Steve McGrew, an inventor and entrepreneur known here for his involvement in companies pursuing new technologies, also is grounded firmly in the ancient art of metal working.

McGrew is just as likely to be found using a forge in his blacksmith shop as working in a high-tech lab or office setting to bring new technologies to light.

"I'm here some afternoons, many evenings, and most weekends," he says as he fires up a propane-fueled forge in Incandescent Ironwork Ltd.'s 1,500-square-foot shop at the west edge of Spokane.

That business, based at 9715 W. Sunset Highway, sells tools for blacksmiths through its Web site, offers hands-on instruction in the craft, and does custom iron work. The blacksmith shop is located near McGrew's home a few miles southeast of there, and he only allows people to come to it by invitation.

In what he calls his "other life," he's president and CEO of New Light Industries Ltd., a Spokane concern that researches and develops technologies in optics, holography, and document security.

He's also a co-founder and board member of GenPrime Inc., a Spokane biotech firm that specializes in microbial detection and diagnostic analysis technologies for homeland-security, health-care, and fermentation-science applications.

McGrew started blacksmithing about five years ago, and he says it didn't take long for him to elevate his new hobby into a for-profit business.

"I recognized that some things were expensive that shouldn't be, and some tools needed improvement," he says.

Ever the inventor, McGrew has designed many of the items in his online catalog, including his own Rhino line of anvils, which are the hardened metal blocks that blacksmiths have used for metal working since long before the advent of modern welding.

The anvils come in three weights ranging from 142 pounds to 342 pounds. To a novice, they look like traditional anvils, but Rhino anvils have a conical horn on one end and a narrower heel on the other, two features that he thinks makes them more versatile than traditional anvils.

McGrew also designed a line of blacksmith tools that he sells under the Blackbird name, including several tools called stakes that attach to anvils and aid in shaping metal.

He also designs touchmarks, which are stamping devices blacksmiths use to tap their signature or logo into their work.

"Every blacksmith has a touchmark," he says.

McGrew has offered blacksmithing classes at the shop for more than a year and has taught about 35 students.

He declines to disclose Incandescent Ironworks' revenues, but says the enterprise, which he calls the equivalent of a full-time job, is starting to pull its own weight. "Now and then it makes money," he says.

Product sales and blacksmithing instruction generate an equal amount of revenue for the business, McGrew says, but he expects product sales will grow and outpace his teaching income.

"Teaching is limited, because I can only have a certain number of students," he says. "Sales will grow."

One of McGrew's students is Don Lightfoot, a GenPrime co-founder, who at one time was McGrew's biology professor at Eastern Washington University.

Together, Lightfoot and McGrew created "Gitfly," a three-foot-long, nickel-plated steel-and-brass sculpture of a fruit fly with a guitar body. The sculpture, which is on display in GenPrime's lobby, is a memorial to another GenPrime co-founder, Jim Fleming, a fruit fly researcher and blues guitarist who died in May.

McGrew says he puts as much effort into advancing the craft of blacksmithing as he does into his high-tech pursuits.

"I'm just trying to push in a little different direction," he says.

Because modern welding and metalworking has all but replaced the art of heating and pounding metal, there are only about 1,000 full-time blacksmiths and a few thousand active hobbyists in North America, McGrew says.

"A lot of techniques have been lost, and there are some that haven't been explored yet," he says. "There's a vast number of new things to do in the field."

McGrew sells some of his creations, which range from unique artwork, such as steel flowers, to functional tools and furnishings, such as knives and coat racks.

He says he prefers to make unique items rather than multiple productions.

"Most of what I make has a function, but also has art added to it," he says. "I don't want to make knives for collectors. I want to make knives that are beautiful and will be used."

McGrew first started to think about blacksmithing after he made a sword for his son out of a piece of a steel leaf spring through a painstakingly long process of grinding and filing.

"I wore out a couple of files and a couple of pairs of gloves," he says.

It took so much effort, he vowed that if he ever made another blade, he would use a forge, which is a furnace used to heat metal until it reaches a red-hot state in which a blacksmith can pound, stretch, bend, or press it into shape. A forge also is used to harden and temper metals.

"Heat-treating is what knife making is all about," he says.

Also about that time, McGrew attended a few events organized by the Milpitas, Calif.-based Society for Creative Anachronism Inc., an organization dedicated to recreating Middle Ages arts and skills, including armored hand-to-hand combat.

One of the SCA events featured a working blacksmith.

"I couldn't take myself away from the forge," he says.

McGrew then designed and built a forge that looked like an oversized barbecue with an exhaust hood. The first items he made using it were talons for a dinosaur sculpture made from scrap metal.

He has since replaced that forge with three that he purchased, although he's designing and building another, and a student has set up his own forge in the shop.

The multiple forges allow McGrew and students to work on several projects simultaneously.

There's not much empty space in the shop. "There's a hammer for every purpose and practically a hammer for every blow," he says.

Racks of specialized hammers and tongs are at hand around every forge and the six anvils in the shop, where several projects, including sculptures of lilies, candle sticks, knives, and prehistoric creatures, are under way.

Assorted pieces of metal sheets, rods, and cables and parts of all shapes and sizes, including surplus railroad pieces, are stacked on shelves in the shop.

McGrew has traveled to Western Washington, Oregon, California, and even England to attend workshops involvingvarious aspects of blacksmithing ranging from forge welding to knife making. Forge welding is the process of joining metal pieces together by heating them to a near-molten state and pounding or pressing them together.

He's picked up a lot of the craft on his own, though. "Most learning, I've done here or read in books and tried out," he says. His library contains 300 books on blacksmithing and related topics.

Sometimes, he barters his blacksmithing instruction for services or lessons in a student's field of knowledge and skills, such as photography, he says.

"Learning and teaching are two things I love most," he says.