Last summer, I visited Heartwood Forge on a whim. Will Manning and I had been chatting about craft for weeks, and it felt right to swing by his home shop on Jonesborough’s Main Street as I made my way through eastern Tennessee one sunny Saturday. I knew he hadn’t returned to full-time blacksmithing yet, but I didn’t realize I was the shop’s first visitor since his hand injury months prior.
I saw several in-progress blades on the central table, with an order for stainless steel knives from months ago half-packed on the workbench. We walked around to the shed’s back porch and found a wasp’s nest forming by the bandsaw where he had impaled himself. “It’s become a bit of a Wild West out here,” he told me. “I haven’t done much upkeep since the accident.”
A quiet shop littered with half-finished projects is far from the norm for Manning. Custom knife orders, quarterly online sales, and the occasional hands-on blacksmithing class usually keep his studio bustling year-round. Before the accident, Manning hadn’t taken more than two weeks off since going full-time in 2014—the same year Garden & Gun named him a runner-up in its Made in the South Awards. That recognition was life-changing, he says, and now his handcrafted knives and utensils are in the hands of chefs and home cooks nationwide.
But in June 2024, a split-second decision threatened to end it all. As Manning was cutting a beautiful piece of sycamore given to him by lauded Appalachian chairmaker and Jonesborough neighbor Curtis Buchanan, he inadvertently sliced his index finger open past the knuckle, necessitating a trip to the emergency room and, later that week, into intensive surgery. The whole incident “really shed a spotlight on how delicate my situation is,” he said. “I wasn’t sure if I’d be out of work for three days, three weeks, three months, or if I’d ever be doing it again.”
That’s when his community rallied together to help. Neighbors and local business owners provided groceries, warm meals, financial help, and a hand or two around the house for Manning, his wife, and their three-year-old daughter. In a heartfelt gesture, a group of folks banded together to tend to the family’s garden, ensuring their small flower stand provided viable income while Will recovered. “Some of them were friends, but some of them we met for the first time when they came to weed our garden,” Manning said. “I was blown away and so grateful for how people showed up in so many ways.”
Online, friends and followers were equally as supportive. “When I woke up from surgery, the three available pieces on my website had sold—all to the same family, one for each generation, related to old neighbors turned good friends in Athens, Georgia.” Craftspeople from across the world wrote to Manning, sharing their own stories of shop accidents and disasters, helping him feel less alone. Donations poured in, too, including rapid relief from CERF+, a grant-making organization that offers immediate assistance to craftspeople following emergencies or disasters.
These days, Manning is back to forging full time—but with a new approach and perspective. “I’m trying not to get caught up in being productive. I move slower now. I’m paying more attention—better attention—when making pieces now.”
His renewed sense of focus is key because Manning’s processes are anything but conventional. The blacksmith uses only reclaimed materials for his wares, from the wood of his handles to the steel and iron making up his blades. In his metal pile, you’ll find slim bands from old bourbon barrels, run-down saw blades from an abandoned lumber mill, and even scraps from a wrought-iron water tower from a small Florida town. Manning will conduct routine tests to assess the metal’s usability and then send it to a lab for a DNA test of sorts. Based on the carbon content, he’ll craft knives, choppers, or cleavers from the steel or combine scraps to create a cohesive whole, a bit like a patchwork quilt. Working with reclaimed materials is unpredictable yet rewarding, as he describes it. “Sometimes it’s a strained friendship, and sometimes it’s a fleeting love affair.”
Returning to the shop has been unpredictable yet rewarding, too. Despite the usual challenges, Manning is grateful to be doing what he loves again. “I hate to make it sound like getting injured was a good thing,” Manning told me. “It definitely wasn’t. But the new perspective I’ve gained is priceless, a silver lining of sorts.”
Find Will Manning’s hand-forged wares here.
