definitely beautifully made.
4:51
- One thing we wanna do is,
4:52
we wanted to make it lighter than cast iron.
4:54
- [Paula] Uh huh.
4:55
- And so even though there's a tremendous amount of work
4:59
that went into designing this.
5:00
So the wall thickness, we played with that,
5:03
we adjusted it, we made it thicker and thinner.
5:07
If it was too thin, it would warp and it would be too light.
5:10
If it was too thick, it'd be competing with a cast iron.
5:15
So we dialed that in and we got it just right.
5:17
The other thing I wanted, was I wanted it to be decorative.
5:20
I'm really tired of people, I mean, not people.
5:23
I'm really tired of the things that are available to us
5:26
that are very blocky and contemporary.
5:28
I wanted something very elegant and curves.
5:32
And so that's why we designed this handle.
5:34
- It's beautiful.
5:35
- I wanted this handle to be as decorative as I could,
5:37
as thin and delicate as I could,
5:39
but still retain its strength.
5:40
And we did that.
5:43
Another thing we wanted to do is we wanted the bowl
5:45
and the handle to be separate,
5:47
so that as the bowl heats up, if you notice right here,
5:50
we've riveted, we use traditional rivet
5:53
to put the handle on. - [Paula] Yeah, yeah.
5:56
- This bowl has to heat up,
5:57
then it transfers into the handle,
5:59
slowly works its way up here.
6:01
And by the time it gets up to this area,
6:03
you're done cooking. - Yeah.
6:05
- So very rarely do you have a hot handle.
6:07
I also put this relief in there
6:09
because it's a great place to hang it up
6:10
and it lets air move around through this,
6:13
so you don't have that problem.
6:14
- Yeah, yeah.
6:15
- Well, it's the other things that we wanted-
6:16
- That makes sense.
6:17
- We made it out of forged steel
6:20
so that the heat could change rapidly.
6:23
Like in cast iron, if you change the heat too rapidly,
6:26
you can crack it, handles will break,
6:28
or there'll be a split in it. - Right, right.
6:29
- So we solved that problem.
6:31
And we listened to everything.
6:35
We put these pieces out there.
6:36
We listened to the critiques that everybody had,
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and then we adjusted.
6:40
And we believe we have one of the finest pieces
6:43
of cookware out there. - Without a doubt.
6:44
- The last thing we wanted, because you use it-
6:47
- Without a doubt, they do.
6:48
- The last thing. And you can contest this.
6:50
And I took this as a challenge.
6:51
They said I wanted a non-stick surface.
6:54
Because I know there's a lot of controversy
6:58
and a lot of problems with Teflon coated.
7:00
- Yeah. - And health issues.
7:02
- Yes.
7:03
- So I wanted to make something
7:04
that was natural and non-stick.
7:06
And they said, everybody that I talked to,
7:07
said you can't do it.
7:08
And I said,
7:10
- Oh, don't you love to be challenged?
7:12
- Right, don't tell me I can't do it.
7:13
- Don't tell me I can't do it.
7:15
- So I started doing research
7:17
and I found out before they started casting cast iron,
7:22
they forged cookware.
7:23
And so the interesting thing about this
7:27
is being forged and not cast, it has a closed, porous floor,
7:32
which means that just a small amount of oil on there
7:35
will vibrate, and keep your food from going down.
7:38
Like on cast iron, the pores are much bigger,
7:40
takes more oil,
7:42
but the food tends to get down in those cavities.
7:45
And until you have knocked off those peaks
7:48
and those valleys get shallower,
7:51
then you're gonna have a sticking problem.
7:53
So that's why vintage cast iron is so collectible,
7:57
because everybody thinks that it's special
7:58
and it's made of special magical metal or something.
8:02
But it's not that at all. And so we sent you one.
8:05
I just really thought that I wanted you to have one
8:07
and you've used it and,
8:10
- Yes. - It's nonstick, isn't it?
8:11
- This is, yes, this is my favorite.
8:13
- Now see, it's good for you too, 'cause you can lick it
8:15
and you don't have to take an iron pill in the morning.
8:17
(Paula laughing) - Great idea.
8:22
I think you're the only blacksmith that I know.
8:25
- Well...
8:26
- I would not think there would be a lot of,
8:29
- You know, you think that, but when I go to conventions,
8:32
there's quite a few blacksmiths.
8:33
And there's some very good blacksmiths out there still.
8:35
And which is reassuring to me
8:39
because we've been told that it's a dying art,
8:42
and young people don't really care.
8:44
But I'm finding that my children do care.
8:47
They care to carry it on.
8:48
And then we're finding that the younger generation,
8:52
and we're finding maybe 12 to 15-year-olds
8:55
are re-approaching this trade, and..
9:00
- That's the point. - Interesting.
9:01
- Because there's some things that we should never let die.
9:05
- And here's an interesting thing.
9:07
You see that rivet right there?
9:08
This got me in a lot of trouble.
9:09
- Why? - Well, not really.
9:12
But flip right there.
9:14
Because what this is, is this is pre-welding technology.
9:17
This is when they couldn't stick that handle on there.
9:19
And the only way to do it
9:20
is they put a piece of metal in there,
9:21
and they form, they round both sides to squeeze it.
9:25
It's a clamping system.
9:26
It's a beautiful, it's honest, and it's forever.
9:30
You can't get that off unless you drill it out
9:32
or grind it off.
9:33
So what happened was, a few years ago, many years ago,
9:37
now it's a few years in my brain, but it's 15 or 16,
9:41
the state of Ohio Department of Transportation contacted me
9:44
and said, "Hey, we have an iron bridge from 1840,
9:47
and we need somebody that has that knowledge
9:50
to look at this and see if it's able to be restored."
9:53
So I traveled up to Northern Ohio,
9:55
and we spent a couple days going over this bridge.
9:59
And the main reason I was called is because of this,
10:01
because it had 2,000 or more rivets that had to be replaced.
10:06
And nobody knew how to do that anymore.
10:08
There's very few, I'm not gonna say nobody,
10:10
there's very few.
10:11
And so I took the job.
10:12
And now my family, and we have another company north of us,
10:18
are the only people that restore these old iron bridges
10:22
with hot riveting.
10:24
So, currently-
10:25
- How long did that take you to complete that job?
10:28
- Most bridges take just under a year,
10:31
but we have a bridge in the shop right now
10:33
that came out of Midland, Michigan,
10:37
and it's a 300-foot double-span iron bridge made in 1907.
10:42
- And it fits in your shop?
10:43
- No, it's laying out in pieces,
10:45
all over the ground outside.
10:48
But each piece has a tag.
10:50
The girls will map the bridge,
10:52
each tag corresponds to the map.
10:54
And then what we do in the shop is restore each piece,
10:59
put in new rivets, new metal if it needs it,
11:01
make sure it's sound.
11:03
Then we'll put a finish on it, take it back to site,
11:06
put it back together like a big puzzle.
11:07
And it'll last for another 150 years.
11:11
And so that's quite an honor, too.
11:13
And that is truly one of my favorite passions.
11:16
And I've been able to convince the children
11:17
that that's something that they should be doing, too.
11:19
- And, you know, Doug, you're so fortunate
11:23
that your children bought in, - Right.
11:27
- For what you do.
11:30
Because family businesses are hard.
11:32
- They are. - They're hard.
11:33
But if everybody has the same passion, it'll work.
11:38
- And there's nothing more heartwarming than me...
11:40
We were doing a bridge in Pennsylvania,
11:42
and it was late at night, it was like eight o'clock,
11:45
and all the children were on the bridge,
11:46
and I was down below.
11:48
So I had two-man baskets,
11:49
and I had my daughters up in the baskets,
11:52
and I had my son on the top riveting, and my son-in-law.
11:55
And it was just,
11:57
those moments that get burned into your memory,
12:00
that's like a special moment.
12:01
That was one of 'em.
12:03
But we'd sure like, if you're ever up in our way,
12:06
to come and visit the shop,
12:07
'cause it's truly an old fashioned-
12:08
- I would love it. - Blacksmith shop.
12:12
We have vintage tools. - Yes, I would love to see it.
12:19
Well, I can't wait for the next video
12:25
because your wife, Birdie, is gonna be teaching me
12:31
how to cook something on these beautiful pans.
12:35
Is that right? - Right.
12:36
We're gonna show you the versatility of these skillets.
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This is, if you notice in our packaging,
12:44
when you get this skillet, we've included something new.
12:46
We just started.
12:47
We hand forged a little hook about this big,
12:49
because all of the report back we get are,
12:55
this skillet doesn't even go in the cupboard.
12:57
I leave it on the stove, or it's my favorite.
12:59
And we hear that over and over.
13:01
And that really keeps us in a place
13:06
that reassures us that we're doing the right thing.
13:08
- Right. - So we make this little hook
13:11
that you can hang somewhere by your stove,
13:13
you make a special place for it.
13:14
And we just include that,
13:15
because that's kind of a guarantee.
13:16
We know it's gonna be your special tool.
13:18
- All right, and how do you attach that hook to-
13:20
- That'll be a screw.
13:21
There's a screw hole in it, and you put it on your wall,
13:24
and you can hang your favorite skillet on there.
13:25
It's never too far from your oven, or your stove.
13:27
- You know, I don't have pot hangers.
13:29
I used to have pot hangers.
13:31
But when we redid the house,
13:34
I shot my show here for, gosh, quite a few years.
13:41
And the film company just took over this part of the house.
13:46
That's what made us wanna go build down the road.
13:51
But, so I didn't get my pot rack back,
13:55
and I have missed it terribly bad.
13:59
- That'd be awesome if you'd show me a picture,
14:01
a drawing of it, and I could help you bring that thing back.
14:04
- Well, Eddie, would you have any idea where...
14:07
You'd see it on my shows! - Oh, yeah.
14:11
Let's see if we can dig that up.
14:13
- Yeah. - But, again,
14:14
I think Birdie's going to do a steak in this,
14:17
because there's a number of really,
14:21
there's just a tremendous ways you can use this,
14:23
but searing steaks is really awesome.
14:27
We have some professional chefs in local restaurants
14:29
that are doing crab cakes only.
14:31
Like if you go in their kitchen,
14:33
don't touch the skillet unless you're making a crab cake.
14:36
- Unless you wanna lose your arm.
14:37
- Yeah, and then the chef will only sear steaks in it.
14:40
But Birdie's gonna explain to you
14:42
all the ways that she uses it, and there's a lot.
14:45
- This is a very interesting man.
14:47
And I think y'all gonna find that the rest of his family
14:50
is almost as interesting as the founder of this company.
14:59
He's got a beautiful family. - Well, thank you, Paula.
15:01
We're really- - Beautiful family.
15:02
- Glad to be here and spend this time with you.
15:05
- I'm so glad you finally made the effort to make it.
15:08
And I enjoy giving hoorays
15:21
to those people that I admire.
15:23
And I like sharing.
15:26
- Well... - That with people.
15:27
- You can include this if you want or not,
15:29
but the reason I reached out to you,
15:32
and I think you'll remember this.
15:34
We were watching a cooking show one time,
15:36
and it's with Gordon Ramsay.
15:38
- Yes, I was on Gordon Ramsay's show two or three times.
15:41
- Well, one episode, I don't know really how to,
15:46
you probably shouldn't air this, but,
15:47
- Just say it. - Okay, here it is.
15:50
I see people come there on their last leg.
15:54
They're like waitresses or pizza delivery.
15:56
- Yes. - And they wanna be a chef.
15:58
- Yes. - And sometimes,
16:00
his critique can be really cruel.
16:03
- Absolutely, absolutely.
16:04
- And so I,
16:05
- I have a hard time with that.
16:07
- Okay, but you solved it. And I'm gonna tell you why.
16:10
Because on this one episode,
16:12
I would see these people,
16:14
and they would be so heartbroken that they would go home
16:17
and just quit on everything.
16:19
And so you came in, I don't know if you remember this show.
16:22
You came in and you went up to them and you said,
16:24
"Now, honey, I know this isn't your best work,
16:27
but I believe in you."
16:29
And you did something that I've always said
16:34
that our country needs more Paul Harvey's.
16:36
Remember that? - I miss Paul Harvey.
16:38
- We have so much negativity in our,
16:40
and I we don't need to add to that.
16:41
And when I saw you do that, I said,
16:43
"That is a person
16:44
that I would like to share our cookware with."
16:46
And that's the reason I reached out to you.
16:48
- I did not realize that was the reason,
16:50
but I knew that that was, that part of that show,
16:57
the schtick was to be kinda tough.
17:00
And I said, "I'm gonna have a problem with that."
17:03
- Well, you solved it. Good job.
17:05
- Good, good. I'm so glad.
17:07
- And everybody there appreciated it, too.
17:08
All the contestants.
17:10
- Yes.
17:11
- But you were such a genuine person
17:12
that I think if we'd have more shows like that,
17:15
we'd have a better place to live.
17:17
- Well, I have had my show on the Internet now for,
17:22
well, we started, actually, Doug,
17:26
when it was COVID was running rampant and they passed,
17:36
I don't know what you call it.
17:37
But, anyway, we weren't allowed to leave our homes.
17:39
- Right.
17:40
- And I thought, "Oh, my goodness."
17:42
And it was in on such short notice.
17:46
I thought, how many people out there
17:48
maybe didn't have time to get with their family,
17:51
or anything and they're stuck by themselves in their home.
17:55
They had the world frightened to death.
17:59
And so I said, "I've got to figure out something to do."
18:02
And I was talking to Bobby, one of my sons, and I said,
18:07
"I sure would wish for a way to reach out to people
18:12
during this terrible time."
18:14
And he said, "Well, Mama, go do your show on YouTube."
18:18
And I said, "I can do that?"
18:20
He said, "Yeah, just start your YouTube channel."
18:25
And I called it "Quarantine Cooking."
18:26
- Oh!
18:29
- And, of course, now, after all these years,
18:31
it's become "Love and Best Dishes."
18:34
And I cannot wait for you to be a part of that channel.
18:40
- Oh, that's so exciting.
18:41
It's such a honor to meet you, and be in your presence.
18:44
- Thank you, thank you. You're so kind.
18:47
And you know what I've noticed? Your hands are beautiful.
18:52
They're beautiful. - That's amazing.
18:53
My hands are always black, and,
18:56
- They have no-
18:57
- Three days of not being in the coal
18:58
and they just shine right back up, isn't it?
19:00
- Yeah, they're beautiful.
19:01
You would never know by his hands that he's a blacksmith.
19:05
(both laughing)
19:07
Let's go to the kitchen.
19:08
- I'm with ya. - Okay.
19:13
Hey, y'all, it's Paula Deen.
19:15
Now, if you enjoyed this video, be sure to like it
19:19
and click the subscribe button as well as the notification
19:23
bell to be alerted when I post a video.
19:26
Love and Best Dishes Y'all.

Premium

Love & Best Dishes: Meet Blacksmith Doug Lockhart of Lockhart Ironworks

Paula Deen