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I Forge Iron

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Just saying hi, I've been skulking through the forums for a couple months as my interest in blacksmithing comes and goes, but I've never acted on it.  It's something that's always fascinated me, but the up front investment(and my hobby ADD) has made me hesitant.  Now History is on a smithing show kick, and the bug is biting me to try to get started again.  I'm hoping to really get into it after the Highland Games in June are done, but wanted to say hi at least.  Ya'lls posts are fun to read, and it seems like you have a great tight-knit community here :)  

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Welcome aboard, glad to have you. Wait till AFTER the Highland Games!? WASSAMATTAYOU? There's no time like the present to get started. The Association of Alaskan Blacksmiths next meeting is: May 14th. in Palmer at Pat Garley's. There are a number of Anchorage members you can probably hitch a ride with so you don't have to read directions on the way. And heck they're good guys and might even light a fire with a little bitty excuse.

Of course you could take a drive in Alaska's scenic wonders and come play in my shop, I'm on the far edge of Wasilla from you on Vine Rd. just off the Parks around mp. 47 hang a left or get directions, taking the KGB is easier though no closer. It's a temporal short cut, fewer lights.

Oh yeah, We're having a Mark Aspbery workshop June 11th, 12th and a short day the 13th. This is a biggy for us and a little spendy to attend if you're a beginner. Not saying don't come but it might be pretty advanced for a beginner. We'll be making some tooling at the next meeting to get a head start on the workshop but that is good beginner project material. Punches, chisels, tongs and I'm not sure what other tools, Tristan has a list I believe.

The next annual event is Art On Fire the last weekend in June, I'll have to look up the date. This is put on by the Valley Arts Council and features art forms requiring fire. Now THAT'S a surprise ain't it? The Association has had a strong presence in the past, I've only missed once and other guys make it. Admission is free if you demonstrate. I had good audiences giving a fellow his first blacksmithing lesson. Gave the spectators an idea what getting started is like.

Anyway, our membership has grown enough in the last year we've increased our meetings from quarterly to bi monthly and there are quite a few beginners. Sooo we're changing the meeting content to showing guys the basics and getting them started. blacksmithing tools are hard to come by up here so we have a make do philosophy and bootstrap a lot.

Hook up with the local gang.

Frosty The Lucky.

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"Up front investment"  I once built a complete blacksmithing setup for under US$25: Forge, Blower, Anvil, basic tools.  It was a great forge too---it was my main billet welder for several years.  The fanciest tool used to build it was a 1/4" electric drill.  I can see why you would not like to have that much money tied up in a hobby.  I assume you are accessing the internet from a computer at the public library?

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Welcome aboard. I don't know your financial situation but it isn't that expensive of a hobby to get into. Unless you want a 100% anvil not some railroad rail creation. You can build a couple of frosty t burners and a brick pile forge for less than $100. Depends on the size of course. I'm building my forge and anvil for under $150 if you want to check out what you can do with very little money I can show you.

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2 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

  I assume you are accessing the internet from a computer at the public library?

Nope, I work for the ISP :P

I may have some bad assumptions on how much it costs to get started.  Though, as I  stated above, I have hobby ADD(I have too many hobbies) with money sunk into all.  The 'after the highland games' bit is just more a matter of available time and subsequent sanity, as it's my current 'next big' event coming up with a lot of training until then.  I just finished being locked away outside of work for about a month playing in a pit orchestra for the Wizard of Oz.  I just bounce around a lot.  But I will block off time to come to the meeting in May and get to know some of you :) 

 

 

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Like most hobbies you can refuse to start until you have everything top of the line and brand new or you can see people in third world countries supporting their families with a hole in the ground and a chunk of scrap metal for an anvil and doing excellent work with minimal tools and maximum practice.  I'm on the side of "A thousand hours with a $1 hammer and improvised anvil trumps 1 hour with a $1000 hammer and anvil" side of things.

As the price of smithing stuff climbs we may see more and more people reading the web records of the neotribal metalsmiths who tried to get back to the basics of smithing a decade or two ago...

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1 hour ago, ThomasPowers said:

Like most hobbies you can refuse to start until you have everything top of the line and brand new or you can see people in third world countries supporting their families with a hole in the ground and a chunk of scrap metal for an anvil and doing excellent work with minimal tools and maximum practice.  I'm on the side of "A thousand hours with a $1 hammer and improvised anvil trumps 1 hour with a $1000 hammer and anvil" side of things.

As the price of smithing stuff climbs we may see more and more people reading the web records of the neotribal metalsmiths who tried to get back to the basics of smithing a decade or two ago...

I'm with ya there...I rarely buy 'top of the line' as most of that is name, and not function.  Just trying to make sure I don't drive myself crazy being 'busy' all the time, and pacing myself with all the different things I get into.  

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Jerry, Mr. Aspery's plane leaves early on the 13th so there is nothing planned for that day. 

Pclark- no pressure to add another hobby, come to a meeting and at least get a taste of smithing. No strings attached, you can always drop the underwater basket weaving as a hobby to make time for smithing if you like it, right? 

 

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1 minute ago, teenylittlemetalguy said:

Jerry, Mr. Aspery's plane leaves early on the 13th so there is nothing planned for that day. 

Pclark- no pressure to add another hobby, come to a meeting and at least get a taste of smithing. No strings attached, you can always drop the underwater basket weaving as a hobby to make time for smithing if you like it, right? 

 

exactly...wait...underwater basketweaving exists??? Don't tell me these things! :P 

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19 hours ago, pclark36 said:

exactly...wait...underwater basketweaving exists??? Don't tell me these things! :P 

I was told there was a college course on it...

Seriously I completely understand the drive for multiple hobbies. I decided several years ago to try and rein it in and focus on "metal". that helped but I still find myself chasing too many ideas.

 

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Just now, teenylittlemetalguy said:

I was told there was a college course on it...

Seriously I completely understand the drive for multiple hobbies. I decided several years ago to try and rein it in and focus on "metal". that helped but I still find myself chasing too many ideas.

 

I get you there.  I have to rein myself in too.  Been working at it slowly.  My problem isn't that I have to have 1000 hobbies, it's that something catches my eye, and I have to at least experience it a bit to see if it's something I want to keep doing.  Blacksmithing is on that list, and it's especially because of how useful it could potentially be down the road, especially when I get out of the rat-race.  Right now I mainly do music, a little bit of leather work, and train for Highland Games throwing.  I'm getting better at paring it down, but the time commitment is still pretty heavy on the music and Highland games front on top of work and church commitments.  

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PM sent.

I have a lot of metal head friends and a long time saying among us is, "Oh SHINY!" I've had to change it to, "oh, what's that?" I don't think I've ever seen anything I didn't study on, nor use anything I didn't start redesigning. I'm a packrat from a family of packrats, why shouldn't it apply to hobbies?

Blacksmithing is a double hazard: first, it's FUN with fire and hammers, loud, dirty, dangerous, all the good stuff, a great hobby. Then comes the second clincher threat, It's so useful for so many things. It's a bullseye for the packrat brain we can USE IT!

Frosty The Lucky.

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19 hours ago, Frosty said:

PM sent.

I have a lot of metal head friends and a long time saying among us is, "Oh SHINY!" I've had to change it to, "oh, what's that?" I don't think I've ever seen anything I didn't study on, nor use anything I didn't start redesigning. I'm a packrat from a family of packrats, why shouldn't it apply to hobbies?

Blacksmithing is a double hazard: first, it's FUN with fire and hammers, loud, dirty, dangerous, all the good stuff, a great hobby. Then comes the second clincher threat, It's so useful for so many things. It's a bullseye for the packrat brain we can USE IT!

Frosty The Lucky.

I totally agree with the double hazard. the first day I tried blacksmithing It was like "DUH, WHY have I never done this before?"  now I love making my own tools every chance I get. and you get to do things that would cost someone else way too much money to do at all, like make a tool to make a tool so you can make a tool...

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