Blacksmith

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.