Hello. I am an aspiring blacksmith. I haven't even started yet but I have enough stuff now just looking for time. Too many projects. I'm in NE Florida.

Other interests include air-cooled VWs mostly...I have a few. I also have a Jeep, a camper, a pontoon boat and a few atvs so not much spare time.

I welded for a living for a number of years, then spent six years as a manufacturing engineer then moved into management. I'm currently a Plant Manager for a local manufacturing company with about 100 employees reporting to me.

I'm not sure why I decided to get into blacksmithing. I guess it seemed natural after working with steel for the last 25 years. I also have a number of hammers so I want to make my own. I bought a small Mouse Hole Forge anvil from a dealer and that started me on my way. I started to build a forge but then a nice one popped up on craigslist so I bought it. Right now, I have everything to get me started so...more soon. Somehow I ended up with three anvils and four post vises. I plan to restore the vises and then sell two of them. I also have about eight machinist vises. I need to put Sanford & Son above my garage door...lol

 

Welcome aboard Charlie glad to have you. Anvils are like seeds it may take years to find that first one but then they start popping up everywhere, vises as well. Having two post vises isn't a bad thing one can be mounted for striking the other for heavy but closer work, say bending and twisting.

I'll bet after all the fiddly and frustrating bits of managing a plant doing physically demanding manual labor with immediate results is refreshing decompression. Hmmm? My Father was a metal spinner and machinist and I grew up working in his shop. We did a lot of aerospace work and so much of that was to stupid tight tolerances. I needed something that relied on a ruler and mark one eyeball tolerances but was demanding of precise control. Blacksmithing not only provided that I get to play with fire and hit things with hammers too, it's loud, dirty dangerous and I get to turn junk into cool stuff folk like. What could be better?

It's a life long learning curve enjoy the ride, we'll see you on the trail.

Frosty The Lucky.

howdy Charlie welcome aboard i see you are right here in my area. Im up in orange park by the mall. Shot me a pm sometime if you want to get together and play with some metal.

I finally fired up the forge today and threw a railroad spike in. I got to beat on it a little and learned a lot of things.

Hey Charlie, I'm new myself and am a bit jealous of your collection.  I have a pretty nice anvil but I'm struggling to get my hands on a post vise.  If shipping weren't so ridiculous I'd be begging to buy one of your extras!

Lou

When I search craigslist they are all over in the northeast. Upstate NY and CT are loaded with blacksmith tools. Florida...not so much.

Take the family on a Florida vacation and buy one on your way home...lol. I am going to keep two and sell two.

The family vacation to Florida (which I'm totally against because Disney is a tourist trap nightmare I despise) won't happen until the three year old is large enough to get onto rides.  Can you hear my wife's voice?  

 

I have occassionally seen post vices near me in Craiglist but they are usually missing parts or overpriced IMO.  I'm going to try looking for one whose owner is indifferent and /or didn't even think about selling it.  They are most definitely around here.  I just need to be patient.