May, 2026- " It was the best of times; it was the worst of times…” The opening words of Charles Dickens’ 1859 novel A Tale of Two Cities sets the stage for a story permeated with juxtapositions. Dickens uses the literary device to contrast themes of social inequality, order and chaos and the coexistence of opposing forces against the backdrop of the French Revolution. The manufacturing industry deploys the technique in design and fabrication when materials, textures or forms are used side by side, or combined in a single product to create visual tension or improve functionality.
Like a crucible that transforms solid metal into liquid for reshaping, juxtapositions also helped to form the identity of Urban Forge. The company’s use of forged-in-fire methods with high-tech equipment, iron alloy paired with natural materials like English oak and walnut, and “bench-made” over mass production bring furniture, lighting and decor to life. The organic designs depict raw strength tempered with delicate details.
Owner Andy Baker is also a study in contrasts. A student of EntreLeadership principles, he turned a struggling blacksmith shop into a national brand that grew 47 percent in 2024. Under his stewardship, Urban Forge balances centuries-old artisanal metalforming with modern scalable systems, high-end technology and a people-first culture. Urban Forge was featured as an EntreLeadership success story in 2025. The program, created by Dave Ramsey, is a business philosophy and system that “blends the passion of an entrepreneur with the servant heart of a leader.”
UrbanFX fabricated two suspended sculptures for concourse expansions at the Denver International Airport.
URBAN FORGE IS ROOTED in Mountain View, Arkansas. The central Ozarks town is approximately 7.3 square miles with a population approaching 3,000. Urban Forge’s retail store occupies a 10,000-square-foot stone building dating to 1929. The 100,000-squarefoot manufacturing facility, just a few miles from the store, is where the artisan blacksmiths work.
A specialty free-form 3D tube-bending machine helped UrbanFX bring its metallic Christmas tree project to life.
BESPOKE
“When you order something from Urban Forge, it isn’t mass produced,” says Baker. “It is made by hand one piece at a time by a craftsman in the forge. When I started Urban Forge as a brand, I didn’t want to do something that had temporary value. I really wanted to dig deep and build something that could be multigenerational. I hope my grandkids will someday have an interest in what we are building here.”
Baker launched the brand in 2021 after buying out his father’s interest in the company, but his love of metalworking dates back much further.
“I have been a maker of things ever since I was a kid,” he says. “I think craftsmanship is in my genes. Working with my grandfather and my dad, I found I loved taking an idea and watching it materialize under my hands. My grandfather was a craftsman in woodworking, but I thought blacksmithing and metalworking were so interesting. I also found metal to be much more forgiving than wood if you make a miscut. I started from the ground up, learning everything I could about metal fabrication, welding, blacksmithing-the manipulation of metal while it was hot on the anvil.”
Baker is currently immersed in the administration side of the business from packaging, finished goods inventory and distribution. He still enjoys “putting on a pair of gloves and doing a little forging.”
Reality TV competition shows like “Forged in Fire,” “Milwaukee Blacksmith” and “Metal Shop Masters” ignited a major resurgence in blacksmithing over the last decade. The exposure drew the interest of hobbyists and artisans interested in interning with Urban Forge to master the skills they saw on television.
Urban Forge has continued to expand its team of artisans and captured a unique niche in the home furnishings industry. “We often refer to our products as functional art for the home,” says Baker. “It’s not just a table we designed to hold things. It’s a piece the homeowner can admireshare with a guest that comes over to visit. Oftentimes there is a story behind the piece, too.”
QUENCHING
One such story was contributed by a couple who had become collectors over the years. After a fire took their home, a local editor sent Urban Forge a photo of the residence reduced to rubble. The only things left standing were the iron pieces the couple had purchased from Urban Forge.
“We made arrangements for the items to be brought back to our shop,” Baker says. “We straightened, sandblasted and refinished each piece and regifted them back to the couple. The collection represented a little piece of their lives that they could remember and carry with them.”
“We are an e-commerce business, so there are items in our portfolio that we try to maintain inventory for and there are pieces that are custom,” Baker says. “About 50 percent of our revenue is generated by design/build items with longer lead times.”
Employees master processes from grinding and abrasive cutting to cold saw cutting, shearing, press brake and stamping operations. The majority of the pieces are forged by hand, yet the company also uses old equipment from century-old power hammers to equipment with internal mechanisms made from leather and wood.
“We have to keep those machines going so we fabricate replacement parts ourselves,” says Baker. “That is part of our story. It’s really part of our soul.”
While preserving and promoting the heritage behind hand-forming remains the heart of Urban Forge’s mission, a drive for innovation and creativity have pushed it into new areas. In 2017, the company launched UrbanFX as a division to “solve hard problems by blending high-end structural design with embedded lighting, LED controls and advanced materials.” UrbanFX employs a team of engineers, CAD designers, systems integrators and production experts who can engineer, prototype and bring to life bold, complex projects.
FREE FORM
One such project also required the company to search out specialized equipment. For nearly three decades, the Uptown District of Houston had been decorating Post Oak Boulevard with traditional live Christmas trees. When the district decided to modernize its display, it turned to Urban FX for a solution.
Metallic Christmas trees, each comprising a 3-D lighted tube structure with eight 24-foot spiralshaped tubes with 4,000 unique radii, decorate Houston’s Uptown District.
Stainless steel, multi-tiered street sign rings appear to “float” above six major intersections in Uptown Houston’s Galleria District.
“The chief executive of the Uptown District of Houston walked into our retail store one weekend,” says Baker. “They were looking for a manufacturing partner that could help them with a large, custom project for what has become an iconic thoroughfare through Uptown. Houston is the fourth largest city in the country with one of the nation’s largest Christmas celebrations. They wanted to replace the live trees with something that has a longer lifespan. To bring our concept to life, we needed a forming process that did not exist in North America. We had been eyeing a Japanese maker of specialized free-form tube-bending equipment. They allowed us to create a proof-of-concept first article for the district. We were awarded the project and ordered what, at the time, was the largest 3D tube bender in the Western hemisphere.”
A complex 3-D lighted tube structure with a series of eight 24-foot-long spiral-shaped tubes formed a single Christmas tree. Eight tubes have 4,000 unique radii. The 3D tube bender constrained the tube cross-section to maintain perfect roundness.
“If you look at one of the trees from the top down, they are elliptical-shaped with four tubes winding clockwise and four tubes winding counter clockwise,” says Baker. “UrbanFX also developed custom, individually controllable LED lights and integrated them into the trees. The district was originally going to string lights on each tree. Instead, we designed and prototyped custom injection molded housings for tiny luminaires with individually controlled LED channels.”
UrbanFX produced 320 metallic trees. They were installed in 2019 to complement the newly redesigned Post Oak Boulevard. The LED lighting can produce more than 16 million colors and will synchronize with music. The UrbanFX team also developed a custom Uptown Radio app that allows visitors to stream music synchronized with light shows in real time.
Andy Baker
FORGING AHEAD
Business for UrbanFX has continued to grow. In 2025, the division worked with a New York design firm to fabricate two suspended sculptures for concourse expansions for the Denver International Airport. Called The Constellations, the sculptures represent star clusters Pegasus and Boötes (the Herdsman).
UrbanFX used its 3D tube bender to free form powder-coated stainless steel with glass luminaires embedded with LED-lit “stars” to mimic constellations that are visible during the summer solstice. Installed in the airport’s Concourse C-East atriums, each sculpture measures 38 feet long, 36 feet high and 15 feet deep.
“The end result was this amazing array of curved lines that connect these beautiful glass dome luminaires and made them appear suspended in the sky just as though you were looking at the actual constellation,” says Baker.
UrbanFX designed the pieces with the installation crew in mind. CNC-machined aluminum cam lock devices were located at each joint of the tubing to support continuous sweeping curves.
“Each curve had five to six parts, but we didn’t want anyone who was looking at the sculpture to know that, so that meant no external hardware,” says Baker. “Instead, we designed tiny sets of screws that would tighten the cam locks and pull the joints tightly together. Each joint had integrated alignment pins. The tubing concealed the wiring harness for each of the luminaires.”
Subtle color changes, the programming used to choreograph the lights and the free form beauty of the curves gives the sculptures dynamic movement that mimics nature, he says.
Besides sculptures, the company’s ability to take on jobs others won’t do has also caught the attention of the energy and aerospace industries for more utilitarian work.
Growth depends on a viable human resource pipeline so the company has partnered with high school and community college trade programs.
TRUE BELIEVER
Excellent craftsmanship can still cut through the din of a digitized society dominated by automation and AI. Baker believes there is a path forward for work that prioritizes unique artistry over mass production while emphasizing “deep care for its employees, customers and community.”
“I’m not talking about corporate jargon on a piece of paper,” he insists. “As a company from top to bottom, from me as the CEO down to the newest assistant in the shearing department, we have to actually live this out, day to day. That means a belief system with core values which dictate the way we genuinely treat our people. Those ingredients work together to nurture a healthy culture,” Baker says. “If you can do that successfully and have an educational pipeline that is feeding candidates into the organization, then you don’t have to fear the future.”
Urban Forge, 800/380-4766, urbanforge.com.
