Thanks for the welcome, Gentlemen.
I'm north of Fox on the Elliot, in the Haystack area.
There is a local blade smith group that gets together at Mark Knapp's shop, but they meet at night and I live 45 minutes away, I visit with Mark and Angel during the day and pick his brain, but I don't really interact much with the other guys. North Pole is about 1hr and 1/2 from the house.
My shop is getting there. I have a couple chunks of Railroad track for an anvil. I'm building my first gas forge presently and I cut a hole in the bottom of an old steel dishpan and set in a caste-iron grate in it. Then got a little blower plumbed into some black iron as a coal forge. I still have to build a hood for it. Other than that it's pretty much set up as a Homestead type shop with lots of old tools and a few new ones.
The one draw back, I can't get Fire Insurance out there. So as you can imagine, the wife is terrified of all this hot flame and shooting slag in my old wooden shop. It sits about 10' from the house. If the shop goes the house goes. I must say I can see her point on the matter. I have covered most of the floor with cement board and I am cautions about proceeding huckaldy-buck into disaster. You see the problem is.......
I don't have to make knives and pound on hot steel, I have to make knives and pound on hot steel. ;-) This little hobby of mine has me rethinking my whole life. LOL
That little faded red building is my shop. It was the original Homestead, built in the 60's. This is an old picture from the day we moved in, please excuse the mattress.