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A miracle in metal
Welder creates one-of-a-kind Herb-B-Ques

by Andrew Thompson

At the entrance of a workshop in East Palo Alto lies a tailgater's dream.

Its maker, Herb Ruffin, comfortably sits next to his creation: a trailer equipped with two black-painted barbecues, including a steamer-smoker, rotisserie, and two stovetops at the front end underneath his signature metal cutout of steer's horns. And when everything is cooked, the cover of the storage box pulls out as a table.

"You can do everything on it," said Ruffin, 60, a welder-of-all-trades originally from Seguin, Texas. His one-of-a-kind welded steel "Herb-B-Ques," which he has been handcrafting for more than 25 years, have been made for customers including Stanford, the city of Redding, country clubs, and a Lake Shasta park.

The photo album that rests on a milk crate in Ruffin's workshop is practically an autobiography of his steel craftsmanship. There's the picture of the SR-71 fighter plane he worked on in Okinawa, Japan, during his time in the Air Force; a news article on his completely custom-built truck, "Stairway to Heaven"; his apparatus for crushing empty oil drums; and of course, lots of Herb-B-Ques.

"I can make you almost anything out of metal," he said while rubbing his thick, virtually paralyzed pinky finger that was injured in a "freak accident" involving an electric saw.

Under the words "Big Bertha" in the photo album is a picture of a barbecue the size of a horse trailer with a steer's horns on the front, made eight years ago for Uncle Frank's restaurant in Redding. At 500 cubic feet, it's Ruffin's biggest barbecue.

He pointed to another picture of an 84-square-foot barbecue, which includes electric rotating racks "so you never have to fork it [the meat]," made for the grocery store Sunset Marketplace in Redding.

"This thing is over 15 years old, and if you go up to that store now in Redding it's still in front of that store," he said. "And they use that thing every day."

Since Ruffin was put on disability and precluded from working full-time two years ago for bad knees, he makes barbecues as a hobby to keep him busy, taking frequent breaks and leisurely welding while sitting on his stool. The high prices paid for his barbecues, which range from $2,000 for a backyard-sized grill to $10,000 for the trailer that runs the gamut of outdoor cooking, is mainly to reimburse him for the high cost of steel — which Ruffin says has doubled in the past year. He spends about a month making each one.

It is both the durability and meticulous attention to detail of a Herb-B-Que that Ruffin says earn appreciation from barbecue enthusiasts.

"You could drop this from a helicopter and it ain't gonna do nothing," he said, gesturing to a 12-gauge, cold-rolled steel work-in-progress that will be donated to the Faith Missionary Baptist Church of Christ in East Palo Alto. "If you take any kind of care of this, it'll last you your lifetime — and your kids', too."

Reverend Floyd Purdy of the church stood inspecting the barbecue, nodding his head in total approval.

"I wanted the best, so I came to the best to get it," Rev. Purdy said. "That's all there is to it."

"You're going to be able to cook a lot of ribs on that," Ruffin told him.

The fifth of seven children in his family, Ruffin was raised on a farm in Texas where his father had a blacksmith shop. It was there that his passion for metalworking was sparked.

"I always liked that type of stuff," he said. "I'd go out there and help my dad with blacksmith stuff all the time."

When he was 18 years old, Ruffin left home to join the Air Force where he was sent to Marysville to work as a mechanic on the SR-71 — at that time, a highly secret spy plane and the fastest aircraft on earth.

After finishing his military service, which included four months spent in Okinawa, he was trained at Opportunities Industrialization Center West in Menlo Park with a certification in welding, and then attended De Anza College for two years to study automotive engineering.

It was during his years as a carpenter for the East Palo Alto construction company Peck and Hiller that Ruffin considered the idea of making barbecues.

"Making barbecues was always a thought in my head," he said. "But I didn't want to build no junk barbecue. I wanted to build a barbecue that somebody would be happy to have on their back porch; something that would look good in any house."

After others saw his work and started hiring Ruffin to make barbecues for them, he opened his own welding and barbecue shop, the Magic Arc, in Palo Alto on Frontage Road. When the owner of the shop's space decided to sell the property, he moved to Redding where he operated the Magic Arc for six years and made most of the 150 to 200 barbecues he estimates he's built.

Then, following a series of family deaths in his home Texas, which he says "took a toll on him" and hurt his business, he moved back to Palo Alto and worked as the only certified welder for Stanford.

But it was racquetball that put him on disability.

Ruffin played in professional racquetball tournaments until his knee gave out and he was forced to have a knee replacement.

"If you play it on a competitive level, you're stopping and turning and moving fast, man," he said. "That's what's hard on the knees."

Since he's been on disability, Ruffin has been able to devote himself to welding at his own pace.

"I do it because I've got to do something," he said. "I love doing this stuff. I love it."

Editorial intern Andrew Thompson can be reached at athompson@paweekly.com.