Andrew C

Thanks for the advice Gents! While visiting my dad, I noticed he had some coil springs new in the box that he never used on his GTO. He was going to pitch them. I now have 2 full coil springs just waiting for me. Those should make some knives, tools, or whatever when I get to straightening them out.

Just curious, how much are you asking?

Thanks for the warm welcome. My first computer was an Apple IIe with the green screen and dual 5.25" floppy disk drives. I loved the amber monitors on the dumb terminals in college! I bought 2 x 24" lengths of .25" x 2" 80CrV2 and I have some mild steel to practice with. I am also going to make a trip to a local junk yard to see if they have any leaf springs for cheap to play with. While I wait for my materials and new tools, I'm watching more videos, went to a local open forge night where I met some awesome people, and working on my welding and fabrication skills. The open forge was an interesting experience. They have forges and anvils and power hammers galore. I'm planning a return trip to start hammering some metal as soon as my schedule allows. Some of my favorite maker videos are from Jason Knight, Walter Sorrells, Red Beard Ops, and Black Bear Forge. I also watched over a dozen videos each on making a forge, making tools, buying an anvil or ASO, and other grinding videos. My wife is so sick of watching Forged in Fire that she told me to buy stuff and get off the TV!!! lol

Hi guys and thank you for all the awesome information. I have been a carpenter, mechanic, landscaper, health care worker, and finally found a passion for IT work. But I was looking for a new hobby to get outside more and off the computer. I like working with metal and just purchased some basic tools. I think I have enough materials for about 6 small knives and plan on starting with small skinners using stock removal for now. I'm currently renting while our new house is being built and the garage is packed with lots of boxes and flammable material so forging isn't in the cards at the moment. Most of my tools are geared toward building a house or changing a water pump, but I plan to start small and learn what I can until the new house is up. I have a local shop that offers a weekly open forge nights to come watch and classes in everything from basic blacksmithing to Damascus swords. I plan on attending the open forge nights as much as I can and then take a class or two. I can't tell you how many videos I have watched, but it must be over 100. And reading posts on several forums and blogs has me itching to get out there and start failing spectacularly! I read somewhere that you can't learn without failing, so I'm going to just jump in and see how it goes. Andrew