Steel City maestro on 44 years of working hot metal
IN 44 years, Andy Cole reckons he has handcrafted “millions” of tools out of steel.
One of few artisan steelmakers left, Mr Cole is based at Portland Works, in Sheffield, where he started at Wigfull Tools aged 14, and “never left”.
His parents had suggested that rather than Mr Cole fulfilling his desire to become a mechanic, he should “go and help (owner) Eric (Wigfull)” on his school holiday.
Eventually he took over, and was employing 12 people when the recession struck and mass cheap imports of the stonemason and builders’ tools his firm made started rolling in.
The business shut down, but Mr Cole, who was part of the campaign to keep Portland Works open when it was under threat of being converted to flats, was determined to continue.
Many of the tools he makes go to America and Canada to craftsmen such as professional woodturners.
Mr Cole is a forger – which he says is rather like being a blacksmith. “The machines I work on are mechanical, they date back to the building being built in 1878. I have a blacksmith’s hearth but my main thing is making specialised tools. It’s only a tool, but it’s still someone handling it and making other things out of that tool you have made. It’s just in my blood, I love it.”
It is a hard physical job which has left him with a catalogue of injuries, but Mr Cole, 58, says that is “just one of those things”.
His four children don’t want to follow in his footsteps, but he is hoping that one of his young apprentice blacksmiths one day will take on the business.