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I Forge Iron

My little forge and me


Fokko

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Hi folks!

I`m Fokko from Germany and I've been into blacksmithing for about two years now.

Blacksmithing as a hobby isn't too common her in my country and you easily can get into some serious trouble with your neighbours if you set up your own forge in your backyard as I experienced by myself.

But I`m still blacksmithing and if you want to learn more about my little forge you can visit my blog and read the article I wrote about it today:

Living in Germany: My little forge and its history

Hope You like it!

Cheers

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Welcome aboard Fokko, glad to have you.

There is a thread here about getting along with the neighbors and is full of tips and tricks for getting along. Unfortunately, sometimes there are neighbors with nothing better to do than complain or maybe just take a personal dislike to someone. A good friend of mine had a neighbor like that. The guy actually sued my friend for playing music in the house!

I enjoyed reading your Blog and being a hobbyist myself appreciate your reasons for smithing. I like playing with fire and hitting things with hammers too. ;) Occasionally making something useful or attractive is a bonus that keeps the wife off my case.

Frosty

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Hi Frosty!

Thank you for appreciating my article!

Fortunately my neighbours stopped complaining since I moved to the garage with my forge. I gues sthe problem is, all these babbits are just to lazy to make something out of their lifes and dont like it to see someon who does by being a bit creative and making things by hisself.

Kind regards

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Hi Fokko,

I understand the neighbor problem. I had a woman problem for a while. But she came home from work one day and every trace of me was gone! :D I now live in a place with no neighbors and a good woman. I will be putting photos on the site soon to show the new forge's progress.

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Fokko, Wilkommen in Iforge. I spent 28 months in Germany, in Hanau au Main in the mid 70's. Learned to be a goldsmieder from a local master. Blacksmithing in a city is always tough. Try making some small gifts for the neighbors to make better relations.

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Fokko:

I understand the problems getting along with neighbors. I used to live in a trailer court with my nearest neighbor less than 10m from where I used to do a little smithing.

I did minor metal repairs, kept everybody's knives, garden shears, scissors and such sharp for no charge. I made sure I stopped work before dinner time and didn't start before about 10:00am. If there was a BBQ, party, etc. going on I wouldn't make noise either.

All but one really obnoxious neighbor liked me just fine and in fact the two times the police came out my neighbors defended me to the officers. The obnoxious neighbor was a live off welfare, do nothing, produce nothing, sue anyone, zero of a human being. She also lived more than 600' away and couldn't possibly have been disturbed by my tinking around, there were more than 8 mobile homes directly between her and me.

The police not only told me not to worry, they had a long talk with the woman, who by the way, had MARIJUANA growing in her kitchen window and STILL had the gall to call the police!

Then in late 96' I met Deb online, we got married in 97', moved to 30 acres of woods in "rural" Alaska with our nearest neighbor several hundred feet from the shop so all's well now.

Frosty

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Seeing some of the problems others have had makes me grateful for the low key neighborhood I live in. We live in the middle of town and I have my forge with no complaints. Of course we have everything from a hobby auto-body shop to midget drag cars on my street! And a guy that does scrap metals which is handy.

I'm glad things have settled down.


Kendrick

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