Our story
Forged with heart and soul
The forge of Bruno Kalčič stands in Blejska Dobrava, a small village between Bled and Jesenice. Since 1989 raw steel has become railings, garden gates and fittings for the house and the garden, indoors and out. Unique, functional, hand forged pieces, which today you find in homes across Slovenia and beyond our borders.
In his own words
Let me introduce myself
I'm Bruno Kalčič, born in 1967 in Jesenice, the town they say iron calls home. Like most locals, I decided to earn my bread with iron, and trained as a blacksmith in 1986. Even as an apprentice I secretly tried to make art, but the gap between machine work and artistic forging was too wide. Good work needs a good teacher, so after my military service I went looking for one. The local masters guarded their knowledge jealously, but I got lucky in Austrian Carinthia: I found a fantastic smith carrying on a family tradition of artistic forging more than 250 years old, and he agreed to take me on. He taught me an enormous amount, and infected me with his way of seeing the craft.
Bruno Kalčič, founder
Timeline
42 years at the anvil
- 1967Bruno is born in Jesenice, the town where they say iron is at home.
- 1984He decides on the blacksmith's trade.
- 1986He passes his apprentice's examination as a blacksmith.
- After the armyIn Austrian Carinthia he finds a master, heir to a family tradition of artistic forging more than 250 years old. Poldi teaches him an enormous amount and infects him with his way of seeing the trade.
- August 1989Bruno registers the trade and starts the forge in Blejska Dobrava.
- 2008Hefaiston at Helfštýn Castle, Czechia: 3rd prize for The Blacksmith's Spine.
- 2011Hefaiston: 2nd prize for the forged violin. The same year, the Zlati ceh award of the Slovenian Chamber of Craft, and recognition as artistic craft under the Rokodelstvo Slovenija mark.
- TodayThe second generation: alongside Bruno, his son Benjamin now forges too.
In the workshop
Solid steel, rivets and collars
It is very hard to compete with the flood of cheap industrial goods using nothing but hand work and the traditional way of making. With a good deal of enthusiasm, joy, skill of hand, heart and pride, we manage it without modern devices and machines.
At competitive prices we forge garden and courtyard gates, garden, balcony, courtyard and stair railings, pavilions, canopies, window grilles, forged furniture, grave crosses and memorials, fittings for restaurants and shops, sculptures and the like. We forge the components of our work ourselves and, which matters a great deal, every piece is put together the smith's way: riveted, and joined with collars.
Pieces meant for outdoor use are hot-dip galvanized and electrostatically powder coated. That surface protection keeps several generations satisfied without extra maintenance costs. In 37 years we have not had one complaint about rust.
Who does the forging
A team that knocks you sideways
Visit us on a weekday and we will gladly show you what we can do with a hammer.
Gregor Mandeljc
“A tourism technician by training, self-taught as a blacksmith. Forging isn't just my job, it's my hobby too.”
Dušan Kalčič
“A trained locksmith and the workshop's resident troublemaker. I make sure there's always a laugh between hammer blows.”
What we believe
Honest making
Solid steel, true joints, no shortcuts. What we forge, lasts.
Made to measure
The piece adapts to you and your house, never the other way round.
Duty to the craft
The knowledge we inherited, we pass on. In every piece we make.