Hi, I'm Adam. Currently living in southern Las Vegas, working in home healthcare. I'm more of a general maker than specifically black/white smith, so I'm learning the craft more as an ongoing thing rather than working towards making cutlery (for example) full time. As such, if you wanna know whether I'm here to learn more about bladesmithing, jewelry, utility items, or general metal sculpture; my answer is "uhhhhhhh...yes".
I've been involved with a SCA-adjacent historical recreation group called Norseland for about 20 years and watched my dad forge his own armor when we first joined when I was like twelve, but it really took Forged In Fire coming around for me to catch the bug.
My plan was to go back east once we were done in Nevada and learn to smith from a really good friend of mine who used to hold forge weekends that I, foolishly, never went to. Well he died a few years ago so that spurred me on to do what I usually do when learning a new craft and teach myself. I've been biding my time here, reading books, watching Alec Steele videos, and amassing the types of tools that I can use for non-smithing projects I have going already but they're really for using on metal once we're somewhere I can build a forge and get to work. I've had a little bit of forge time and made some leaves, one of which came out cool (pic at the end) but I left all the forge scale on with the intention of grinding some off and leaving some to build contrast. The grinder I had access to at the time (basically a dremel tool I bought for doing rough-carving in beeswax) couldn't do the job so I still consider it unfinished.
As for why I joined the forum today, of all days, it's because I ordered my first hammer (2# cross pein) and it came in today so I was looking for tips on how to dress it and ended up here. I've been reading for a few hours, including both threads people are gonna tell me to read, and I really like it here. Looking forward to learning from, and hopefully at some point contributing some valuable knowledge to, the forum.