What does "Made in the USA" mean to you? Is it just a slogan? When you see it in an advertisement is it nothing more than a shameless marketing ploy to you? Have you ever seen the faces behind Made in America? Have you seen the men and women who put food on their table, clothes on their children and tuition payments in the mail with "Made in the USA"? We have, and we're better for it. But what does "Made in the USA" really mean?

About 6 months ago we set out to create our own iron kettlebell, a solid core traditional style kettlebell. We have our bulldog line and U-Fill It plastic line of kettlebells (both made in America) but we craved our own solid kettlebell, one that was, like all of the products we manufacture, Made in the USA. We were long told that high manufacturing costs would make this a restrictive process. Either come out with an American made bell at a high cost or don't manufacture an American made kettlebell at all. Inaction not being our strong suit we set out to break this myth. Was it possible to create a cost effective, high quality kettlebell in America? More than that, could that kettlebell compete with overseas prices?

We were about a month into the design process of our "Made in the USA" Kettlebell, the design of the bell itself was finished. A quick, yet critical step, lay ahead. It was Tuesday, which meant one thing for a local and small family run foundry - pour day. Pour Day as the name implies is the day the foundry pours its iron, a process that mixes crude old world skill with space age technology. Grade A recycled iron is heated in a giant kettle reaching melting point in under 60 seconds. A process that uses a type of technology where only the iron itself is heated - inside of the giant kettle, with the exception of where the molten iron sits, remains cold to the touch. That's the space age part, everything else is anything but.

This is, what we hope to be, the culmination of a long process of foundry searches, model revisions and dead ends. Our race to create our own solid iron kettlebell started months ago and the finish line is tantalizingly close. We have a policy at Art of Strength that we try to never deviate from - "America First". The idea is simple, don't send anything overseas. A practice we've been able to stay true to for every product we manufacture. Is there ever a time more important for fidelity to our creed than now? We're so close to being able to make it happen for our bell, yet a few more obstacles still lay ahead.

The alarm sounds in the foundry, a giant barn shaped building. Dust and dirt floating in the air reveals shafts of light as they shine down from skylights some twenty feet above us. The iron is ready to be poured and workers from all over hurry in at the sound of the buzzer. The sand molds were pressed earlier and are now sitting on the floor waiting their carefully concocted mixture of molten iron. Our lone kettlebell mold sits among many arranged in rows along the dirt covered floor. A man in a silver fire suit walks carefully along the rows guiding the melted iron on an overhead I-Beam as it swills in his ceramic lined kettle. Stopping every 10 feet or so he pours the iron into the waiting ladles of the iron workers. From their they'll pour the mixture into the individual sand molds. They pour ours first, and months of planning and designing have now come down to hours. It's a waiting game - we hate waiting. Hours must past before the sand can be broken away to reveal the prize within. Did the mold hold as we hoped? Did the details stay? How is it out of the mold? Fully cognizant that the price is completely dependent upon how many hands touch the product - the less work it needs out of the mold the cheaper it will cost. Too many hands along the process could be the death knell for our kettlebells. So we wait and hope.

The 3rd generation owner and chemist joins us and takes us on a tour of his plant. For the first time we're able to see the shear magnitude of his operation. Custom iron grating for a light house had just been poured in mammoth sized sand molds, nearby lay smaller molds where within lay someone else's prize - engine parts for a new vibratory compactor - and nearby still, 100 gallon buckets of newly received recycled iron in the form of train track rail. We were told that rail is the highest quality iron available and without it much of the iron works in America wouldn't be possible. This same rail was laid in the early 1920s. What was once used to build America's infrastructure is now being used to help sustain it in an economy that has many at this foundry increasingly worried.

In the 65 year history of this foundry there had never been a "pour day", every day was pour day - because every day there was work. Now, pouring is reserved for only 2 days of the week; Tuesday and Thursday. Our guide, and grandson of the original owner, explains that never in the history of the company have times been this tough. As we walked through the foundry we were met by workers excited to talk to us - each one eager and keen to explain what he does often with a quick demonstration of his profession. You can see great pride is taken at every level. We watch as workers create sand molds in machines that are as original to the company as the name itself, we watch as men pour molten iron into these molds and we watch as men grind away slight imperfections and burrs in the finished products (a step we hope our bells never have to see). It's at this time that we realize the true impact of what "Made in the USA" really is. Employee after Employee shake our hands and thank us for the opportunity to produce our product. Everyone of these men, soaked in sweat and covered in soot, know the alternative for us and all of them are moved that we've chosen to give them a chance.

Our fingers crossed that their molds hold true, that the sand was fine enough to catch all the details and that the post work is minimal. It was later the next day that we received the call from the foundry. Perfection. American hands, American sweat and American hard work came together to produce what many told us was impossible. A kettlebell of the finest quality, of the perfect proportion, and perfect dimension at a cost equal to that of a bell produced overseas - Made in the USA. What was once a dream is now a reality, what was once a challenge is now a victory. For so many people.

With so much of our manufacturing finding its way overseas and so many of our workers finding their way to unemployment lines isn't now the most important moment to keep things local, to keep things American. It is possible to create a product that beats foreign made at every level, both in quality and economically. We have associates that have visited foreign foundries and tell us the conditions are horrible, the iron used is of the lowest grade and the products being produced is deplorable. Until now we have had to use these same foreign made kettlebells and can tell you for a fact, handles aren't supposed to chip, your hands aren't supposed to smell like paint when you're done using them, they certainly shouldn't leave a black residue and by no means should you see any traces of "filler" to cover holes in the manufacturing process. In fact it was those concerns that really precipitated the manufacturing of our own kettlebell. Being told that America can't produce a high quality kettlebell at low cost as a reason for us to accept overseas products is not something we're going to take lightly.

What we've been able to do is produce is the Punch Kettlebell, a solid iron kettlebell of a quality finer than anyone else's at a cost that's lower than any other kettlebell on the market. Straight from the mold, without out any coating (as the picture above shows) they're near perfect. Later, after the cooling process is complete, each kettlebell is sent to off site to recieve a protective coating. We've seen the faces of "Made in the USA".

Punch Kettlebell Gym