2024 was another year of controlled chaos here at the forge. A small team of us made and shipped thousands of pieces to folks all over North America and even some folks overseas. We wanted to share some of the highs from the year as well as what's in store for 2025. 

Lots of Construction

It's not just metal bits we've been making. A few years ago we relocated the forge to an old farm. Our workshop is a 100+ year old dairy barn. 2023 was the year of basic things like floors and walls. But 2024 was the year of the roof. Lots of roof!

This workshop has 8 roofs that we installed ourselves. When we started working to replace the existing roof on the original barn, we found half of the roof decking was rotten and needed to be replaced, but the other half was still in good shape. So our ceiling is now half old and half new. Perhaps this mixture is a metaphor for the work we do here?

And if you're curious if we kept making things while we worked on the roof, the answer is yes we did and it was horrendous. Don't recommend it. Here's a picture of that, too. 

Lot's of Lines

We've been taking advantage of this refreshing sub-zero arctic weather to wrap up some interior upgrades of running propane, electrical, and airlines throughout the shop. Here's a look at the crazy conduits we have now for all things flammable. This mess of cables represents a huge shift for Wicks Forge. Even though we've been in business for over a decade, this will be the first time we have not been operating primarily using extension cords to power all our equipment. 

Lots of New Irons in the Fire

We had some fun new designs last year but the biggest project was finally releasing a full set of fire tools with a matching stand. While a simple set, there are 23 individual components in them. Meanwhile, a typical product we make might have one or two component pieces. So it took a lot to figure out workable designs that we could produce completely ourselves as well as production processes and tooling to begin making them. Learn more about them here. 

A Few New Folks

Our family of misfits grew this year with the addition of a new blacksmith and a finishing and shipping helper. Read about our full team here.

What's Hot for 2025

As we move into the winter months, our two main focuses are doing production runs to get pieces back in stock after the holiday rush while avoiding frostbite. However, we've got a few new products up our sleeves for this spring that we're really excited about. Stay tuned in the coming months for a new line of gardening tools, some fun new cooking products, and even some funky new home hardware.

As always, we're so thankful to you all for your business and support. Being able to work in this field is a dream come true and our amazing customers are the ones that make this dream a reality. Thank you for being a part of our quirky family and hope y'all have a great start to 2025.