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Morning with an ironworker, off the grid

A visit to Amos Glick's Compass Iron Works

Amos Glick is the founder and chief at Compass Iron Works, in western Chester County. He and his crew of seven forge, hammer, repair and hang iron bars into ornate balconies and banisters, sculpture and lantern casings and durable fences, at big homes and businesses along the East Coast.

It's an old trade, but Compass also innovates: A 55-gallon clear-topped drum is a salt-water spray chamber testing magnesium alloys for Shore jobs; a compressed-air swing relentlessly tests Glick's own-make hinges to turn easily and wear hard.

Compass serves fancy customers, but the owner and most of his workers are members of a plain-living Amish community, a German-descended Christian group that avoids the electric grid, car-driving and some other worldly distractions. They have reworked small forges to rely on liquid fuel and battery power; their self-reliance and sustainability has raised their profile among green-focused building designers and clients, and Glick has begun presenting his designs and methods to national architects' and builders' groups.  Two "English" workers handle email, computer-aided design and driving chores. 

Glick walked me through his studio, rolling out sample cases, demonstrating workstations and explaining works in progress as a few of his seven children passed through quietly, lending a hand as needed; he rode with me across the county to an eight-bedroom brick mansion in the Philadelphia Main Line suburb of Devon, where his crew is installing ground-floor railings they built to patterns gleaned from a century-old balcony they restored on the second floor.

Glick declined to have his picture taken, so this will have to do: He's short and wiry, with wavy dark hair, pale eyes and a flowing jawline beard; dressed today in a loose blue shirt, suspenders, black wool trousers, a trim straw hat, boots.

A transcript of our talk, trimmed a bit for clarity: We started the company in 1998. My father had migrated from the center of Lancaster County to a farm three miles down the road here.

When I was young, I was at the blacksmith's, watching him shoe horses. You put a piece of metal at the forge, heat it and beat it, and you get a completely different shape. I was mesmerized about that.

What I love now about what we're doing, it's not about shoeing horses for a month or a couple of weeks. The artistry we're putting out there can be part of the design legacy in a building, and also an inspiration for those who follow.

Are you familiar with Samuel Yellin? He was a Polish immigrant to Phliadelphia, he started his company in 1909, by the peak in 1926 he had 250 smiths. He is America's most celebrated artist blacksmith. Glick keeps a book of Yellin's work in his office.

Where did you learn the trade?
 On the farm, from a necessity standpoint, I was learning how to weld. When I was 17, I went to work in an equipment repair shop, then to equipment manufacturing (at the Pequea (PECK-way) works, in Gortonville, Lancaster County). My main focus was making manure spreaders that are sold throughout the Amish community. I was in there a couple of months, and it was, 'Wow, this is really what I want to do.' The brake press, the punches, the iron work, I soaked up all the knowledge I could. 

I worked my way up the ladder. But at 21 or 22 I was too young to be in a management position. I got demoted. So I started my own company. 

I saw this need for this very specialized iron work. High quality, high end, attention to detail iron work. To serve that client base, that architect, that builder, that really wants this, they've got the taste, they've got the resources to pay for it.

I was 22 in 1998. My Dad helped me with buying the property. From there I went to the local Mennonite bank.
At first we wanted to keep it right there at the farm. We tried to build a shop and a house across the road. Some of the neighbors weren't too excited. So that didnt work. We ended up buying this property that had been a big old saw mill once. There was a house -- Susie and I had gotten married -- and about 3,000 feet of shop space. Now we're at 17,000 (sq. ft.)

How did you prepare the site? This property was non-Amish when we bought it. We remodeled, to go completely off the grid. Years ago they had piped water off the mountain, in terra cotta pipes, to feed the steam engine that ran the sawmill and the blacksmith shop. They still had easements.

How do you as a community decide what technology works for you and what is to be avoided?
 There's a bishop congregation that meets twice a year. They hash out and come to an agreement over the whole settlement, as well as sister settlements from Wisconsin, Indiana, New York. Each bishop goes out to his individual district and works within the district.

Sometimes it's a question of scale:
 For example, 12-volt (battery power) is much more permissible than the 110-volt (grid). 

Do you forge new metal?
 The iron is typically 97 percent recycled content. The railing, the fence, the gates, that gets a LEED rating of 4.1 or 4.2 (highly sustainable). There's a 5.2 that our product can be a part of. When we use aluminum, it's aircraft-grade aluminum, 100 percent recycled content. 

Where's the job today?
 On Fairfield Road in Devon. The original house was built by John Torrey Windrim in 1901, with an addition in 1924. He was a prominent architect (Franklin Institute, John Wanamaker's, hundreds of homes, Peco and Bell stations). The design attempt was to be as authentic to the old estate as possible. We had to go iron. We also want to have it as maintenance-free for the client as possible; we could use an aircraft-grade aluminum and have it completely maintenance-free. But it would look too new, too fresh, too smooth. So we went iron. It's hot-dipped and galvanized, so I'm not worried about it corroding. We added a very flat, a very low-sheen powder, so it really looks like it would have been done 100 years ago.

We are also cleaning and re-installing old work we assume was created in 1901. There are little idiosyncracies that are very cool, that allude to the craft, the detail work of the iron smith back in the day. 

How is your shop different from a standard iron works that's on the power grid?
 We have a series of small forges, some generator-driven, some (battery-powered.) It's permissible not to be tied in with the world. What runs the generator? It's somewhat diesel fuel. We use all the biofuel we can lay our hands on. If we can grow our own energy right than pay the fighting Arabs for it, we're so much ahead as a country. We also use propane. 

Did you consider water power?
 The spring here has never failed in 100 years. The question we have to ask, would it be enough volume to run industry? Back in steam days, you needed water to run a steam engine. (You need a lot more waterpower to run machines directly from flowing water.)

Most of the equipment here is converted to air or hydraulic. When we buy a punch press first thing we look at is how do we adapt it to run non-electric. That's where the hydraulic motor comes in. Everything off the grid. That's where our culture is so in tune to innovation or adapting.

Can builders tell your work from large commercial suppliers?
 There's hardly anything that upsets me more than going to the shore, seeing beautiful houses, and seeing metalwork that I know they have paid tens of thousands of dollars for, and a year after the house was built it's corroding everywhere. That, to me, is disgusting.

Aircraft-grade aluminum is much more structural. If you want to go frilly, you go to architectual-grade aluminum. 
What's really important in those cases all the ornamentation, the post ball caps, the knuckles, the casted ornaments. There's hundreds of designs you can get off the shelf. But they're using copper or zinc as part of the (alloy). Cast aluminum is very soft. The other metals add rigidity. But copper and zinc, as soon as you introduce salt air element, and it's subjected to that, you will have a galvanic reaction. 

Our ornamentations are poured with magnesium. We had it tested in Florida. Magnesium and aluminum are right beside each other (in the periodic table of elements) so there's no galvanic reaction. 

We teach ironworkers, we're also an [American Institute of Architects]-accredited continuing-education provider. We're also  accredited with the American Society of Landscape Architects and the American Society of Interior Designers. 

(He stops and addresses two of his children, who are listening in a corner of his office, softly, in German.)
 We have developed a short course. We've done it twice. We educate architects, invite them to learn about different techniques and be a lot smarter. We looked into this two years ago and we (found that), what was available to architects on the AIA level, there was nothing in ironworks. 

So there's a whole industry that is missing the boat on providing valid education to architects. The younger generation coming out of vo-tech doesn't have the hands-on experience... Now they can know more of the latest techniques. They can spec it much more intelligently.  

At each workstation, I interact directly with a client, an architect or a builder. We unearth their design sensibilities. At the end of the day, what statement do they want to leave behind? We work out a budget.

(How do you work with faraway clients?)
 Leo Leofsky my assistant and driver, has his own office and his own technology.  When he goes out at the end of the day, there's none of that technology left in the building. He does CAD, he does consulting agreements... Adam drives the installation truck. He's also English (non-Amish), like Leo.

We were working with clients, they had a beautiful home in Villanova, they wanted a more transitional residence in Virginia, closer to their daughter. They wanted to pull elements from their classic home into their home down there. We started with CAD drawings and provided them with different design styles. it was a four month project in dialog with the designer and the homeowner. We had two trips to the site, and a trip for them to us to look at different metal treatments and design element.

When that was done and we were ready to go to contract, since this project was large, we had two craftsmen involved. One did exterior work, one did interior work. They took all the measurements and they had a CAD drawing it was based on. It became their project.

As the work goes, they are dialoguing directly with the designer and homeowner. As they work there's details uncovered. Now, you don't want to make assumptions (about how to adapt plans to circumstances). Some clients do say, 'Do what you think is best.' In this case they are in charge of building it, overseeing the finishing. In this case it was a very old technique of blackening, using oxidation to tarnish it, give a textured feel to it. They were responsible for that. They went to install it. The pride of ownership is there for them as well. The project is done, it fits, it becomes their client. 

How is the shop set up, how do you assign the work? Each station here is built around the craftsman and the project. The forging station; the scrolling machine; the texturing. So if John needs to be forging and Adam needs to have something building and my Dad (Ben) needs something, they are all using the same forging station, and then texturing and scrolling, they will interchange the man, based on their needs for the client's project. By having these individual stations, you have the luxury of a larger shop, larger resources more equipment at our fingertips, to do a larger variety, to cater more to the clients' tastes. But you still have that direct interaction with the craftsmen. 

What's it like, having your father work for you?
 My father retired from farming, and started working. (Amos laughts.) He's a craftsman. Your kids too? Our son Benjamin helps in the shop. Daughter Sadie, in the office. 

You're not always here to conduct the band.
 It does become a challenge with all the education we're doing of architects. I'm on the road sometimes, from 8, til 3, 4, 5. We did a 'Lunch and Learn' in Conshohocken for some of the architects.

Are clients focused more on security than during the grand age of ornamental ironwork?
  We work for clients who are sometimes very privacy oriented. We had a cilent who wanted fence like they built in the '20s, 8 foot tall, solid iron (rods), tapered on top. They wanted assurance nobody would have an easy time breaking through the fence and getting into the property.

They were spending good money employing good people and putting this together with landscape designers architects a classic property that would have been fitting in the 1910s, 20s, 30s. The last thing we wanted to do was put up a piece of junk.

Unfortunately there's a lot of that same level of properties throughout the country that, they have the design sensitivity, the client has the taste for that, but they don't know where to go to do this work. That's why we're reaching out to the architectual, the design communities. The limit is your design sensibilities. if you can design it we can build it for that unique property, for that client that appreciates quality. That wants security. Not like the tract home. 

What's your key equipment?
 The first forge we got was a three-burner. As you grow and are looking to meet your clients' needs, you adopt. We also have the induction forge now and a larger propane forge. But 90 percent of the projects drift back to that original forge because you're comfortable working on it.

There's a company, Hebo, in Germany, that is a main manufacturer of these forges. There's a company on the West Coast that is the distributor. We bought the induction forge from a smith on the west coast that has since passed away. 

What's the industry group you've joined?
 We're part of NOMA - National and Ornamental Miscellaneous Metals Assocation. They had me to speak at their national conference in St. Louis this year. It was a little intimidating. It was the national directors. As in anything, the first couple of minutes are the hardest parts. But once you get to the ironworks part (it's comfortable.) 

In 2015 it's going to be in Valley Forge. We're the Northeast Chapter of NOMA, I am part of the marketing committee, we've been pushing to have a local conference here. We'd like to pay tribute to Samuel Yellin who did all that work in Center City. We're talking about a tour.

Don't ironworks all compete for clients?
 As a whole they're a very open book, through NOMA. One of the men, his exact words, 'We're all competitors, we might as well be friends instead of enemies.' There are some shops that won't open up to NOMA. But most do.

Is your works unusual? Almost everybody who has a shop is somewhat innovative. Not always to the level we are, they don't have the same cultural background. But the're very intrigued by what we do.

We had a chapter meeting, it went like this: Guy says, 'I'd love to have a power hammer.' 'Well, we have one that works off compressed air.' That's another acceptable manner of power for us. And then I say, 'We built one with 1850s steam-hammer technology.' With a hit-and-miss engine. Turn it on, it hisses for awhile, it's missing (misfiring). Then it starts to hit.   

You've built some repetitive testing devices. 
We did research years ago for pre-treatment and powder-coat process for projects at the Shore that need to withstand the salt air. If it works there, it'll work anywhere. An independent lab tested 13 processes. We worked with that for awhile.

But we wanted more. We had a contact who worked with magnesium. We talked about building a salt spray chamber. We had some ideas. Alternating current not being the good way to go, we went to a local tractor supply place, got a 12 volt pump, made sure it had atomizing nozzles, and started that thing up. We put the salinity in there, 5%. The ocean is about 3.2%. So it has the ocean concentration, and also is in compliance with what the industry does for the ALMA 2604, the guidelines that the powder-coated industry are governed by, or the threshholds that they meet. 

We built that, and put different levels of pre-treatment and powder in there, to see what happens. We've now been able to dissect the different parts of the pretreatment that are the weakest. But the whole chain is doing very well. If we can microscopically look at this link and make it stronger, that's the goal. To give us that assurance we're on the right track, we've done a six-figure rail job on a property on the beach. (It's holding up after a few years?) Yes.

And the hinge lab... 
We're trying to get up to a million revolutions. For centuries hinges were simply a pin inside a barrel. You may have a plate that hinge rested on. You'd have metal grinding metal with a force of hunderds of pounds. It wasn't a big issue because the Rockefellers or Vanderbilts would have footmen open it as you passed through.

But now people don't have all the servants. With electric controls you have to open automatically. Everyone says the gate looks awesome. But to the architect spec(ify)ing the gate, the most important part is that hinge. 

There's nothing more frustrating for Mr. Rockefeller to be tearing out of the gate for his 1 o'clock golf meeting and the gate won't open. So how can we have the gate operate frictionlessly day in and out? We'll test dust storms, we'll test temperatures up to 200 degrees, we'll be testing salt spray. And a million cycles.

You'll test your own spring, with three different-sized barrels and interior washers
 -- Against the hinge that's the industry standard we had used in prior years.

The findings we have so far is, we are getting led astray by the industry standard. Your hinge is better? We want to dig deeper, (but) we think they may be a little off. The only way to find out for sure is to have the hinges side by side, go and go and go.

If you have a robust heavy-duty (automatic door) operator on there it opens harder. But the one we've designed is one-tenth the power. It operates on 5 pounds per square inch, vs. the industry is telling us 50 psi. We are assimilating a thousand-pound gate, 10-foot-wide leaf. 

We also have materials we're bringing in, to be able to intelligently educate our architects on the next level: Monel (nickel alloy), stainless, nickel-silver, different coppers, bronzes, aluminum, titanium. 

People think, 'I can use stainless and it will withstand the elements.' But when you forge it (to shape the bars), it loses its non-corrosive properties. You have to passivate (coat) it. The best test lab is a salt-spray chamber. We'll put bare stainless, forged stainless passivated stainless and we've had a landscape architect ask for blackened stainless. We want to do that test and be able to give the landscape architect intelligent science on what works and how it's done. 

What are the big jobs?
 Foyers, interiors, balconies, grand entries. A big piece of the work is security fencing and gates around private gardens. Pools. Fences, security fence, gilding on a fence, privacy fence. The Villanova fence (fleur de lys, ornamentation.) The Bryn Mawr fence, that's a 1920s, forged-point fence. A spearhead? I don't know if we'd want to call it a spear.

There are many finishes we offer for standard bar. Surface hammered is most popular. For the purist, that's repetitious. A lot of work we need the scroll bender. Fences, security fence, pool fence, gilding, privacy fence...

Working on (Philadelphia Eagle football player-turned-U.S. Rep.) Jon Runyan's gate in Moorestown is where I grew my first gray hair. It's a French manor. They wanted something more feminine. More curves. Panels had to belly, also had all this embellishments. We did that, it stressed out the metallurgy, the bars started falling apart. So we had to start again.

Then we had code issues, with gaps over four inches. We had to add a straight piece between the bent pieces. I was combing myself and I found a big gray hair. That was in 2007.

He made a family bed for his wife, Susie, who needs to change sleeping positions often. 
The beds out there used alternating current. We had to come up with another way. Compressed air.

Glick has compiled a fat book illustrating past jobs. 
We provide client consultation. The designers, they really follow Architectual Digest magazine and Miranda magazine. When a designer is looking at the whole envelope of furnishing a house, they are looking at window treatment, they're looking at curtains, they're looking at wallpaper. But a lot of the time, ironworks is passed over. There's really no way for them of following what's trending. So we've complied what's been done lately.

These are some expensive-looking homes, in your book.
 You got the money, honey, we got the time. (Laughs softly). 1840s, here's a barn made into a house. Ventnor, this is contemporary. We stay away from glass or cable, things that are not as crafted, where you buy components.

This is from the King of Prussia Mall. (It's a railing, colored green, with a cross motif.) This is a wedding hall in Sicklerville, N.J. (a long curved staircase.) We had to go back there: They had two halls to rent but they found all the brides wanted to be in [the hall with the Compass railing]. So we had to do the other so they'd keep using it, too. Now for this job in New Jersey, we had to build dies to make those balcony posts, to compress the tubes by six inches (and widen their centers while maintaining) structual integrity.

This, it's a hot pierced-iron arch, for a horse barn (two levels, as if built into an embankment, oldtime Chester County-style). And this house, we had to do 36,000 hammer blows, on iron all made in the U.S.A. (Where'd you get the leaves, labeled 'alcanthus' in the catalogue?) Off the shelf. 

We've done jobs from Alpine, N.J., down to D.C. West Chester, Margate, Ventnor, Lebanon, Bryn Mawr, Newtown. The biggest concentration of our work is two hours away, down around Longport and Margate and Ventnor, where the well-to-do people have their summer homes.

That's where we add magnesium to withstand the elements. Anything within 20 miles of the ocean will be exposted to salt water. Any work there has to be marine grade. -- Here's a custom alumnimum railing in Longport. It withstood Hurricane Sandy.  We installed it four days before that storm. 

We've done a ton of rework on Long Beach Island. There was an estate that had a crappy aluminum fence destroyed by Sandy. We came in and did the real thing with magnesium.

Public jobs?
 They had us do a couple of hundred linear feet when they refurbished the Elizabethtown (Lancaster County, Pa. Amtrak) train station. It had a picket fence. Built to their specs. A very interesting picket point. That was a challenge. 

You put your brand name, Compass, on the rail.  Yellin did that. That's what's driving his work today.  I saw a man paid $48,000 for a Yellin marble table base, the stone on it was cracked. It's a way for the owner to (recognize your shop and go back to it for repairs.) A way to make sure work is recognized in the generations to come. 

This rail at our house here, it's modeled on Ralph Lauren's store on Fifth Ave. His flagship store, on the Upper East Side. We modeled ours on that but with seven branches instead of five, for the seven children.

Glick also has an Idea Book with images of the Lauren store, the Breakers Mansion foyer for old Cornelius Vanderbilt in Newport, Rhode Island, the Horace Trumbauer-built Elms, also in Newport. The Vanderbilt's Biltmore estate in Asheville, N.C.  This is from the 1890s, pre Yellin. Nobody knows who did it? Everyone knows the architect. They know the landscape architect. But (before Yellin) no one can tell you who did the iron work. (Immigrants?) Some such work was done in Italy.

We are replicating these gates from Italy, ornamental security gates. They found these from 1742. And we did a pergola (fancy lantern). We are talking about a deal of iron work. Pierced bars, one-inch bars, pushing two bars through another bar, we'd need a new forge. And they wanted a handcrafted light fixture to go in the center of that pergola. I said, we won't be able to wire it. They said that's okay, you provide the structure. we'll figure out how to get that UL-listed.

Another book: Samuel Yellin, Metalworker by Jack Andrews.
 I was following this book, I found it for $100 but I thought that's too much for a book. I ended up, years later, paying $400. Yellin work is in 41 states including Hawaii. His shop was at 5520 Arch St. He has a ganddaughter sitll involved in the business. She's still selling and promoting. 

Does it affect you, as a member of a community that strives for Christian depth and simplicity, to be around so many wealthy people and the things they buy?
 As children we are taught about the worldly stuff, and right from wrong. And knowing that as a culture we cannot exist without serving other people, without doing work for other people.

So what's taught or preached or instructed is, to be in the world, but not as the world. So if we go out to have our business dealings be a testimony to the God we serve, so we can be a witness in who we are, and that we live and do our business dealings, that we are who we portray to be. Not to be hypocritical, or to cast a bad light on the Lord, or God's good graces.

That we might be, and I've heard it quoted a few times, we could be the only Bible that some people actually read.

So we really need to have honest upright business dealing with the outside world. 

Are you concerned about you and yours becoming attached or distracted by these things people own?
 I would think the individual working out there can typically see through the facade of such a life.

It's almost a culture shock from some of the high rolling estates that we do work for. They've got all this glitzy gilded foyers. I was in a house a month ago, 27,000 sq ft house, $15 million. I asked, how many people living here? One man, and his parttime kids. Okay, they've got all these worldly comforts. But somewhere the whole family structure isn't there anymore.  Money can't buy that. It has to come from the heart. 

We've worked with clients who are married, divorced, remarried. One of the first things that goes through my mind is, the heartache, the anguish. 

We also have connections with very generous very down to earth clients who would drive a Subaru. And we've been on estates with a Bentley a Porsche a Lamborghini two stock cars, I think that's what you call them. I don't think they had a Maserati. But a total of 30 cars in the garage. Now for me, never having driven a car, I really can't appreciate what it is to drive that type of power. Its a nice car. I know the man has done some wise moves throughout his life or he wouldn't have those resources. Is it enticing to me? Not from a car standpoint.

Now if he had 12 nice driving horses I might say, ha. (He smiles broadly.)

Being Amish, among the English:
 I get asked the most, lately, is the Amish Mafia (TV show) for real? I ask them, is Star Trek real?

I drove him to the job site in Devon. We talked a little about raising kids, the bad world news of the day, the strange programs in popular media.
 It's how Lucifer works, he says, by distracting you from what's important.  

In Devon we talk to Compass' client, owners' rep Donald Kotchik, of Glenwood Builders, Bryn Mawr. Kotchick arrived at the back of the sprawling Colonial-brick home, looked at the mostly-installed ironwork around the back deck, faced Glick, and said, "
This is spectacular." 

Kotchick explained: "It's their ability to create or re-create anything you want, in cast iron or aluminum -- and their knowledge, which gives them the ability to always give you a choice. And they are price competitive.

"A lot of designers are coming back to this. What they do never goes out of style."