colgate2004

Hah! Well thank you, gents. I've put my location in my profile (at least, *I think* I did that right)... it's funny, as you said, it's already turned out that there are more smiths nearby than I would have thought. I stumbled across a forge while just walking through town the other week and ended up chatting with a very nice gentleman who has apparently worked as a full-time commercial smith in the same location out of the same shop for 50 years. Very generous fellow, happy to take time out of his day to chat with me, even made me a little leaf to give my daughter right while I was standing there at his anvil. The kindness of many people really never ceases to amaze me.

Hi all, Newbie here. I don't have any questions to ask (yet)... I've been reading as much as I can absorb for several weeks now, and I'm just posting now to say how surprised and overjoyed I am to have just discovered that the two designers whose work I've been reading all about for the past several weeks, Michael Porter and the enigmatic Frosty of the "Frosty T," BOTH are active members on this forum! Gentlemen, I've been reading about your work (Michael, er, ahem, Mikey, I've been reading your book, and Frosty, I've been listening to people debate your burner design endlessly) for weeks, and I'm sure hundreds of others have said this, but thank you so much for your contributions. I'm a complete newbie just getting started in the hobby, and your work has made it feel approachable and doable for me to actually get started. I'm anticipating building my first forge this summer... but I still have a lot to learn in the mean time. But thanks to you and folks like you, the information I need is readily available. Many thanks.