Some of his pieces look so original they've been mistaken for antiques. Last winter, one of Kieffer's Chester County roasting forks, after passing through other hands, fetched $31,000 at Sotheby's.
Nimbly, he straddles the line between craftsman and artist. Over the years, he has fabricated candle stands and andirons and fireplace cranes, trivets shaped like snakes, and Bowie knives and tomahawks for reenactors.
His pipe tongs, for plucking an ember and placing it in the bowl of a pipe, are beautiful and ingenious. His kitchen utensils are examples of "whitesmithing," befitting a jeweler. His wedding forks are ornamented with heart-shaped tines and brass inlay in a vine-and-berry pattern.
Fellow blacksmiths hold him in high esteem. Not only is he a superb mechanic, but he also has "the eye" - an innate feel for design and proportion.
"His historic blacksmith work is exceptional," says Kelly Smyth, who practices the craft at the Newlin Grist Mill. "Smiths who can forge traditional hardware and understand it to the point of having their work taken as 'antique' are few and far between.
"He's made thousands of bean latches, so an individual example doesn't have to be 'perfect,' nor are the originals he's copying," Smyth said. "His skills at the anvil give him a quiet confidence gained only by years of experience and accomplishment."
Kieffer makes the recesses for inlays with punches he shapes, files and tempers himself. He beats the mild steel that is his usual raw material with a hand-made four-pound hammer. His relationship with modern technology is distant and suspicious. He shuns computers, has no truck with the Internet. The phone in his shop has a rotary dial. The belt-driven power hammer that relieves his arthritic shoulder and elbow was patented in 1902.
