Hi I'm steven. I'm new to the site I have been reading through the old posts for about a week now and have set up a meeting with another member when I make it down to Memphis next week. I have wanted to be a blacksmith for as long as I can remember. When I was a little kid I would heat up whatever scrap metal I could find in a camp fire and beat it with a rock on a rock or any other blunt object I could find. Nothing really ever turned out to be much other then a horse shoe into a hoof pick, but I had fun doing it. Now that I'm older (33) I figure I should continue that dream and try to really learn all there is to know about it and start small and work my way up. I went around today looking for an anvil of some sort. I found an old hay budden in the back of a guy's shop that he wants $300 for. It pretty rough but I've been reading good things on them. But I don't have that kind of cash right now so it's been back there the last 20 years I'll let it stay a little longer. I also found at the local scar yard a section of rail iron that has had a point put on one end to make it look like an anvil for $20 bucks but I didn't have cash and they were closing so I'll go back tomorrow and get that. I got a little carried away on that sorry kind of excited to be getting my first anvil even if it is only a piece of rail iron. So I'm in the military and currently stationed in Hickman, KY. I have not been able to find anyone else around the area that does blacksmithing or a club. If anyone knows of anyone please let me know I'm all the way on the very West Point overlooking the Mississippi River. As for a forge I'm still trying to figure out what I'm making. I have saved two old fire extinguishers that I thought I would make a propane forge with, and I also saved a stainless steel commercial grade hand washing sink on legs that I thought I could line with fire mortar and fire bricks and use charcoal that I could make from all the trees on my property that I'm clearing out. I have locust trees that are huge and all over the property it is some of the most dense wood out there that burns so hot and so long. I still need to find some pliers at least to start with. Well I guess that's enough for now. I'll keep y'all updated as progress. I'm gla to be here and thank you all for all the information you have shared on here.