WOODLAWN, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – Healing Flames Forge provides veterans, first responders, front-line workers and others a place to relieve stress through metalworking.
“It’s a place for those folks to blow off steam and vent frustrations by swinging a hammer at a piece of metal,” Rob Duane, founder and CEO, told Clarksville Now. “Hopefully any kind of frustrated, angry energy turns into positive, creative energy.”
Duane is a retired Army command sergeant major with over 30 years of service. He was deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq on multiple occasions before retiring in 2015.
He worked with metal as a hobby during his teenage years and dreamed of turning that hobby into a job. “I like the whole concept of taking a piece of metal and changing its shape and its appearance into something else, and I wanted to figure out how can I do that,” Duane said.
Creating the forge
The idea for the Healing Flame Forge, a nonprofit organization, came from an episode of Forged in Fire that aired in June 2020. In the episode, two-time champion and judge Ben Abbott donated his winnings to Black Horse Forge, a nonprofit forge in Virginia. The judge described the forge’s mission, and Duane took an interest.
Duane reached out to Black Horse Forge founder Steve Hotz to tour the facility. This tour inspired Duane to build a similar program in Woodlawn on a property he bought two months prior.
“We were walking the property a week after that TV show aired, and I was like, ‘I got an idea of what I can do here,'” Duane said.
The money to make it possible came from an unexpected loss. In January 2020, Mike Duane, a retired Air Force master sergeant and the oldest brother in the Duane family, died from a sudden illness.
Mike Duane’s estate was sold that summer, and Rob Duane used the proceeds to create Healing Flames Forge with his brother’s legacy in mind. A large picture of Mike Duane hangs next to the American flag in the forge workshop.
How it works
Sessions are free for wounded warriors, veterans, active-duty service members, first responders, frontline workers and their adult family members and battle buddies. All equipment and materials are provided by the nonprofit organization.
They are held in two parts every Saturday and Sunday. They start at 8 a.m., with an hourlong lunch break at 11:30 a.m. Participants who return from lunch and stay until 5 p.m. are allowed to join open-forge sessions through the week to hone their skills.
Duane said one to three people on average show up to each session, but there is room for more.
“We have eight workstations, and the most people we’ve had in the shop during a single session is five. I look at those three workstations as though there’s three stressed-out people somewhere out there that are missing out on this,” Duane said. “I’d like to fill the place.”
The forge is at 3825 N. Old Dover Road in Woodlawn, in west Montgomery County. To find out more or donate to Healing Flames Forge, visit healingflamesforge.org. You can sign up for a session by clicking ‘Classes’ and following the prompts.