Hello! Newbie here. I live in East Central Illinois, in the Champaign-Urbana area. I have been interested in blacksmithing for quite some time and figure that since I am not getting any younger, now is a good time to start getting my feet wet. In just the few short hours that I have been a member here, I am already giddy with the wealth of information I have found. I feel I have found the right place to learn. I look forward to getting to know folks!

 

Greg "Cozee" Cozad

Welcome, please update your profile to show a general location.  Will we be seeing you at Quad-State in a couple of weeks?

Profile updated. No, I will not be making the Roundup as this time of year, our weekends are filled with motorcycle trips.

 

Welcome to the addiction Cozee. Yeah, there is a wealth of knowledge and good people here. 

Welcome aboard Greg, glad to have you. I've noticed that not getting younger thing too. What's with that anyway? We have that make you giddy effect on lots of folk, I've been trying to figure out how to bill for it. Oh well I'm not young enough to really enjoy lots of  money anyway.

What do you have in mind making?

Frosty The Lucky.

 

1 hour ago, Frosty said:

What do you have in mind making?

Frosty The Lucky.

 

Thinking trinkets for motorcycles builds, fixed blade knives, and axes.

Trinkets are a good product to learn the craft. Know what kind of forge you want to use? Don't get fancy with your learning kit the most important thing to shoot for top shelf is the anvil but most anything will work. Your first forge is probably going to end up collecting dust once you get a handle on what works for you, most of us who've been doing this a bit have a number of forges collecting dust somewhere. I have several old coal forges I almost never use and more gas forges that are just there. Heck, been doing this off and on for maybe 50 years now and I'm working on my newest forge right now. My last replacement for the shop forge was a fail, the burners didn't work up to expectations and the liner is too much a heat sink.

I just built a naturally aspirated ribbon burner the soon to be known as the NARB. I should capitalize "The" in the name shouldn't I, THE NARB has a lyrical ring to it doesn't it?

Anyway, THE NARB performed way better than I anticipated, NARB 2 is going to get cast today and it needs a new forge. You can't just drill a hole and install THE NARB like a regular burner, the nozzlettes are in a rectangular cast refractory block so the forge needs a specialized burner port. And I need a more portable forge so THE NARB's new home is under construction.

Sorry for the digression, I'm so jazzed about this burner I can't shut up.   My point is don't even try for building the perfect anything till you've developed some skills. First, perfect doesn't exist in fact there's a adage that goes, "Perfect is the enemy of good." Meaning knowing when to stop is a valuable skill to learn, good enough serves perfectly (grin) for almost everything we do. Fact is the factory perfect, popout, planned obsolescence product generations, want unique products that will be enjoyed by grand and great grand kids. That's our niche, less than "perfect" is the market.

You have coal available if you look, charcoal is a most ancient fuel that works as well now as it ever did and propane is popular. Folk can help you with any of them.

Frosty The Lucky.