I had done a little woodworking, but metal is more permanent.<\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
House studied industrial design at NC State and set up a small metal workshop in the Boylan Heights neighborhood in Raleigh. Even then, though, House didn\u2019t necessarily see forging and metal fabrication as a potential career. \u201cI was just doing it, but when I was done I had people who wanted my work,\u201d he says. \u201cI thought, \u2018I\u2019ll look for a job,\u2019 but 18 years later I\u2019ve never had a real job. I\u2019ve been lucky and found 1,000 little jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Homebuilding was booming in Raleigh when House graduated in 2004, and he kept busy making things like custom handrails for stairs. \u201cI made simple pieces, but then someone wanted something nicer,\u201d he says. \u201cIt grew to where I could do some pretty artistic versions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n House, through Iron House Forge, has done work for commercial and residential clients. He\u2019s also created large pieces for public spaces, such as decorative entry gates for Hemlock Bluffs Nature Preserve in Cary, N.C., and benches, bike racks and other landscaping elements for Horton\u2019s Creek Elementary School, also in Cary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2016, House saw an opportunity to tap into the growing interest in working with metal, fueled largely by reality shows such as the History Channel\u2019s Forged in Fire<\/em>. He started by offering a couple of two-person classes in his shop, and the interest continued to grow. By 2019, House had established the nonprofit ShopSpace on Capital Boulevard in Raleigh. It now offers eight to 10 classes a week, in subjects ranging from blacksmithing and metal fabrication to jewelry making. People who have completed a class can rent time so that they can use the tools at ShopSpace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Students learn that working with metal is not nearly as easy as it looks on television. \u201cOn TV, it happens in half an hour, and they don\u2019t see the time spent standing next to a grinder and getting showered with sparks,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s grueling, heavy, dirty work.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false,"raw":"\n\n\n\n\n Lucas House \u201904 had no way of knowing what a big deal it was when he traded in his high school band class for welding. As it turns out, it was the first step toward a career of making things out of metal\u2009\u2014\u2009and teaching others how to do it as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI had done a little woodworking, but metal is more permanent,\u201d House says. \u201cI liked the immediacy of it, and there\u2019s just so many different ways to use it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I had done a little woodworking, but metal is more permanent.<\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n House studied industrial design at NC State and set up a small metal workshop in the Boylan Heights neighborhood in Raleigh. Even then, though, House didn\u2019t necessarily see forging and metal fabrication as a potential career. \u201cI was just doing it, but when I was done I had people who wanted my work,\u201d he says. \u201cI thought, \u2018I\u2019ll look for a job,\u2019 but 18 years later I\u2019ve never had a real job. I\u2019ve been lucky and found 1,000 little jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Homebuilding was booming in Raleigh when House graduated in 2004, and he kept busy making things like custom handrails for stairs. \u201cI made simple pieces, but then someone wanted something nicer,\u201d he says. \u201cIt grew to where I could do some pretty artistic versions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n House, through Iron House Forge, has done work for commercial and residential clients. He\u2019s also created large pieces for public spaces, such as decorative entry gates for Hemlock Bluffs Nature Preserve in Cary, N.C., and benches, bike racks and other landscaping elements for Horton\u2019s Creek Elementary School, also in Cary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2016, House saw an opportunity to tap into the growing interest in working with metal, fueled largely by reality shows such as the History Channel\u2019s Forged in Fire<\/em>. He started by offering a couple of two-person classes in his shop, and the interest continued to grow. By 2019, House had established the nonprofit ShopSpace on Capital Boulevard in Raleigh. It now offers eight to 10 classes a week, in subjects ranging from blacksmithing and metal fabrication to jewelry making. People who have completed a class can rent time so that they can use the tools at ShopSpace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Students learn that working with metal is not nearly as easy as it looks on television. \u201cOn TV, it happens in half an hour, and they don\u2019t see the time spent standing next to a grinder and getting showered with sparks,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s grueling, heavy, dirty work.\u201d<\/p>\n"},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lucas House \u201904 opened a studio to help others learn the crafts of blacksmithing and welding.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":3568,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"views\/single-immersive.blade.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"source":"","ncst_custom_author":"","ncst_show_custom_author":false,"ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"ncst\/default-immersive-post-header","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"{\"showAuthor\":true,\"showDate\":true,\"showFeaturedVideo\":false,\"backgroundColor\":\"gray_600\",\"subtitle\":\"Lucas House \u201904 opened a studio to help others learn the crafts of blacksmithing and welding. Photographs by Joshua Steadman.\",\"caption\":\"\",\"displayCategoryID\":6}","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,10,8,9],"tags":[151,270,513,532,548,728,1068,1250],"_ncst_magazine_issue":[],"class_list":["post-4817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-best-bets","category-class-act","category-newswire","category-stories","tag-blacksmithing","tag-college-of-design","tag-hemlock-bluffs-nature-preserve","tag-hortons-creek-elementary-school","tag-iron-house-forge","tag-lucas-house","tag-shopspace","tag-welding"],"displayCategory":{"term_id":6,"name":"Campus Lens","slug":"campus-lens","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":6,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4817"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4817"},{"taxonomy":"_ncst_magazine_issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_ncst_magazine_issue?post=4817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/House2_JSteadman_rgb-1024x802.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n