SpankySmith

Wait, what? A tool I've never heard of before?! Nooooooo! Must look up Chapman, must possess.

Close!! Religious Studies, I double majored in psych and religion as an undergrad.

Welcome, but get ready, I know well the long term side effects of a seemingly innocent One Day Intro class! I won't terrify you with how much money that bargain of a one day class has cost me so far in getting "treatment" for it (also known as tracking down and buying forge, vice, anvil, etc!). It doesn't have to be an expensive hobby, but it does indeed get under your skin and stay there!

I just love that cept for the part of me that wants to strangle someone every time I run into a flathead screw! Give me a Phillips or Star any day! I end up cursing like a sailor every time I have to deal with a flathead.

Jack, pull up a chair for a minute and listen to your Elder here: I'll be 55 this year, been out of college for 27 years and I'm about to toss everything I've done aside to go get a Masters Degree in a field that absolutely does NOT promise me a job when I am done. But for me, it isn't about the Ending, it's about the Experience. I can't WAIT to get into my studies, and if I pop out the other end and can't find a job in that field I will still be immensely grateful for an irreplaceable experience. There's a reason some of the best advise ever given is to buy experiences and not things. For me it will be all about the experience of learning. And trusting that if it is meant to be it will all work out in the end. If you are THAT kind of excited about learning Blacksmithing, go, go now. If you're not maybe it's more pipe dream than actual goal. Only you can tell the difference. Don't spend 4 years learning something you fundamentally don't care about, but if your passion is real and you know it is, RUN toward it.

Absolutely take your risks while young, you'll get old with a thousand other commitments and anchors and unable to even entertain such possibilities soon enough. The only real regrets I have in my life are things I SHOULD have done but fear/uncertainty held me back. There's an expression, "Everything you want lives on the other side of Fear." Go for it. You are young enough to recover if things slide south, many many years ahead of you to go in a totally different direction if you decide it's not for you. As for the social awkwardness, if you end up working under someone instead of running your own shop, that shouldn't be much of an issue. As a diehard Introvert myself I totally get that - I don't want to be the Upfront person, I want to toil away happily in the background. It's just how some of us are made. Obviously, none of us have to live with the consequences of your decision, so it's easy enough for us to Armchair Quarterback your life, but it sounds like there aren't really any terrible consequences, at least not immediately visible. Free school, earn just enough for room and board? Heck, if I were in the area I'd jump at the chance myself and I'm practically an Old Codger! Go for it.

Vaughn, after I had my neck surgery I was astonished to have to re-learn how to hold my head upright....I had been unconsciously always looking down to mitigate the non-stop pain. Once relieved, my muscles SEVERELY protested being asked to line back up in an upright position. So yes, I feel your pain both literally and figuratively. Having to retrain your body to do something different after you trained it - consciously or unconsciously - to do something else is no fun at all. Hang in there.

Critical thinking?!?!? Charles!!! You know that's not allowed!!!

I agree with Alan, maybe clear coat it with a matte to keep it from marring/staining the wall and hang it on said wall. I love pieces like that!

One of my old bosses liked to use the phrase "Mortgaging your future" when referring to people who bought expensive cars every couple of years or McMansions. That phrase stuck anytime I assumed any debt, with a mind toward it's impact on my future. If you're making house and car payments (not to mention credit cards) your decision about what kind of work you will do is made FOR YOU - your choices are limited to what pays enough to meet all those obligations, whether it's a job you love or a job you hate. Remove all that and what you gain besides more takehome/keep pay is CHOICES. I purposely bought what I called a "McDonald's House" (as opposed to McMansions that were so popular at the time). If I lost my job the mortgage was low enough that I could have taken a full time job at McDonald's and still paid it. I paid it off several years back. Education is expensive, but I guess it depends on what you're doing it for. I'm starting an MA program in August, it'll take about 2 years and tuition will run about $10k total. I'm 55 years old, so going for more education at this point in my life, when age discrimination is a very REAL entity, may not be a great looking move, on the surface. But honestly, I'm so interested in the subject I'll be studying and am soooooo looking forward to the stimulation of academia that I really don't care if I walk across the stage in two years, diploma in hand, and can't get a related job. The educational process is of enough value to me all by itself.

The company I work for right now (and I'm not part of the "younger workforce" Big Un refers to) churns through 20-40 employees A MONTH. A MONTH!! We got bought out by a large conglomerate several years ago and the new guys see Personnel as just a budgeted line item - makes no difference to them who is filling the seat, just that it's filled. You see people with 10-20-30 years experience so frustrated they move on, backfill with someone making 1/10th the wage, it's all good for Corporate. "In my day" people just stayed with a company forever, the mentality was you were lucky to have a job, stay for the pension and it'll all be worth it in the end. Now pensions are pretty much gone, the mindset of what employees do/do not have to put up with has dramatically changed. When I was coming up it would have been scandalous for a person to change jobs every couple of years - now that is the norm and it doesn't even get any attention to see it on a resume, it's accepted practice, a nod to the way things work (or don't work) now. We have bred this change - you can't take 20-30 year olds and treat them like they should just be lucky to have a job and thank you every time you give them crap - they'll just walk. YES, I get the other side, the reason I made a conscious decision to get out of management years ago was the non-stop line of 20 year olds with huge entitlement issues - they felt like they were doing you a favor if they deigned to show up on time for work. It was immensely frustrating. As long as we have "old guard" managing "new guard" that tension will always be in place. Evidence the very large companies like Facebook and Google who are founded by and run by younger folks. Their mindset about employees is totally different, and they thrive.

I remember a guy I used to work with telling me that he used to be the guy responsible for going to construction sites to perform random drug tests. He said guys would pick up their tool belts and quit on the spot because they knew they'd fail the test. I had no idea it was as prevalent, but he said he saw it literally every single time he went to a site, no matter when or where.

ohhhhhh, so many good ideas!

Culver, I LOVE you! Thanks, i was having a hard time "seeing" the mechanics of that type of hinge/folding mechanism. You ROCK!!

AL! You're not doing anything, why don't you work me up a model and bring it to Forge Council?! LOL!!! Haven't seen you in too long, I WILL be at the meeting this month! I'll trade ya' a dozen donuts for a decent valet hook!!

Hey, Michael, I'm here for ya'! LOL! Always happy to inspire. I do think these are pretty useful items in any walk in closet or laundry room. Like I said, it'll be about a month before I get a chance to forge again, if any of ya'll get similarly inspired and actually make one I'd LOVE to see it. Your wives will thank you, I promise! Yup, I think I need to come up with some kind of hinge or retraction, which is gonna' be tough considering I'm still technically a total Noob at all this. But the placement of mine will be about chest height and I can see me running into it, semi-impaling myself if I don't figure out a way to make it hinged in some way.

Something like this, John? Horizontal instead of vertical obviously?

I'm reading this thread while gritting my teeth, because I've been desperately trying to get OUT of computers and into something else. I've written more targeted, specific cover letters than I can even count and can't get anyone to take me seriously. I'm "over-qualified" - forget that I know more about tools than any woman I know, forget that I know how to USE them. Grrrr..... all this talk about not being able to attract qualified people, maybe the box we put "qualified" in is too small?

Yes, Das, screwed to a wall though in this case it'll be to the end of a 3/4" panel. Charles, what you're talking about is sorta where I was as a starting point at least. The indentations for coat hangers is not always there, from best I can tell looking at multiple ideas online - some have 'em, some don't. I'm still young in my Blacksmithing development, so I don't want something too complex/outside my (limited) skill set.

The only door to the room will be folding/bifold doors, so they don't really play well with over the door hooks. This will need to be mounted on the newly constructed wardrobe/closet. In THEORY this is just a fancy version of a hook, but I'm a visual learner, I need to see something to get the creative juices flowing. I know it's a rather strange object so I didn't think the chances were good that anyone here had made one, but maybe something similar?

Rashelle, resist the dark side! Problem with hair dye is once you start down that road you can't come back (not easily, anyway). Stay with the gray! I consider every gray hair on my head as EARNED - wear them in pride!

I've seen some that would basically be forged as a straight rod with fullered indentations. I saw a couple online that looked almost like brass knuckles. Could go several ways with this. It'll be some weeks or a month or so before I can return to the forge to do this, so I welcome any/all ideas or even samples if any of you are bored! I have to have this project done by the end of the summer - grad school starts in the fall! (gulp! :C )

I'm working INDOORS this summer, on a remodel project - making a big walk in closet. I want to forge a couple Valet Hooks for the closet. I can find examples of them online easily enough, prefab stuff but haven't seen any hand-forged. I'm just trying to get my creative juices going on one, wondered if any of you have by chance forged one? For anybody who doesn't know, it's a protruding hook, typically about 8-12 inches long with indentations in it to accept hangers. It hangs on the trim of a wardrobe so you have a place to put, for instance, whatever you just ironed and are wearing tomorrow. Sometimes they are made as retractable or collapsible (hinged) devices so they can be out of the way when not in use. Kinda' obscure object, so chances are I'll just get funny looks here, but thought I'd ask......

If you have access to Pinterest or some such thing, even just Google images, just put in "horseshoe art" and a zillion options come up. I also got a box full of horseshoes recently, had a blast making some items from them though I was mostly welding, not forging.

The last three cats I lost across the years lived to be 18, 20 and 16. That's a long term relationship in my book. When my Riley (the 16 year old) died just a few months ago I swore his surviving sibling, Gracie, will be my last. The pain of losing a pet is a unique kind of pain, and I'm not sure I have it in me any more to keep experiencing it. Feel your pain, Das, and btw Frosty was a beauty!